Songwriting Quotes - Page 15

I like using concrete imagery, but I don't feel that's what it's about. It's a combination of concrete and abstract to take the listener somewhere they know better than you. That's true for music, seeing a painting, watching a movie... it's all some kind of an escape.

M. Ward

Writing, Kind, Painting

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If I'm writing... even a piece of a song... I write it down. If it still resonates six months down the line, a year, even five, those are the ones you put in your bag and you take to the studio. You come to realize, the ones that don't make it, they were only meant to live for that moment in your notebook or on the 4-track-and plenty of songs never get any farther than the 4-track.

M. Ward

Notebook, Song, Writing

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It was Rick's Rubin idea to have the 'Brooklyn' verse repeat. It already was a story, but having that made it a folk song. Instead of this rambling march of verses, Rick understands that music needs hooks. You need that repeated chorus, that everyone can sing along to.

Scott Avett

Song, Writing, Ideas

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I had a dream that Louis Armstrong was playing the 'Swept Away' melody. I have no idea where it came from. But Louis Armstrong was playing it and singing the song to me. I woke up-it's a borrowed melody no doubt-and wrote it down. If I hear a song and I choose not to put it down, that's me neglecting to accept that song. I think there's a very spiritual and godly-type ting that happens, and it happens to way more people than we know. It's just that very few of us choose to engage it.

Scott Avett

Dream, Spiritual, Song

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I had a lot of time to myself, and I would listen to a lot of music, mostly music that I knew fairly well and had a relationship with. And I'd think, well, what is it that I've never been able to do that this person or people are able to do with this song? Why haven't I been able to do it, and what can they do that I wish I could do? And then I'd try to do that. I'd start each day getting into the songs, and I'd think about how I might get closer to this music that I love, but haven't been able to make before.

Will Oldham

Song, Writing, Thinking

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You can find me in the melodies, the chord progressions, the song style and structure. The lyrical places you fine me most are in the lyrics that 'show' more than 'tell.' I like to describe what the listener is seeing and let them make up the middle rather than telling them.

Kristian Bush

Song, Writing, Style

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My biggest lesson ... was to try and create narrators that were believable. ...so the listener becomes really invested in the story or the song.

Kristian Bush

Song, Writing, Trying

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I don't think I ever saw Hank with anybody, say, 'Let's go write a song.' One Sunday morning we left Nashville to go to Birmingham to do a matinee and a night, and he said, 'Hand me that tablet up there.' And he wrote down, 'Hey, good lookin', what you got cookin'' and before we got to Birmingham it was finished.

Don Helms

Song, Morning, Writing

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My favorite song he ever wrote was 'Cold Cold Heart.' If you think about it, the lyric to 'Cold Cold Heart,' see how many two syllable words are in that song. Very, very few. ... Verses and the choruses have very few two syllable words. 'I tried so hard my dear to show that you're my everything.' One three-syllable word.

Don Helms

Song, Writing, Heart

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The melodies were melodies that anybody could sing or hum or whistle. And the words were just about that simple. I think the stories Hank told in his song fit so many people. Nearly everybody in the audience acted as if Hank were singin to them alone.

Don Helms

Song, Writing, Thinking

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When you have that first flash of what you think is going to be a great idea-from the mouth, from the hands-that's an amazing feeling. I don't think anything's quite as good as that.

Daryl Hall

Writing, Thinking, Hands

"HALL AND OATES: Soul Survivors". Interview with Ken Sharp, americansongwriter.com. January 23, 2009.

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He felt himself in suspension between the two worlds, the warm, neat civilization behind his back, the cool, dark mystery outside. We all write poems; it is simply that poets are the ones who write in words.

John Fowles

Writing, Dark, Civilization

1969 The French Lieutenant's Woman, ch.19.

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I'm always writing ideas down and then I stick em in my pocket and put em in that folder so I don't lose them. Like, somebody might say something, and I'll go, oh that's a good line, and that goes in the folder, too. It's kind of an ongoing process for me.

Lucinda Williams

Writing, Ideas, Pockets

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If you get a song right for its usage at the time, it can be useful to others. ...Those songs are more friendly to other artists looking for material.

Rodney Crowell

Song, Writing, Artist

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Every now and then I'll get seduced by the idea of money, and I'll take a stab at that...and I fall flat on my ass. I've never written a lasting song with that mindset. It doesn't work.

Rodney Crowell

Song, Fall, Writing

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She did get put through the system with a lot of the hit songwriters, who were great songwriters, but it was more like 'This is how it's done here. It turned her off - not specific people, but the whole system turned her off. And she wanted to do something, I think, that she could play for her friends in Texas and they would say, Okay, well you're still Miranda.

Frank Liddell

Writing, Thinking, Texas

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It seems like songwriting for most songwriters is only one season in their life, a five or ten year period. For me, I don't worry about it, but I know there might come a day when I can't write anymore, or don't have good song ideas or the fire to do it anymore.

Rodney Clawson

Song, Writing, Fire

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With acting I am being led by the script, other actors, the director, etc. But with songwriting I feel it is much more self reliant and allows me to be in the creative experience without being as dependent on others.

Helen Slater

Self, Creative, Acting

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What's interesting about songs where the writer is genuinely in love with words is that it's easy to read the lyrics like a poem.

Ann Reed

Song, Writing, Interesting

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Writing a song isn't that hard. Writing a good song is difficult. Let's face it, we're faced with taking a complex feeling or event, making words rhyme and saying exactly what we want them to say in a short amount of time. ...the primary reason for keeping it short and to the point is to be certain that you're not boring your audience.

Ann Reed

Song, Writing, Feelings

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I admire the ballad form most of all. Stories are irresistible. I've always had a passion for stories, the endings being of particular importance.

David Massengill

Passion, Writing, Stories

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Stories were primarily verbal to begin with. Before there were cave paintings, stories were told over generations. We tell each other thousands of stories in the course of everyday life.

David Massengill

Writing, Everyday, Generations

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The first rule of improv is 'Never say no.' Use it when co-writing. To co-write, you need to be willing to be vulnerable with each other. You need to be stupid with each other.

Chuck Cannon

Stupid, Writing, Needs

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I noticed with older songs that I perform that I'm coming from a different place with them now...it mutates the vibe and even the meaning of the same words when you have a different spirit, if the person singing is different. I like that, to be able to sing an emotionally wrought song from a more centered place, or to sing an eager, youthful song from a more experienced place. It kind of colors the songs differently, and it keeps them fresh.

Ani DiFranco

Song, Writing, Color

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I want to write songs with complete sentences. I almos have this obsession with short-changing words. I would never be so pretentious to say that my lyrics are poetry. ... Poems are poems. Song lyrics are for songs.

Ben Gibbard

Song, Writing, Want

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