Quotes About Songwriting

I might be eating something, and the bag opens in a cool way, and I'm like, 'I wanna put that in the song.'

'Carbs' is the first song I wrote, and 'I Wanna Boi' is the second song I wrote. I am very proud of every song I made since then. Anything I'm not proud of I wouldn't show people.

Main thing, really, is I write songs the way I wanna hear them and the way I think the people that come to our shows wanna hear them.

Somebody who really inspired me to wanna start writing songs is The-Dream, so if The-Dream was to hit me up and be like, 'Yo you wanna do this?,' I'd be all for it. I would love that, actually.

I was writing songs as a kid about leprechauns and Catwoman and teapots - whatever it is that little girls wanna sing about. The first song I wrote was called 'Kitten.'

I hate to debunk the myth - kids don't wanna hear it - but as songwriters, you have to polish your craft a little bit and hone it as much as possible.

When I think about that first DeBarge album, I remember being so green... just pristine. Nothing mattered to me but writing songs. I remember staying locked up in a room with my piano and just singing and writing songs all day long. I remember being a perfectionist about it... wanting to change this and fix that.

I started listening to The-Dream a lot. That's when I really got into writing songs. I like the way he put lyrics and makes his songs. So I was like, 'All right,' and I just started writing. That's when I started wanting to be a songwriter.

When a song gets its legs and begins to come to me, this is the euphoric hook that keeps me wanting to continue.

'Sweet Summer Day' was inspired by wanting to write the perfect summer song! Both Chaeyoung and myself had ideas for lyrics, and the song formed naturally!

It was a lot easier to write songs before I had a record deal, because the record labels and the industry doesn't mean to put pressure on you, but they do. They don't realize that they are, but you end up having a pressure there that you feel. At times I feel myself wanting to say, 'Just let me do what I do.'

On 'Van Halen,' I was a young punk, and everything revolved around the fastest kid in town, gunslinger attitude. But I'd say that at the time of 'Fair Warning,' I started concentrating more on songwriting. But I guess in most people's minds I'm just a gunslinger.

It's warts and all in my songs, and I think that's why people can relate to them.

I try never to focus on the radio, just find great songs, find emotion and just write the best songs you can. I think when you get fixated on trying to do something too accurate, it becomes more washed out and less what you intended it to be. So I think each time the challenge for me is to try and reinvent a little bit.

The thing about songwriting," John Dogg was saying to someone, "is that you can address things obliquely, but no matter. You can't get away from the content that is the essence of the form. All songs are about unrequited love." "Except 'Green Onions,' " Ronnie said. "Which isn't about love at all.

When I wrote the song, I had the sea near Bombay in mind. We stayed at a hotel by the sea, and the fishermen come up at five in the morning and they were all chanting. And we went on the beach and we got chased by a mad dog - big as a donkey.

I probably wouldn't be a songwriter if I didn't grow up the way I did. It was difficult and it was at times very scary to grow up in a household so unsettled and at times very violent. But, it also, I guess it earned me a sort of wisdom at a young age that's served me well.

There's always ideas buzzing around, but it's whether they actually end up materialising into a song.

I know people who have written big hit country songs that are really kind of terrible songs, but for the rest of their life, they're the guy who wrote that. You've got to be careful; if you don't want that to happen, don't write those songs.

I think in most cases, when you're writing a song, you're just making up a little story, and you're not really thinking about making a point one way or another about it. You're just coming up with a little scenario and seeing it through, and that's it.

When I write songs, it's just me and a cassette player - or at least it used to be before smartphones - to quickly record a basic idea.

Often I have to move my body in a certain way, like exercising, to begin to get into the right rhythm for writing a song.

Generally, my life is absolute chaos, but when I'm writing songs, it's very thought out and regimented.

'Sixth Street' is probably a new chapter for me. All of the songs were written in my apartment where I'm most comfortable, and at that point, I understood who I was and knew what I was feeling about life.