Selected songwriting quotes

1. When you are happy it is harder to write [songs].

2. I write the songs first and in most cases teach myself the technique second.

3. When I want to play music, you've got to get me on tape or else it goes.

4. Solos I kind of [couldn't] care less about. I know most people probably think that's what I care most about, but it's really the melody playing that is the cornerstone of what I'm working on.

5. Instead of thinking in terms of chords, I think of voice-leading; that is, melody line and bass line, and where the bass line goes. If you do that, you'll have the right chord. [These voices] will give you some alternatives, and you can play those different alternatives to hear which one suits your ear... Keep the bass line moving so you don't stay in one spot: if you have an interesting bass line and you roll it against the melody, the chords are going to come out right.

6. Basically, I write from a two person standpoint. First, I let the song take hold and I put down the idea as a raw emotional statement. Then I let it breathe and come back, approaching from more of an objective point of view. This allows me to rediscover the true meaning I intended in the beginning, shedding new light on how I can best represent that to the listener. Musically I try to connect a common bridge between such exhilarating feelings as performing at the Acropolis, to the emotions each and every one of us feel everyday. In the end, a good melody will always stand the test of time.

7. Strangely, some songs you really don't want to write. I didn't like writing 'Heathen'. There was something so ominous and final about it. It was early in the morning, the sun was rising and through the windows I could see two deer grazing down below in the field. In the distance a car was driving slowly past the reservoir and these words were just streaming out and there were tears running down my face. But I couldn't stop, they just flew out. It's an odd feeling, like something else is guiding you, although forcing your hand is more like it.

8. The line 'because you're mine, I walk the line.' It kept coming to me, you know? But I was - I was ... young and not been married too long. Yes, it kept coming to me. Because you're mine, I walk the line. And then the words just naturally flowed. It was an easy song to write.

9. When I started in music, I thought, 'My job is pretty simple. I search for the human things in myself, and I turn them into notes and words, and then in some fashion, I help people hold on to their own humanity.'

10. I think he's a great guitarist, a great musician and an excellent keyboard player - which most people don't know. But he knows what sets him apart from everybody is that he's a brilliant writer. Part of that is having a vision to put it across onstage as a performer, too.

11. 'Tighter and Tighter' was actually written around the same time as 'Black Hole Sun.' In fact, I did a demo with four songs on it to play for the band. 'Black Hole Sun,' 'Sounds Like Days,' 'Tighter and Tighter' and a song called 'Anxious.' We blew off 'Anxious' entirely and recorded 'Tighter and Tighter' for the last record. It was the last song we did. It was number 16 and we ran out of studio time. We had the rhythm tracks done and it was just needing vocals and my guitar solos. We just ran out of time. It was falling flat anyway. I changed the arrangement a little bit.

12. If I wrote a line then questioned it, do I really want people to hear me say that? Is that too personal? That moment of fear meant I should keep it.

13. 'I love his voice (Dave) and the song writing is scary; it's phenomenal. He's the most inspirational guy out there for me now.' - Mark DiCarlo, 2000 [3]

14. [On Girl's not Grey]: The song is based on detachment, seclusion and separation, but I intentionally don't write in a way that is very specific so that people can take what they need to from my songs. When I was growing up there were songs that meant a lot to me, and then I found out they meant something entirely different to the artist, and it ruined it for me. I never want to do that to someone.

15. 'I don't intend to write depressing songs and I'd probably rather write happy ones'

16. 'It was just before Christmas 1962 and as I was driving from El Paso to the East Coast, I began forming the idea that would become this song; not very long afterwards my long-time friend Bob Johnston invited me to Nashville, and we finished this one together; Bob did a demo on it and when Elvis came to town, he picked it up and held it for almost a year in what was then called his portfolio; so, anyway, he recorded it and it was by far the biggest thing that had ever happened to me in my life'

17. Well, if you compare my album even as late as two years ago, I think as a writer I am much more at the forefront. I wrote all the lyrics and lots of the music on that album. It shows humor of the writer side of me. But I have evolved since then.

18. When I wrote 'Words Get in the Way' my husband and I had just had a horrendous argument . . . . [After it was an international hit] My husband said, 'We have to have more arguments.'

19. I can tell you I wrote every single word in this [her first children's] book -- in English and Spanish. I've been writing poetry and stories since I was a kid. And I am a songwriter. But you have limitations when you are a songwriter . . . . It was really a luxury to have 31 pages to expound upon.

20. I am especially proud that I have been recognized as a songwriter with the BMI award I received in 1989. You see, it is one thing to be able to sing and entertain, and another completely different one to be recognized as a songwriter. Songwriters are sometimes the 'unsung heroes' of music making and it takes a lot of insight and community awareness to be able to write songs that appeal to the masses.

21. All good song-writers have no more than half a dozen good tunes in their systems, and if they have that many, they are liberally blessed.

22. There's always rhythm going in my mind. ... I'm either singing them - June will tell you, I'm either singing them, or I have got the beat going from one, or I'm writing one.

