Songwriting Quotes - Page 28

• I could speak Spanish fluently growing up, but I'm so out of practice, and I have such a tremendous respect for songwriting in the Spanish language.

  Miguel

  Growing Up, Practice, Language

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• I'm not inspired by songwriting at all; that took place years ago. I'm pretty well established, as far as my influences go. I don't listen to music anymore. It all sounds the same to me.

  Mose Allison

  Years, Sound, Inspired

  Interview with Jason Heller, music.avclub.com. April 02, 2010.

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• I've always loved songwriting, and I vowed to be a songwriter like Cole Porter when I was only 9 years old.

  Mel Brooks

  Years, Songwriters

  Billboard Interview, www.billboard.com. December 8, 2005.

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• One thing that I'm really interested in is the kind of esoteric detail that surrounds these great figures. And Wikipedia is full of that kind of stuff, whether it's true or untrue. It staggers me: why, in the short space assigned to a person or an event, that kind of random information is there. To be honest, that's wonderful fuel for songwriting.

  Nick Cave

  Space, Wikipedia, Events

  "Nick Cave on the Evolution of His Music". Interview with Simon Abrams, www.esquire.com. January 28, 2014.

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• I think most of the work of songwriting is thinking of great phrases - I'm addicted, always on the hunt for a really great phrase.

  Ezra Furman

  Thinking, Phrases, Really Great

  "Playground for the Perplexed". Interview with J.L. Sirisuk, www.interviewmagazine.com. August 5, 2015.

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• In Nashville, there is a historic tendency to work the lyric to death while settling for music that works. In pop or rock, it can be the other way around.

  Michael Kosser

  Writing, Rocks, Nashville

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• [Non-performing songwriters] climb the mountain the first time, take their successes in stride, and when they tumble down the mountain, they just consider the tumble part of their profession and don't even waste time mourning their slump. They continue to write, make new connections, and move forward toward a new round of success.

  Michael Kosser

  Moving, Writing, Mourning

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• Especially on Broadway, composers and lyricists fretted over their creations, obsessed over every rhyme, every critical chord or interval. The stakes were so high. On Broadway, people were watching and judging, especially newspaper critics who knew a thousand ways to slice and dice a songwriter for the entertainment of hundreds of thousands of faithful readers. There was no anonymity for the Broadway songwriter. Even the best could find themselves stripped naked the morning after by the tastemakers and their readers.

  Michael Kosser

  Morning, Writing, People

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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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• Here's some free advice; like the folkies of yore, you need to be not just a writer of songs, you need to be a lover of songs, a listener of songs and a collector of songs. If you hear a song in a club that knocks you out or you hear an old recording of a great song you never knew existed, it does not diminish you to record it; it actually exalts you because you have brought a great song from obscurity to the ear of the public.

  Michael Kosser

  Song, Writing, Advice

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• That is what diminishes the artist and his song. The artist is now hermetically sealed. The publishing company got him his deal and they expect to profit from his songs. So what if he is a better singer than a songwriter; let's put him in a room with a real songwriter. Something great is bound to come...except very often nothing great comes out of such contrived match-ups. Nobody knows where a great song comes from, and that's why so many writers credit the Lord as a co-writer (though I notice they never offer Him half the writer's royalties) when they come up with a real gem.

  Michael Kosser

  Song, Real, Writing

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• I always thought of myself as the piano player in the band. That, I suppose, I'm confident about, and I guess my songwriting developed as I went along and I got a certain amount of confidence in that. The songs are like my kids, I'm proud of all of them for one reason or another.

  Billy Joel

  Song, Kids, Player

  "Backstage With Billy Joel: The Billboard Cover Story Interview (Exclusive)". Interview with Ray Waddell, www.billboard.com. January 31, 2014.

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• I feel like songwriting changed from something that I liked doing to something that, I feel, is a very important outlet for me to digest all the things around me. Once I put thoughts into a song, I can let it go, it doesn't bug me anymore you know what I mean? It's kind of a catharsis.

  Dan Mangan

  Song, Mean, Important

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• What I strive to do with songwriting is be really honest, authentic and try to be open and share that with people. I choose that over trying to be clever, poetic, or lyrical.

  Brett Dennen

  Clever, People, Trying

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• When I was young I wanted to make films and then I got into folk music when I was about 12, and started going to this folk club in Auckland. My dad [Barry Andrews] was in punk and post-punk bands, so I guess it was a side of music I hadn't really listened to before - the really narrative form of songwriting.

  Finn Andrews

  Dad, Band, Clubs

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I get some flak for and some resistance from colleagues for because I'm interested in storytelling. I mean what I like about songwriting is songs used to tell a story.

  Stephen Sondheim

  Song, Mean, Stories

  Source: www.movieweb.com

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• The jam stuff doesn't appeal to me in general. My newfound love for the Dead came from Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia's songwriting, not the elaborate guitar solos. I'm a song person. Once it starts to break out of that structure and become loopy, it's uninteresting to me.

  Colin Meloy

  Song, Guitar, Stuff

  "The Decemberists' Colin Meloy". Interview with Larry Fitzmaurice, pitchfork.com. February 14, 2011.

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• My songwriting and overall approach to music go beyond just good singing and strong musicality - I want people, now more so than ever, to feel something and be moved somehow by the content I create.

  Rayvon Owen

  Strong, People, Singing

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• I'm looking for anything interesting in the guitar playing, songwriting, artwork, and production. If you look at the stack of CDs on my desk and in my car, you'll find a very wide range of music under the umbrella of metal.

  David Pajo

  Guitar, Cds, Interesting

  "Dead Child". Interview with Stephen M. Deusner, pitchfork.com. April 22, 2008.

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• Living in war, and being a wartime band, I don't think there's any way that can't somehow influence the songwriting.

  Colin Meloy

  War, Thinking, Band

  Source: pitchfork.com

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• People think of songwriting as a very personal thing: A guy gets up there with an acoustic guitar and he sings his heart out, bares his soul.

  Craig Finn

  Heart, Thinking, Guitar

  "The Hold Steady". Interview with Pitchfork, pitchfork.com. May 16, 2005.

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• As I've grown older I've been more influenced by more meandering styles of guitar playing, whether it's Celtic or Ethiopian folk music or some kind of noisier jazz like Sonny Sharrock. In terms of songwriting, I don't know that I could even pin it down.

  Ted Leo

  Guitar, Style, Jazz

  "Ted Leo and Ben Arthur Discuss Carly Simon, Joyce Carl Oates, and the Touring Grind". Interview with Ben Arthur, logger.believermag.com. June 26, 2016.

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• I've been songwriting for a long time, usually while on the road, as a way to get my feelings out.

  Camila Cabello

  Long, Feelings, Way

  Source: www.teenvogue.com

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• When we get together to rehearse, we could write music together all day long - GOOD music.

  Anthony Kiedis

  Writing, Long, Together

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• I usually like to make really dramatic songs that are dynamic from part to part - a lot of jumping from really quiet to really loud.

  Mike Shinoda

  Song, Jumping, Quiet

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