Writing Songs Quotes

• Songwriting is a very mysterious process. It feels like creating something from nothing. It's something I don't feel like I really control.

  Tracy Chapman

  Creating, Mysterious, Process

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.

  James A. Michener

  Writing, Swings, Emotion

  Ernest Hemingway, James A. Michener (1986). “The dangerous summer”, Scribner Book Company

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• Music breeds its own inspiration. You can only do it by doing it. You may not feel like it, but you push yourself. It's a work process. Or just improvise. Something will come.

  Burt Bacharach

  Inspiration, May, Push Yourself

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• Songwriting is like ... being possessed. You try to go to sleep but the song won't let you.

  John Lennon

  Song, Sleep, Writing

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• To be a musician, especially a singer-songwriter - well, you don't do that if you have a thriving social life. You do it because there's an element of alienation in your life.

  James Taylor

  Writing, Musician, Elements

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• I never sit down to write. When I'm moved, I do it. I just wait for it to come. You just hear it. I can't really describe writing. It's in my head.

  Lenny Kravitz

  Writing, Waiting, Moved

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• Songwriting is about getting the demon out of me. It's like being possessed.

  John Lennon

  Demon, Songwriting, Songwriters

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• I don't think about the styles. I write whatever comes out and I use whatever kind of instrumentation works for those songs.

  Lenny Kravitz

  Song, Writing, Thinking

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• For me, songwriting is something like breathing: I just do it. But that doesn't mean you're fantastic.

  Adam Duritz

  Mean, Breathing, Fantastic

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• My discussion with Keith Richards about the creative process led me to believe that there's an invisible presence of a stream of ever-flowing creativity that we overhear-all you have to do is pull up the antenna and dial it in. This presence allows you to maintain your sense of origin and move forward.

  Billy Gibbons

  Music, Moving Forward, Believe

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• I never sit down to write. When I'm moved, I do it. I just wait for it to come. You just hear it. I can't really describe writing. It's in my head. I don't think about the styles. I write whatever comes out and I use whatever kind of instrumentation works for those songs...A lot of people don't listen to the lyrics, really. A lot of people pretty much only listen to the chorus.

  Lenny Kravitz

  Song, Writing, Thinking

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• I don't force it. If you don't have an idea and you don't hear anything going over and over in your head, don't sit down and try to write a song. You know, go mow the lawn...My songs speak for themselves.

  Neil Young

  Song, Writing, Ideas

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• A lot of people pretty much only listen to the chorus.

  Lenny Kravitz

  People, Songwriting, Chorus

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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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• I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I'll die like a poet.

  Bob Dylan

  Musician, Firsts, Poet

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• It seems to me that those songs that have been any good, I have nothing much to do with the writing of them. The words have just crawled down my sleeve and come out on the page.

  Joan Baez

  Music, Song, Memorable

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• I write a song because I want to. I think the moment you start writing it to make money, you're starting to kill yourself artistically.

  Pete Seeger

  Song, Writing, Thinking

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• I don't write songs, songs write me.

  Sammy Cahn

  Song, Writing, Songwriting

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• I just tried to come up with some honest songs. What I was writing about was real plain stuff that I wasn't sure was going to be interesting to other people. But I guess it was...I've never had any discipline whatsoever. I just wait on a song like I was waiting for lightning to strike. And eventually-usually sometime around 3 in the morning-I'll have a good idea. By the time the sun comes up, hopefully, I'll have a decent song.

  John Prine

  Song, Morning, Real

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• My songs emerge unbidden and unplanned and completely on a schedule of their own...We have, all of us, over the years, written things that responded to the world as it slapped us in the face. Me and Nash, singing "To the Last Whale" and "Find the Cost of Freedom". Stills coming up with "For What It's Worth". These came right out of the news. People have accused us of taking stances and the truth is we don't.

  David Crosby

  Song, Years, Whales

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• I'd spent five hours that morning trying to write a song that was meaningful and good, and I finally gave up and lay down. Then, "Nowhere Man" came, words and music, the whole damn thing, as I lay down...Song writing is about getting the demon out of me. It's like being possessed. You try to go to sleep, but the song won't let you. So you have to get up and make it into something, and then you're allowed sleep.

  John Lennon

  Meaningful, Song, Morning

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• I don't think about commercial concerns when I first come up with something. When I sit down at the piano, I try to come up with something that moves me.

  Lamont Dozier

  Moving, Thinking, Piano

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• A lot of people don't listen to the lyrics, really.

  Lenny Kravitz

  People, Songwriting, Songwriters

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• Out of my entire annual output of songs, perhaps two, or at the most three, came as a result of inspiration. We can never rely on inspiration. When we most want it, it does not come.

  George Gershwin

  Song, Inspiration, Two

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• I started being a songwriter pretending I could do it, and it turned out I could.

  James Taylor

  Pretending, Songwriting, Singer-songwriters

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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