Songwriting Quotes - Page 29

• 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 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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• Early in my songwriting career, when I was learning a lot about writing songs, I'd force myself to sit down until I came up with something.

  Luke Bryan

  Song, Writing, Careers

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• Songwriting, I have to take myself away from everybody to do. It's an unsightly act.

  Nick Cave

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• I feel like songwriting is an experiment in empathy.

  Zooey Deschanel

  Empathy, Feels, Experiments

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• Not that there is anything wrong with confessional songwriting, there are plenty of people that do that I admire. I think it is great; it just isn't how I do things.

  Zooey Deschanel

  Thinking, People, Admire

  "Zooey Deschanel switches from acting to singing". www.timesfreepress.com. July 12, 2013.

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• On 'Van Halen,' I was a young punk, and everything revolved around the fastest kid in town, gunslinger attitude. But I'd say that at the time of 'Fair Warning,' I started concentrating more on songwriting. But I guess in most people's minds I'm just a gunslinger.

  Eddie Van Halen

  Attitude, Kids, People

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• Everything in life influences my music. I've always used songwriting as a means to share what I think is profound.

  Jason Mraz

  Mean, Thinking, Profound

  "Jason Mraz Is Turning the Tide: An Interview". Interview with Anna Griffin, www.huffingtonpost.com. October 6, 2010.

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• The guitar influence that affected my songwriting came from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.

  Dave Mustaine

  Guitar, Influence, Wave

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• Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.

  Frederic Chopin

  Music, Art, Simple

  "If Not God, Then What? Neuroscience, Aesthetics, and the Origins of the Transcendent". Book by Joshua Fost (p. 93), November 16, 2007.

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• I think it's probably, musically, probably the most sophisticated. ("The Woman in White") There's a lot more daring harmony in it than in some of my pieces... If you know what you want to do, as I always loved musicals, and then to have been lucky enough to be successful with them, I think that's all you can ask, isn't it?... Sondheim is absolutely wonderful and Alan Jay Lerner was wonderful.

  Andrew Lloyd Webber

  Successful, Thinking, White

  Interview with Paul Fischer, www.moviehole.net. December 20, 2004.

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• I'd hate to be a songwriter starting a career today...Al Stanton walked in one day and said, 'Otis, I've got an idea. Why don't you write a song called "All Shook Up"?' Two days later I brought the song in and said, 'Look, man, I did something with it.'

  Otis Blackwell

  Song, Hate, Writing

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• Everybody wants to write a hit song, but in Nashville people want to write the best song, which was my original intention as a singer/songwriter. ... I left because I could no longer make records that sounded less and less like me. I tried to please people instead of believing in my own strength, until the only thing I could do was walk away.

  Melissa Manchester

  Song, Believe, Writing

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• The reader cannot see into your heart. He will know only what you tell him. Make the blind see your words. Make the hard-hearted feel. Make the deaf hear.

  Margaret Atwood

  Writing, Heart, Blind

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• Even if you're an observer of a story that you yourself made up, you're still very much connected to it. You love it and feel it, no less than somebody's who's writing from their direct 'I' or 'me.' I'm just so much more interesting in stories than confessions.

  Regina Spektor

  Writing, Interesting, Stories

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• A lot of what has pushed me forward is desire, and I have expressed that in my songwriting - perhaps because it's safer!

  Brian Molko

  Desire

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• I always have to remember that I am the narrator, but it doesn't have to be about me. A lot of songwriting is about trying to use what part of me is valid in telling the story. I don't want to overcook it, you know? Sometimes it seems that's really where the work is.

  Ryan Adams

  Trying, Use, Want

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. June 28, 2007.

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• You're gonna have to learn to get out there in front of those cameras and hold your head up. Take charge when you're singing.

  Patsy Cline

  Singing, Cameras, Heads Up

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• I really wanted to focus on my songwriting, or songwriting with other people. I wanted to go learn from other people who were really good at the classic, more traditional idea of songwriting.

  Mikky Ekko

  Ideas, People, Focus

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• My lesson from that [songwriting process] was that I should go back to where I was and try to make that first pure even more strong.

  Yukimi Nagano

  Strong, Trying, Lessons

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Songwriting and poetry are so commonly birthed from underdogs because one can make even the ugliest situations admirable, or more beautiful than the beautiful situations - they are the most graceful media in which the lines of society are distorted.

  Criss Jami

  Beautiful, Media, Underdog

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.109, Criss Jami

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• I feel fortunate that I've had a lot of songs recorded by other people, because I take my songwriting very seriously. It's only those people that have followed me over the years and really know my work that know how serious I am about all of it - including the way I look. You can't take my high heels from me, you can't have my long fingernails, you can't take all this hair from me, because it's part of this thing that I've become. I wouldn't want to give any of it up. Do I have to be ugly to be a songwriter? This is the way I am, and it's what I choose to be.

  Dolly Parton

  Music, Song, Hair

  "You need to shine if you're going to be a star" by Paul Sexton, www.theguardian.com. November 2, 2006.

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• Songwriting is a mysterious art. When I sit down to write a song, the end result should be mysterious and have this dark quality.

  Martin Gore

  Song, Art, Writing

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