23. 'The Man Comes Around' is a song that I wrote, it's my song of the apocalypse, and I got the idea from a dream that I had - I dreamed I saw Queen Elizabeth. I dreamed I went in to Buckingham Palace, and there she sat on the floor. And she looked up at me and said, 'Johnny Cash, you're like a thorn tree in a whirlwind.' And I woke up, of course, and I thought, what could a dream like this mean? Thorn tree in a whirlwind? Well, I forgot about it for two or three years, but it kept haunting me, this dream. I kept thinking about it, how vivid it was, and then I thought, Maybe it's biblical. So I found it. Something about whirlwinds and thorn trees in the Bible. So from that, my song started and... 'The Man Comes Around.' The song turned out to be 'The Man Comes Around.'

24. It's not like I've got these lines in a trunk that are waiting to come out in the next show. But when I'm writing a song that references body organs, you can bet genitalia will be at the top of my list.

25. We did it this way because both John and I had a number of songs which were great as they were but which we'd never finished.

26. I didn't want to repeat the same notes in the second verse that I used in the first, so I wrote out all the notes of the song and all the notes that were missing in the scale, given that there are twelve notes from octave to octave. All those notes that weren't in the scale were the ones I wanted in for the next verse. The listener isn't aware that they are new notes, but the sound is pleasing to the ear. I change the key, and somehow it's fresh because you haven't heard those notes before.

27. The main instinct a lot of the time is to masquerade and hide the truth at all times. Whereas in reality what happens in songs is laying bare the truth. So a lot of time it's fighting that instinct, and the songs become almost confessional. They can also be quite condescending to myself, almost like I'm putting myself down.

28. With Moondance, I wrote the melody first. I played the melody on a soprano sax and I knew I had a song so I wrote lyrics to go with the melody. That's the way I wrote that one. I don't really have any words to particularly describe the song, sophisticated is probably the word I'm looking for. For me, Moondance is a sophisticated song. Frank Sinatra wouldn't be out of place singing that.

29. Like I say, the way I write songs is, you know, inspirational. I have to wait for it to happen. And when it happens I get lines, and I just write them down, you know. I'm not sort of a Tin Pan Alley sort of songwriter. I just sort of write down what I get - without censoring or questioning what it is and what it means, you know. Like later on I look at what it means, but not at the time.

30. I think one of Kurt's strengths was his simplicity. He knew how to write really catchy songs that said a lot without doing too much.

31. The only person I have any respect for as a songwriter over the last 10 years is Kurt Cobain. He was the perfect cross between Lennon and McCartney...but he was a miserable fuck at the same time.

32. I think Kurt was one of the deepest thinkers we've had in popular music over the last 20 years and if anyone deserves to have his songs dwelled upon it's him.

33. 'Thanks, thank you my darlings, you load of tarts, thank you. I think it's really interesting doing those acoustic things, don't you think? I think in the future, we might really think about introducing some more. So Brian's going to have to go and write some, because I can't.' -Earls Court, 1977

34. Emilio and I like projects to breathe and grow. We started with a concept -- write songs, make demos, then let the guest stars listen to them and then afffect the writing process. For Jose Feliciano, I had written a chorus and a bit of a melody. He started playing the chorus and ad-libbing. I went, 'This is the [stuff]! Forget my melody!' Carlos Santana worked just the other way. He wanted me to record a plished take singing first, so his playing could recreate my emotion. I got goose bumps [writing '90 Millas']. Like in 'Esperando,' which is addressed to Cubans on the island. Those of us in America, we're like the bogeyman, but I wanted Cubans at home to know: Whatever happened doesn't matter. The future is for us to heal. Adn also: because we're here, we latched onto any part of our culture. Yes and no [this is a political record]. Politics is life, so yes. but it's not specific. Saying that 90 miles haven't divided us sends a message about freedom for Cuba -- and for everyone.

35. What I do when I write is that i'll do a raggedy, rough version just to hear the chorus, just to see how much I like the chorus. If it works for me that way when it's raggedy, then I'll know it will just work... Listen to that, that's at home. Janet, Randy, Me... Janet and I are going 'Whoo, Whoo... Whoo, Whoo...' I do that same process with every song. It's the melody, it's the melody that's most important, If the melody can sell me, then I'll go to the next step The idea is to transcribe from what's in your mentality onto tape If you take a song like 'Billie Jean,' Where the bass line is the prominent, dominant piece, the protagonist of the song, the main driving riff that you here, getting the character of the riff to be just the way you want it to be, that takes a lot of time. Listen, you're hearing four basses on there, doing four different personalities, and that's what gives it character, but it takes a lot of work. ~Michael Jackson listening to an early writing version of Billie Jean on his iPhone, Ebony Magazine December 2007.

36. I'm a songwriter but she [Melua] has her songs written for her... She must think it's her fucking lucky day... It's not like she's singing old songs like Jamie [Cullum], she's singing shit new songs that her manager writes for her.

37. I have no program, I have no five-year plan. ... It doesn't mean that you shouldn't have one! I just move from hotel to hotel, and from bar to bar, and by the grace of the One above occasionally a song comes, and I remember sitting at this particularly obnoxious Polynesian restaurant where they served a kind of coconut drink that was particularly lethal and sinister which contained no alcohol but a certain chemical that demoralized you entirely. And I remember writing on one of their very badly designed napkins, 'I remember you well at the Chelsea Hotel...' so I dedicate this song to one of the great singers, Janis Joplin.

38. The duty of the words is to say just as much as the music has left unsaid and no more.

39. To me, song writing is so therapeutic, it's just part of my life and I can't go through the day without having some kind of song idea pop into my head where I have to write Sharpie all over my arm trying to remember the song idea.