Quotes About Music

Songwriting really anchored me.

I've never been one to indulge in out and out depression when it comes to songwriting.

When Eric Clapton cut 'After Midnight,' he sold so many records and it was so big at the time, I decided that I would pursue the songwriting thing. I was 34 years old at that time. I'd been down the pike and back before I had any success at all.

It's such a weird process, songwriting, because you just have to feel it. There's no right or wrong melody or lyric.

I'm talented in other places, not only in songwriting, but music is always going to be the backdrop to whatever happens in life.

It's amazing to me that songwriting is an actual job.

The Raspberries was formed as kind of a reaction to prog rock, which we didn't like. 'Let's bring some songwriting and harmonies back to music' And we did that.

Songs, and songwriting keeps me inspired, moving forward.

My favorite way to get into the songwriting process is to get into the studio, and then usually, they play a loop of four chords, or something, or guitar, and then I just start singing.

Songwriting can get pretty heavy and personal for me and I like being able to explore different emotions that are not necessarily my own.

I sit down and I write and I make sure that it follows the code of Songwriting Craft 101.

Songwriting is telling short stories. But instead of 15 to 20 pages, it's three to five minutes.

Every kid has a laptop; everyone can make music, so in order to stand out, I think it's important to find that sonic identity, I think my sonic identity - and mine is finding these weird sounds that may not necessarily sound that musical, and make them sound musical.

It's important to me to not stay too confined to any specific sonic space. There is something really magical about straight folk music - it's not that I don't like it, it's just that I like so much music, I hear so many different things, and I want to try more. I don't want to be confined.

My idea is to take the improvisational excitement that takes place with Carnatic music and juxtapose that in different sonic contexts.

I completely understand the responsibility I have in continuing the sonic style that I have created.

I'm glad that people realize that I am a songwriter. I just want them to take away the fact that I'm honest, and that I'm putting in work on the sonic side.

My first album, 'Get Lifted,' was a hip-hop soul album that had some of its roots in the church, as far as the sonic choices, in the way that I sing and write songs. I have always had that as part of my background and part of my influence when I am making music.

Yes, indeed, in fact I would tell you that we go out of our way to be true to the original feeling and sort of sonic and musical pallet that we painted with back then.

Sonic Youth was a collective. There's something fantastic about the idea of making music is a social activity.

I've always been an acoustic guitar player, and I've pretty much continued to play acoustic guitar throughout all of the Sonic Youth periods. My material for Sonic Youth often started on acoustic guitar.

As far as we're concerned, we're always Sonic Youth, and we're always making a Sonic Youth record. We just see it so much more as a continuum than a periodic thing. We're just in the studio making the next record, and we don't relate it to anything other than what's going on at the moment.

During the whole time in Sonic Youth, I was happy to put my energy into that. It would have been very difficult to do a solo project.

When Sonic Youth wrote music, we would rehearse for months before anybody heard anything.