Quotes About Songwriting

I normally write on acoustic guitar, although piano is the instrument that I actually studied. Occasionally, I'll write on the piano or sometimes with no instrument at all.

I grew up writing songs and producing music, and I studied music production in college.

Movies, there are moments when you're writing a song or demoing, a moment in the recording studio. Musicals much more just eat up your life for a certain period of time.

When I'm working in the studio, I like to be on my own because I don't know where I'm going; I want to be completely free to spend lots of time on songs.

Before I'd even started doing music or having opportunities with my own music, I was studying production and business and stuff anyway. I knew there were so many jobs within the music industry - songwriting or session playing or working at a label - and I was really interested in how it all works.

Hunter can write a melody and stuff like that, but his forte is lyrics. He can write a serviceable melody to hang his lyrics on, and sometimes he comes up with something really nice.

The art of songwriting is just stumbling your way to something really special, and you don't know what you're going to write until you are writing it. There is no formula. And, sometimes, you really have to work at it and hunker down.

Vangelis, who wrote the music for 'Chariots Of Fire,' is a bit of an idol of mine - his music is stunning. So when I got a call from my manager in the 90s asking if I'd like to do some songwriting for him I couldn't believe it.

Songwriting is like editing. You write down all this stuff - all this bad, stupid stuff - and then you have to get rid of everything except the very best.

My style of songwriting is influenced by cinema. I'm a frustrated filmmaker. A fan once said to me, 'Girl, you make me see pictures in my head!' and I took that as a great compliment. That's exactly my intention.

You don't really learn how to write songs; you learn to develop as a writer, and you get to meet lots of musicians and figure out what kind of sound you want. You have the time to just develop and try different styles, and that's what I did.

I take in a lot of different styles when I listen to music, but when I'm actually writing a song it comes from a very stripped back place that focuses on melody and soaring choruses that lift-off.

When you work with a band, obviously you've got to present them with something they can get a hold of, so it has to be a little more fleshed out as a song. And then where it goes is more collaborative, obviously; it's more political possibly, certainly more a conscious process than a subconscious process, which the painting can be.

It feels like your subconscious can be way ahead of you, as a songwriter. You can write a song that you think is about one thing and months later you're playing it and thinking, hang on, this is completely informing where I am now.

I think if you're writing from the heart, very often, the subject matter will adjust as you age... but you try to write the best song you can possibly write. For us, we have the same basic elements that make up the America sound.

'Sit Here and Cry' was one of the first songs I wrote with that overdramatic sarcastic dry sense of humor, which is why the energy of the song doesn't necessarily reflect the subject matter.

Patty Loveless is the big influence for me. Loving her music, loving how she wrote songs, loving the kind of songs she cut. A strong woman with true substance to her lyrics, but songs that just felt so good.

When a good idea sparks, it's usually because of some subversive angle that means the song we're writing will be fresh.

That's the beauty of song writing. You never know when inspiration will come or how it will hit, you just gotta kinda grasp a hold of it and make sense of it somehow.

The best business decision I've made was to become a songwriter. I can't say that I have a worst, because I don't have any regrets.

Keeping the pen out of your hand as much as possible is the best way to write a song, in my estimation. But the pen must come in to tighten it up.

I don't write songs for myself anymore. I only write songs on assignment. It's purely a business, but it is still so important to me emotionally.

All the songs I've written, if they don't sound good on acoustic guitar, they won't sound good at 11.

I would love to write a song with the Everly brothers. But it's probably best not to work with someone you admire: they'll just show up your inadequacies.