Quotes About Creativity

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.

Country music especially can get very formulaic - you know, you have to have your verses and a bridge and a chorus, and a lot of the songs are written as just plain and simple poetry on the road.

Novelists get to say plenty in their massive tomes; rock singers only get four-minute songs with two verses and a chorus' worth of lyrics, and so there's a real pleasure in accessing the intelligence behind the music, even if it doesn't qualify as 'great literature.'

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

Tra-la-las and doo-be-do's became a Neil Sedaka trademark. I was the king of the tra-la-las and doo-be-do's in the '50s and '60s. But then when I re-recorded 'Breaking Up,' I started with a verse instead of the doo-be-do's!

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.

My only verse I remember really working on was 'Mixtape,' and I took 45 minutes on that because I wanted it to be tight.

At this point, in 2008, if you put out a book, a movie, or write a verse, paint a painting, it should have some sort of social value.

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.

I don't believe in writer's block. I'll get stuck, but being stuck, I'll still write a verse. If you know where you're going, you can always start from there and work your way back.

Some artists send their verses, and others record in my studio. Depends. I prefer them being there.

Juicy J was always one of my favorites. For one, he was a producer and I just used to love how he came on his verses every time.

If there's a track that's rhyme friendly, the verse will basically write itself. If the track is less rhyme friendly, you have to put forth a little more effort to get the song out.

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 flipped Gucci Mane's 'Freaky Gurl' for my project and I thought, 'Wouldn't it be great if he could get on it.' When I got the text that Gucci recorded a verse for the song, I started screaming!

I've always been a big fan of taking old songs and completely turning them on their head. Having no adherence to the fine tradition of the original version. Rearranging them and taking a different approach to them.

An Internet meme is a hijacking of the original idea. Instead of mutating by random change and spreading by a form of Darwinian selection, Internet memes are altered deliberately by human creativity. There is no attempt at accuracy of copying, as with genes - and as with memes in their original version.

The original version of 'Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang' was made to a Boz Scaggs song; I can't remember the name of the song.

When I lived in Greece and off the coast of Italy, I enjoyed a branzino dish so much that I created my own version.

Do not let yourself get in your own way. Don't judge yourself and knock yourself down. There is enough of that out there already. Remember: you are an artist, and you bring something special to this craft. Take in notes and criticism, but don't let them define you. Don't try to become a watered down version of yourself.