Quotes About Songwriting

'Gorilla Man' is a composite of a few individuals, but the song itself was actually inspired by James Taylor. I spied his 'Gorilla' album laying on my floor and in some altered state, instantly started singing the chorus. It was fun to write. There's an old notebook with at least three more verses in it somewhere.

The record Clef and I did was just sitting there. So I said, Clef, I got a record, hit a verse on it. He just went in, messed around and ended up doing the hook too.

I heard Nirvana, and discovered that songs could be like poetry, but a little bit more refined: you didn't have to have 20 verses to get your point across.

I've written probably over 200 songs that have a verse and a chorus and that's it.

I never edit the songs that come out. And they tend to come out as a whole. The closest thing I have ever done to editing them is just cutting out a verse, but never rewriting lyrics.

I'm definitely trying to make songs that people can sing along to and remember. If you can recognize a chorus and leave with it in your head, it's usually a good sign. But then with the verses, I can get a little more free form. I don't really like to copy and paste things.

I just can't sit down and write three verses and a chorus and a bridge anymore. It just don't find it inspiring.

I will write a verse or a story and bring it into a songwriting session, because that's what's big in Nashville - the collaborative part of songwriting.

Whenever I get to a point I'm so tired that I forgot the verse of a song, I know I'm burnt out.

With 'Sierra,' this mean girl had all these kids bullying me - and I wrote the first verse and chorus the night before Tae and I came to Nashville.

Sometimes I write from the end of the verse to the beginning of the verse.

After writing quite a few songs now, I have not a method but a way of being patient with a couple of verses or a certain set of chords. I can match them up quicker now than I used to. The one thing you do improve is songwriting.

When I was 15 or 16 playing in groups, we used to sit in the car and try to write the lyrics down as a song was playing, and we'd assign each person a verse, you know: 'I'm going to do the first one. You go for the second one.' And then sometimes you'd wait an hour for it to come on again so you could finish it up.

Loads of verses don't make it into the finished song.

You know for some strange reason I like to write the verse first. I mean I know the majority of people do the chorus first and when I think about it, I guess it does make more sense to do the chorus first, but I just like to write the verses first, I don't know why.

I started being me about the songs, not writing objectively, but subjectively. I think it was Dylan who helped me realize that - not by any discussion or anything, but by hearing his work.

It's the way I like to work for these kinds of songs [like "Peace Trail"]. It was the right time of the month; everything was looking good.

I work very hard on getting the songs as direct and examined as I can before I go in the studio.

Songwriting is something I really need to work on. I don't have very many songs but I really love it. I would love to be a great song writer some day.

But I don't like working on lyrics publicly in the studio - I prefer to take them away and work on them in my bedroom.

There's already a great deal to do writing the songs. And if I were completely in control of it, nobody would be able to say "this song doesn't work."

After struggling for so long in the industry and writing so many failed songs and hearing 'no' for so long - I'm so grateful every time I hear a song that I was a part of on the radio.

Sometimes I don't even know what to name a song when I get done with it, and I'll let somebody else tell me what I should call it because it's whatever stuck in their head.

The 'Black Album' was my real first introduction to Metallica. I was, like, 12 or 13 at the time. We were just getting into music, and I liked that album a lot, but it didn't necessarily change my life. But when I started picking up all the other Metallica records, 'Master of Puppets' was the one to me that stuck out with its songwriting.