Songwriters Quotes - Page 14

• It is setting goals and trying to be a business person, but at the same time not losing sight of who you are writing songs for and what your goals are as a songwriter. So believe me, if you think I've got it down I don't it is a constant struggle.

  Christine Lavin

  Song, Believe, Struggle

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• Before the Beatles, songwriters were very anonymous people and nobody paid any attention to them.

  Bjorn Ulvaeus

  People, Attention, Paid

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

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• Bob Dylan is quite a songwriter, and a great singer and musician. I won't bother with comparing myself to him, but I will say that I heard his records at a very young age and I still listen to all his records.

  Black Francis

  Age, Musician, Records

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• I've had offers to sign a record deal, but the people I've talked to have wanted to package me and have me meet with songwriters who've written stuff for Whitney Houston, that sort of thing. That's not at all my style.

  Lukas Haas

  People, Style, Records

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• This is a turf battle. They are saying, 'The songwriters aren't getting paid.' Baloney. Songwriters are getting paid. They're paid sync rights and (mechanical) rights. They aren't getting paid for the public performance in a download because there is no public performance in a download.

  Jonathan Potter

  Rights, Battle, Sync

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• I'm a binge writer. I work in the music business fulltime, in artist management and developing songwriters and recording artists, and so juggling my job I carve out as much time as I can on the weekends.

  Ruta Sepetys

  Jobs, Artist, Weekend

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• Authors can write stories without people assuming that they are autobiographies, but songwriters and poets are often considered to be the characters in their works. I like Michelangelo's vision, 'I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.

  Criss Jami

  Character, Angel, Writing

  Criss Jami (2011). “Salomé: In Every Inch in Every Mile”, p.158, Criss Jami

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• Because there are hundreds of different ways to say one thing, I, being a writer, songwriter, and poet, speak childishly and incoherently. In speech there is so much to decide in so little time.

  Criss Jami

  Different, Speech, Littles

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.95, Criss Jami

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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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• 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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• That's one of the things I love about being a songwriter first, last and always, because whether I do it or not, if someone does a great job on it, my work is done.

  Carole King

  Jobs, Done, Things I Love

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• Explaining belief has alwayas been difficult. How do you explain a love and a logic at the heart of the universe when the world is so out of whack? Explaining faith is impossible - vision over visibility - instinct over intellect - a songwriter plays a chore with the faith that he will hear the next one in his head.

  Edward de Bono

  Jesus, Heart, Play

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• But I really do have a soft spot for the solo shows. Any musician who writes and sings will tell you that's the center of it, that is it. It's almost like there's something church-like about it and you gotta go back there, if you're a songwriter that sings your material.

  Ben Folds

  Writing, Church, Musician

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

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• The greatness of Mac Rebennack, alias, Dr. John, also known as John Crieux, rests on his command of the musical use of idiomatic expression. Not a technically well-endowed singer, nor a great songwriter, he leaves his mark through the discipline and control he exerts over all that he touches.

  Jon Landau

  Greatness, Expression, Discipline

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• If you're a songwriter, it's to perform your songs. For singers, it's just to get to sing somewhere. So while there may be a reluctance with all the things that go along with it, you got to choose, and this is one of my big opportunities to get back doing it.

  Donnie Fritts

  Song, Opportunity, May

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• I consider every one of the Disney films that Bob & I worked on, to have been the luckiest break any two songwriters could have ever had. They all aimed at quality and timelessness. That's why they live over the years.

  Richard Sherman

  Years, Two, Quality

  "Richard Sherman Talks The AristoCats". Interview with Brian Gallagher, movieweb.com. February 5, 2008.

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• I think it's very interesting, people who can't stand people who whinge and whine. It seems almost like a class issue. Because you think about who is the most positive, who's the most redemptive songwriter that's ever existed in your lifetime?

  Glen Hansard

  Thinking, Class, Issues

  "Glen Hansard of The Swell Season". Interview with Tasha Robinson, www.avclub.com. November 10, 2009.

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• I think inside every rock journalist, there's somebody who wishes they had the courage to live the life that they're not, and that they're writing about. But at the same time, inside every songwriter, I guess there's a wish for happiness.

  Glen Hansard

  Live Life, Writing, Thinking

  "Glen Hansard of The Swell Season". Interview with Tasha Robinson, www.avclub.com. November 10, 2009.

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• I keep reading about people who want to be famous - it's not that they want to be great songwriters or great actors, they want to be celebrities. That is scary because you can be famous doing some really stupid things.

  Barry Manilow

  Stupid, Reading, People

  Source: www.hollywoodreporter.com

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• I've been so used to being supported by musicians, and I don't class myself as a particularly adept musician on instruments. I think I'm a songwriter.

  PJ Harvey

  Thinking, Class, Musician

  Interview with Gregg LaGambina, music.avclub.com. December 12, 2007.

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• Songwriting is a craft. Writing good songs on a a consistent basis doesn not happen spontaneously. In fact, most of our best songwriters learned to write good songs by writing a lot of not so good ones. Education matters in songwriting, just as it matters for physicists, chemists, doctors, lawyers and MBAs. Education lays the foundataion on which to build experience.

  Michael Kosser

  Song, Writing, Doctors

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• When I was 6 I thought that I wanted to be a musician - like a singer-songwriter. That's what I romantically envisioned for myself. But in reality the experience of getting into music was just the opposite. My parents signed me up for classical guitar lessons, which made for two years of the most depressing Wednesday evenings.

  Andrew Garfield

  Depressing, Reality, Guitar

  Interview with Terry Gilliam, www.interviewmagazine.com. September 17, 2010.

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• I'm an English songwriter/composer, working in Mandarin and trying to find something about Chinese culture that I really relate to and respect and feel some genuine emotions for - and it's quite hard, the pentatonic scale, and that, in a way, is why I think it works. Because I'm forced to limit myself to quite strict rules about what I did. Maybe that's how I avoided pastiche.

  Damon Albarn

  Thinking, Chinese, Trying

  "Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett". Interview with Scott Plagenhoef, pitchfork.com. January 26, 2009.

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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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