Songwriting Quotes - Page 18

In making movies, time is so short-because it is so expensive-that we tend to neglect the place from which the best ideas come, namely that part of ourselves that dreams. The unconscious is our best collaborator.

Mike Nichols

Dream, Writing, Ideas

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People say you make your best work when in despair, but I think happiness is a good place to write from.

Paul Weller

Writing, Thinking, People

Interview with Decca Aitkenhead, www.theguardian.com. March 11, 2012.

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Great songs aren't written, they're rewritten

R.C. Bannon

Song, Written

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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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Maybe poetry's not so important, but ... it makes life worth living.

Arda Collins

Writing, Important, Life Worth Living

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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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I enjoy writing songs that could have been written before [my time]. When I feel like I'm tapping into a deep vein in the body of American music, it gives me strength as a writer, like I'm dipping my pen into a deep ink well. That's the folk music tradition. Like Pete Seeger said, 'Everyone's a link in the chain.' It's a strong chain, so rely on it. ... I believe it takes all those great songs in the past to make your song even a little bit good.

Ketch Secor

Song, Strong, Believe

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I think it is good for people who are incarcerated or who are bound up one way or the other-people like Lily Kimball and all the prostitues of Memphis. This gal, she needs some wings, and a good song can make that happen.

Ketch Secor

Song, Writing, Thinking

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We wrote a song, while sitting on a trampoline & we loved it so much that we ended up recording it as a duet

Taylor Swift

Song, Duets, Sitting

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Most songwriting like poetry takes a careful selection of words. Sometimes you're just channeling something and a selection of words come out that you wouldn't normally say, but you come up with an assortment of words that are really special. It just makes sense even if it's normally how you wouldn't express yourself.

Vance Joy

Special, Sometimes, Express Yourself

"Vance Joy’s Imaginary Dreams". Interview with Ilana Kaplan, www.interviewmagazine.com. September 3, 2014.

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You're just like, "I like doing this - it's something I have a lot of passion for." You happen to do it, you enjoy songwriting, and eventually if you're writing enough songs, then you fall into it.

Vance Joy

Song, Fall, Passion

"Vance Joy’s Imaginary Dreams". Interview with Ilana Kaplan, www.interviewmagazine.com. September 3, 2014.

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A lot of times I have the song inside of me and I have to fight to get it out. I'm a very visual person, so I can see the song but I can't hear it. But I think that if your music becomes a war for it to happen, in the end there's a certain kind of aggression in the music. And I think that's a lot more interesting.

Zola Jesus

Song, War, Writing

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Johnny Cash's face belongs on Mount Rushmore...I don't write as much as I did back when I was writing songs every day. I've come to know when I've got a good one, although sometimes it takes the world awhile to catch up with me...If you're in it because you love it and you have to do it, that's the right reason. If you're in it because you want to get rich or famous, don't do it.

Kris Kristofferson

Song, Writing, World

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I see pictures in my mind and become the character in the song as I'm writing. It's kind of method songwriting, where you're the actor in the song.

Diane Warren

Song, Writing, Character

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I like myself better when I'm writing regularly. ... I was influenced a lot by those around me-there was a lot of singing that went on in the cotton fields. ... I'm a country songwriter and we write cry-in-your-beer songs. That's what we do. Something that you can slow dance to...I never gave up on country music because I knew what I was doing was not that bad. ... Most of the stuff I've read about me has been true.

Willie Nelson

Country, Song, Writing

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Make the verses flow together. If a following verse has nothing to do with the previous, you may lose our listener/reader. You want a smooth flow to hear or read, and it's easier to memorize.

Margaret Atwood

Writing, Together, May

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Don't be married to a line or verse if it can't rhyme, fit the meter, or doesn't fit the outline.

Margaret Atwood

Writing, Lines, Married

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In the 80s, in the cover band I was in, we'd slip in original material. If you didn't say anything about it, people just didn't care. Sometimes they'd ask where that came from and you'd tell them, but you still had to play a bunch of Willie, Waylon, and Merle.

Andy Wilkinson

Writing, Play, People

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Some things need to be a song. Some things need to be a play. Some things need to be a painting. Some things need to be-though I'd never be a choreographer-some things might ought to be a dance [laughs]. I've found that exploring an idea in different ways, it gives you different opportunities.

Andy Wilkinson

Song, Writing, Opportunity

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I find on songwriting, I really have to work at making sure I'm not imitating myself. You know? Which happens to all of us. When an artist becomes really famous, you'll start listening to songs and saying "Wait...I've heard that before" and it'll be one of theirs. We all fall into that rut. If you don't have something to force you out of it, then it's kind of a dangerous business.

Andy Wilkinson

Song, Fall, Writing

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I had to really do some studying and examination of my own songwriting and I realized that, there's not a formula by any stretch of the imagination and aren't any rules, but there are principles. The first one is that art is a process, not a product. In fact, that holds true for damn near everything we do in life. The product is just something that happens. If you're faithful to the process, the product takes care of itself.

Andy Wilkinson

Art, Writing, Imagination

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So I realized when I was successful in a piece, it was because I didn't abandon a notion early on what it ought to be, and I let it take me along. So I've had songs that started out as being about the environment and ended up being love songs and love songs that ended up being about the environment. I've had things that I thought would be a poem and realized that it was just too big for that. I've got to do something larger and it became a play. I wrote one poem that started a whole play.

Andy Wilkinson

Song, Writing, Successful

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There's a lot of really inspiring music coming around the bend - we tend to believe that to sound classic or timeless is to sound vintage or retro. It's a little bit dangerous, because you'll really miss a chance to make your mark as a generation.

Brandi Carlile

Believe, Writing, Vintage

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I think Gram did his best work in co-writes. Sometimes when you're working with one other person, it's such a magical thing. You're editing each other and you're trying to create that one spark.

Chris Hillman

Writing, Thinking, Editing

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70 percent of what we do involves staring into space trying to figure out what the hell happens next.

Robert Gregory Browne

Writing, Space, Trying

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