Songwriters Quotes - Page 11

• I find so many songwriters today are missing an element ... either the production is amazing but the songs aren't, or it's the other way around.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Song, Missing, Elements

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• For a songwriter, you don't really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes. And you try to understand them and take them apart and see what they're made of, and wonder if you can make one, too.

  Tom Waits

  School, Listening, Trying

  Interview with Terry Gross, wyso.org. November 3, 2011.

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• It's basically a city of songwriters and that's what gives it it's strength, that's what gives it its lasting ability. You've got people making all different kinds of music and that's what attracts me to Nashville as Music City.

  Emmylou Harris

  Nashville, Cities, People

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• I know great songwriters. Fred Neil would come up when he was in L.A., we all used to hang out. He would sit there and sing, and we would just melt. I mean, we would go to his recording sessions.

  Barry McGuire

  Mean, Used, Come Up

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• Christmas, my child, is love in action." ~ Dale Evans (1912-2001), American film actress, singer and songwriter. Wife of Roy Rogers.

  Dale Evans

  Children, Wife, Singers

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• Poets and songwriters speak highly of spring as one of the great joys of life in the temperate zone, but in the real world most of spring is disappointing. We looked forward to it too long, and the spring we had in mind in February was warmer and dryer than the actual spring when it finally arrives. We'd expected it to be a whole season, like winter, instead of a handful of separate moments and single afternoons.

  Barbara Holland

  Spring, Real, Winter

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• I don't deserve a Songwriters Hall of Fame Award. But fifteen years ago, I had a brain operation and I didn't deserve that, either. So I'll keep it.

  Quincy Jones

  Music, Awards, Years

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• I was terrified, terrified in Songwriter, because there I was, New York Jewish girl, singing country-western onstage with Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson. I mean, forget it. I was so terrified.

  Lesley Ann Warren

  Girl, Country, New York

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• A lot of artists use memories. A lot of prose writers, a lot of poets, a lot of songwriters, refer back to something. Generally it's all you've got, unless you're brilliant and can write totally in the now.

  Paul McCartney

  Memories, Writing, Artist

  "Sir Paul McCartney". Interview with Chris Dahlen, pitchfork.com. May 21, 2007.

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• And I can say this, most of the people who have recorded my songs are songwriters themselves.

  Smokey Robinson

  Song, People, I Can

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• Andrew Calhoun tells the truth. To my knowledge, there is no better songwriter alive.

  Dave Carter

  Alive, Telling The Truth, Andrew

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• Morley is one of the outstanding voices of her generation, as a singer, songwriter and bandleader she's in a class of her own, transcends all categories and is making a major contribution to contemporary music.

  David Amram

  Class, Voice, Generations

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• I’ve had the pleasure of hearing The Novelists perform live.  They are gifted songwriters and talented musicians with strong lead voices. This is a band with lots of heart & soul.

  Daryl Stuermer

  Strong, Heart, Voice

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• Definitely. More and more I understand that it's very fine not to know where you come from. There is line in a song by Georges Brassens [French singer-songwriter]: 'Les imbciles heureux qui sont ns quelquepart.' I will never be one of the happy stupid that were born somewhere. This way of life is excellent for the imagination. It develops your paranoia. You feel paranoid when you don't understand a country, and being paranoiac is excellent for fiction.

  Amelie Nothomb

  Country, Song, Stupid

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• I don't know why songwriters struggle. They have to, I guess. If you're a young songwriter, quit struggling. It makes you look bad.

  Tom T. Hall

  Struggle, Looks, Quitting

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• I'd lost my family to my years of failing as a songwriter. All I had were bills, child support, and grief. And I was about to get fired. It looked like I'd trashed my act. But there was something liberating about it. By not having to live up to people's expectations, I was somehow free.

  Kris Kristofferson

  Children, Grief, Years

  "Q&A with Kris Kristofferson". Interview with Andy Langer, www.esquire.com. February 27, 2006.

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• As a songwriter, it's very hard to listen to music that's not coming from the heart and soul, personally.

  Jake Bugg

  Heart, Soul, Listening To Music

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• A songwriter's heart is pure when they have the desire to keep digging deeper into music. And invariably, when you dig deeper it always leads you into the past.

  Jack White

  Heart, Past, Desire

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• I think for many songwriter/performers, you need to go off by yourself and write the songs to begin with, but then you need people to bring them to life. So you have to be comfortable with solitude and also with being very social.

  Alan Licht

  Song, Writing, Thinking

  "Will Oldham on Bonnie "Prince" Billy". Interview with Marc Masters, pitchfork.com. September 21, 2012.

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• There is an old Arabic proverb, 'When the king puts the poet on his payroll, he cuts off the tongue of the poet', so throughout the ages, people in power have liked to control music, they used to throw songwriters in jail throughout history, and were assassinated.

  Pete Seeger

  Kings, Cutting, Jail

  "An Interview With Pete Seeger In Beacon, NY". Interview with Pete Mason, nysmusic.com. January 31, 2014.

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• When I first was trying to play the clubs around Houston to start playing my own songs, songwriters like Eric Taylor and Vince Bell and Townes Van Zandt and Don Sanders were just really encouraging to me and would let me sit in with them during their sets and introduce me to the person that owned and booked the club.

  Lyle Lovett

  Song, Play, Trying

  "Musician-actor Lyle Lovett". "The Tavis Smiley Show", www.pbs.org. December 24, 2010.

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• I'm the only girl songwriter that fights for a lot of things. I fight for songwriting fees, which record labels want you to shut up about.

  Ester Dean

  Girl, Fighting, Labels

  "Hitmaker Ester Dean on Songwriting, Fighting and Eating Hot Dogs (Q&A)". Interview with Rebecca Ford, www.hollywoodreporter.com. February 6, 2013.

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• I really believe in myself. I'm the hardest worker I know, and one of the best songwriters. There's a craft to it, and it takes a long time to hone it, and I work really hard at it.

  Arthur Godfrey

  Believe, Long, Crafts

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• And of course there's so much music in and around our family. I had a piano during Christmas because it's obviously useful through the season. There are so many people, songwriters, who are around.

  Ashley Judd

  Christmas, Piano, People

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• I'm good at melody - I'll write the top-line melody and ideal words I want to go with it. But I'm not that good at writing lyrics. I bounce those back and forth with songwriters or someone who can sing.

  Avicii

  Writing, Lines, Want

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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