Songwriting Quotations

You can do anything you want to do, if you know what to do.

For me, in songwriting, I have a route I can take. Maybe there's some forks, I can go this way, this way. But I know those roads. I still have the experience behind me.

Performing is the easiest part of what I do, and songwriting is the hardest.

Put your faith in God and confidence in yourself.

Music is spiritual. The music business is not.

I love songwriting. It's second to my love for singing in how I express myself.

Success is important only to the extent that it puts one in a position to do more things one likes to do.

The best songwriting comes from being as creative as you can and editing it down to the good bits, essentially.

Probably most successful songwriters have an innate songwriting ability.

My songwriting is like extending a hand to the listener.

But this is pretty new for me, both songwriting and singing.

You have got to discover you, what you do, and trust it.

I've always gravitated towards songwriting that happens easily and spontaneously, because those have always been my best songs.

I don't really know that there's any real rules for songwriting.

But there's a thin line between songwriting and arranging.

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.

My experience with songwriting is usually so confessional, it's so drawn from my own life and my own stories.

Being so honest in my writing is cathartic.

I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm damn well gonna do it!

It's not that I have resisted songwriting, it's just not something I felt I have had to do. I've just not woken up and thought, I must do this. But I have often heard music that I have instantly felt 'I have to sing that song'

There's a lot of personal stuff that can go into songwriting but there's also a lot of dramatization and fictionalization. You have to do that to make a good song.

Most things I worry about never happen anyway.

I wasn't born with a natural talent for songwriting.

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

The songwriting has never really stepped forward from the '50's.

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

Songwriting isn't always something that's directly proportionate to the experience.

Great classic music that I've been turned on to has not only inspired and influenced me, but it has had an effect on my songwriting.

I don't like to dwell on the past.

Songwriting is something I really need to work on. I don't have very many songs but I really love it. I would love to be a great song writer some day.

Not to dismiss Gershwin, but Gershwin is the chip; Ellington was the block.

You can't ask me to explain the lyrics because I won't do it.

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

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

You write a hit the same way you write a flop.

Songwriting is like talking to yourself when there is no one to talk to,

I don't think you can ever regain your ignorance.

I think Americana music is music that is generally more singer/songwriter oriented. It has more to do with the songwriting. The music, it's more like stories set to music.

Songwriting and screenwriting aren't that different to me.

Speak in extremes, it'll save you time.

I'm more critical of my songwriting than anybody, but I've worked really hard in the last five to 10 years to improve.

I attended a post-college program in L.A. for Music Business and Production. Took several courses involving Music Production, Arrangement, and Songwriting.

Songwriting requires some sort of ceremony to even get the process started, and it can be somewhat arbitrary.

The secret of a great melody is a secret.

I can't tell one from the other:I find you or you find me?There was a time before we were born If someone asks, this is where I'll be.

Much of songwriting is simply a mystery.

It's the damage that we do and never know. It's the words that we don't say that scare me so.

If I knew where good songs came from, I'd go there more often.

I couldn't say there is a formula to songwriting. Each time is a unique experience.

Well, everything about singing, I learned from busking. Everything I learned about songwriting, I learned from busking.

I enjoy songwriting. It's slow-motion improvising.

Songwriting's a weird game.

I see songwriting as having to do with experience, and the more you've experienced, the better it is. But it has to be tempered, and you just must let your imagination run.

Songwriting is my gift from God

All is fair in love and songwriting.

I'm fascinated by America...it's so odd.

I was always interested in science, and pre-med was arespectable thing to do while I ursued my songwriting.

[Songwriting is] something that I own - it's my property, it's my music, it's my voice.

It wasn't so much that I had to leave to make it in the music business as I was curious to be out on my own and sort of explore. I never felt that where I was ever influenced my songwriting.

If I don't have an outlet in which to express myself...throug h songwriting or other mediums...I get a bit jittery.

Songwriting is my main thing. I know that I'll do that for the rest of my life.

Songwriting is too mysterious and uncontrolled a process for me to direct it towards any one thing.

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

Write about the truth. If you write about the truth, somebody's living that. Not just somebody, there's a lot of people.

I don't think you can ever please all audiences.

I don't work at being ordinary.

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

A lot of the great songwriters in history have been collaborators, with a separate lyricist.

My passion is more in songwriting than ... in being a star.

Isolation is a big part of songwriting.

I think I'm more prolific in the songwriting.

Songwriting is as much a craft as a talent.

It doesn't stop. It really doesn't stop. It's the way I live every single day. I don't do anything else. I have no other interest other than music. At all.

I love, love, love songwriting. It's like the most therapeutic thing in the world.

Songwriting never gets old. There's always stuff to write about.

I don't enjoy songwriting.

The classic, quote/unquote, craft of songwriting still works; it still is relevant.

There's only two kinds of music: the blues and zippety doo-dah.

The only thing I could see myself doing is music - songwriting or producing or something. I've never seen myself being in any other business, I've been working in this one since I was 5 years old! I could do other things, but I wouldn't want to!

Once I went into songwriting, I figured I had to - I couldn't be a hellfire rock 'n' roller. But I could write hellfire lyrics.

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