James Taylor Writing Quotations

I don't read music. I don't write it. So I wander around on the guitar until something starts to present itself.

It's true that I can write a song and not really be sure what the meaning of it is.

I typically will work on a lyric in a three-ring binder. On the right side, I'll write the lyric, and on the left side, I put in alternate things...and things that might be alternates or improvements. I'll turn the page and do it again. I'll turn the page and do it again, or incorporate the improvements. Eventually, I end up with some material, and often it needs to be ordered.

But it's only after you've played it on the road 20 or 30 times that it becomes really finished and polished...and you realize what it means, and you get the phrasing right.

Songs are like myths. Myths are useful because they allow you to cast yourself and your life and your own experience. And for some people, 'Fire and Rain' speaks to them in that way.

I tend to write out the first iteration of a lyric here and then go over here and make variations on it, on the page opposite.

I wanted to perform, I wanted to write songs, and I wanted to get lots of chicks.

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.

There'll come a writing phase where you have to defend the time, unplug the phone and put in the hours to get it done.

['Fire and Rain'] is sort of almost uncomfortably close. Almost confessional. The reason I could write a song like that at that point, and probably couldn't now, is that I didn't have any sense that anyone would hear it. I started writing the song while I was in London...and I was totally unknown.... So I assumed that they would never be heard. I could just write or say anything I wanted. Now I'm very aware, and I have to deal with my stage fright and my anxiety about people examining or judging it. The idea that people will pass judgment on it is not a useful thought.