Songwriting Quotes - Page 17

My vocation is more in composition really than anything else-building up harmonies using the guitar, orchestrating the guitar like an army, a guitar army. ... I always felt if we were going in to do an album, there should already be a lot of structure already made up so we could get on with that and see what else happened. ... I always believed in the music we did and that's why it was uncompromising. ... I don't think the critics could understand what we were doing.

Jimmy Page

Army, Thinking, Guitar

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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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At the time I begin writing a novel, the last thing I want to do is follow a plot outline. To know too much at the start takes the pleasure out of discovering what the book is about.

Elmore Leonard

Book, Writing, Too Much

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Be serious. Life hurts. Reflect what hurts. I don't mean that you can't also be funny, or have fun, but at the end of the day, stories are about what you lose.

John Irving

Hurt, Fun, Mean

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Fearlessness, absolutely. Discipline. You also need open-minded creativeness that lets everything in. You never want to lose a word or a phrase, yet every one should count. Always the best language possible. And, finally, knowing when to leave it alone. Stop when it's done.

Ben Harper

Writing, Knowing, Discipline

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I spent a fair amount of time editing the lyrics and allowing the song to kind of evolve. ... anytime there's anything worthwhile, it certainly 'feels' like it happened on the spur of the moment, but it's a composite of lots of spurs of the moment, hopefully. And over time, you catch up with those, and then you have a full set of lyrics you've thought of and you feel comfortable singing.

Jeff Tweedy

Song, Writing, Editing

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Kids who are least impressive in my class are the ones who only listen to one kind of music. They only listen to country or only to rap or to gospel or anything. It's a sad thing. I try really hard to get them to go out and listen to things. It's amazing what you learn. ... I'm still trying to learn. It's not like I'm going to be a calypso singer. That's not going to happen, but I'm sure there's something in that, that I can learn from and apply to my own work.

Andy Wilkinson

Country, Rap, Writing

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I like to make up songs. And it's my opinion that all these songs mean a lot to me, but that doesn't mean I think everything needs to leave the house. If it helps me through my life and doesn't bore anybody in theirs.

Todd Snider

Song, Mean, Writing

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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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I say to my students that I can't teach them how to write a good song, but I can teach you how to write a better song. Talking about this idea of it being a process. By going back and not settling for something and find a way to step back from your songs-which is a very hard thing to do-but when you're stuck or you can't move forward, start doing some polishing.

Andy Wilkinson

Song, Moving, Writing

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I think if you sing a song for the first time to your mom and dad, or your friends, and they go, 'That's pretty cool'-if you're playing at the local bar somewhere, or the coffee shop, singing songs, or if you have a gig somewhere and you're singing your own songs, I think that's some version of making it. ... It's not just about having commercial success; it's about having a great life.

Dierks Bentley

Mom, Song, Dad

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Great readers, great listeners, and all have great work ethics. ... They work hard at what they do and they're devout to their reading and listening.

Andy Wilkinson

Reading, Hard Work, 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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It would be nice to abandon the verse-chorus-bridge structure completely, and make it so none of these things are definable. ... Make up new names for them. Instead of a bridge, you can call it a highway, or an overpass. ... Music should never be harmless. ... I remember from my earliest years, people speaking, you know, in a certain kind of rhythm and telling stories and sharing experiences in a way that was different in Indian country than it was other places. And I was really struck by this and obviously very affected by it, because it's always come out in my songs.

Robbie Robertson

Country, Song, Nice

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I don't care how good a song is. If it holds back the storyline, stalls the plot, your audience will reject it.

Dorothy Fields

Song, Writing, Plot

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But the only rhyme he could summon for 'out' was 'sauerkraut,' which lacked poetic glory. He let it go. The right line would come in time. That was the thing about poetry. It crept up through the draws and coulees of the brain.

Annie Proulx

Writing, Brain, Let It Go

Annie Proulx (2007). “That Old Ace in the Hole”, p.138, Simon and Schuster

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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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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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The thing I'm writing now, I have various characters, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, this couple dies. And they have a daughter. ...I thought, 'OK, we have to do something with the daughter' ... then I realized she's not really their daughter. She has her own story. And she's become the most interesting character. She was this throwaway character that I didn't even conceive of before I started writing her into it, and now she's become very important in this book.

Sandra Dallas

Daughter, Couple, Book

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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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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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Asked if he knew how important Stardust would be, Mitchell Parish said he did have a gut feeling that this was a momentous one. But had no idea it would become a standard. You don't sit down and write a standard, he explained. A standard evolves.

Paul Zollo

Writing, Ideas, Feelings

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The healing power of music is vast. Music therapy is in its infancy in Western psychology. If we knew more, we'd be able to do amazing things, and maybe even make permanent changes in the brain's mysterious workings. With a simple song and four chords, you might be able to do something useful, even life-changing. With all the songs you know, you might be a virtual, veritable medicine chest for the right person.

Gary Talley

Song, Life Changing, Healing

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I think it's absolutely possible to write a song and go somewhere where no one's been before, uncharted territory. In terms of content, I see limitations where there should be none. I know there are things I wouldn't write about, but that shouldn't be the case. You should be able to make a song out of anything, out of any situation.

Richard Thompson

Song, Writing, Thinking

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