Top 275 Songwriting Quotes

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.

With Sleater-Kinney, we did a lot of improvisation in our live shows, and even our process of songwriting involved bringing in disparate parts and putting them together to form something cohesive.

All of our albums are actually pretty similar, it’s just the production that’s different. Our songwriting is always the same.

Songwriting was very tough for me… I would go in and sit and hope for inspiration to come, and it was rarely forthcoming.

My main thing is just to keep writing. I’ve been doing some songwriting that’s for my own record, I suppose.

I wanted to play rock and roll when I started playing. Nobody at that time ever thought about songwriting. You sang songs, that’s all. You sang other people’s songs. That’s all there were.

Before I’d even started doing music or having opportunities with my own music, I was studying production and business and stuff anyway. I knew there were so many jobs within the music industry – songwriting or session playing or working at a label – and I was really interested in how it all works.

Songwriting is writing about the human experience.

I’ve learned not turning things up to full volume is a good idea. Also, because I have the freedom, sometimes when I’m writing a song I’ll get carried away with production when I’m only on the first verse, and that sacrifices the songwriting.

Songwriting is such a mysterious thing. Its a magical channel thats a gift to you and you cant really conjure it up when you want it to. It could pop up when youre driving or out having dinner.

I love pop music. I listen to it; I think you can hear it in my songwriting and my album. I’d definitely say it’s country-pop music, but it’s country first.

As far as songwriting, I’m not sure if they wrote all of their own stuff, but I love the Dixie Chicks.

My brain never turns off of songwriting. Every conversation, everything I see, I’m just kind of like a sponge and I soak it up.

I always found very strong images for my songwriting in New York.

Songwriting has become such a big part of what I do that emotions and the melodies that accompany them blur into one.

All of my acoustic playing came from my songwriting. All of the chords I’ve learned and all of the voicings I play them in are a direct result of composing.

I don’t claim to be a particularly good father. I’m flawed, let’s say. I’ve certainly been affected by the experience of having kids… trying to be a father, at least. It’s an amazing process. It’s like songwriting: it’s a complete mystery to me. I don’t understand it – but I’ve certainly written about it.

What I do is I really enjoy and appreciate the challenge of songwriting and singing and performing and just being really, really grateful at all times. Also, I have no fear or problems with saying no and setting boundaries, you know, with the label, with my management.

I don’t enjoy songwriting.

No I.D. is like an alchemist and he’ll only give you so much at one time. It’s for the best at the end of the day, cause through the process of working with No I.D. I was able to soak up his perspective for songwriting and production and keeping music alive.

My focus on everything is songwriting, so I write all of my stuff by myself.

Making vocal hooks is my favorite thing to do. That’s what I love about songwriting – making catchy stuff.

I feel like I’m creeping closer to finding the situation that triggers songwriting, which is obviously an extreme of an emotion.

As far as songwriting, my inspirations came from love, life and death, and viewing other people’s situations.

The joy of songwriting only gets messed up if you are trying to follow up a big success, or you are trying to create a hit single, or if you have conscious thoughts of a particular outcome for the music.

I’ve never been one to indulge in out and out depression when it comes to songwriting.

I have two or three guys that I’m really close to. We have a great friendship, and I think that helps our songwriting relationship. It’s hard to start… with new people and cover the ground that I’ve covered with those guys.

Songwriting is such an intimate thing, and with people you don’t normally write with, you’re naked.

But my strength was in singing and songwriting, which was a new discovery for me when I was 18. And I decided if I pursued songwriting, which is what was closest to my heart, then there would be no competition. I would just live my life being myself and living my dream.

The personality and songwriting of Holy Ghost! trumps the originality card any day.

Growing up, I became a huge fan of Freddie Mercury, Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins. That’s where I really started developing my songwriting skills on a personal level.

I’ve always loved both writing and songwriting. The journey is fascinating to me.

Country music busts the wall between performer and audience. There’s a connection because there’s a vulnerability, a confessional quality, to so much of the songwriting. Those lyrics take you in.

I don’t believe that songwriting has to be profound, but I truly believe that it’s a crime for you to go outta your way for it not to be.

Songwriters often seek the company of fellow songwriters to help finish what they’ve started, and these days, many do it at songwriting camps.

Songwriting is a muscle. The more you do it, the better you get at it.

One of the big songwriting things for me has always been: always think what you do sucks. Because the second you stop believing that, you suck. And that’s a fact.

Songwriting is the most terrifying thing to me, because you are really laying your heart out there.

Songwriting is like editing. You write down all this stuff – all this bad, stupid stuff – and then you have to get rid of everything except the very best.

The good thing about songwriting is you don’t have to delineate between what’s true and what’s fiction; records aren’t put on the shelf that way. Books are, movies are, but records aren’t.

The Raspberries was formed as kind of a reaction to prog rock, which we didn’t like. ‘Let’s bring some songwriting and harmonies back to music’ And we did that.

My style of songwriting is influenced by cinema. I’m a frustrated filmmaker. A fan once said to me, ‘Girl, you make me see pictures in my head!’ and I took that as a great compliment. That’s exactly my intention.

I’ve been listening to Stapleton for a long time. He’s a hometown guy. I remember when I first heard word of him down there: songwriting and hearing those demos that were used for his publishing house and when he started Steeldrivers.

I wrote ‘No Words’ and ‘Mull of Kintyre’ with help from Paul. He was always like a big brother to me and a strong influence on my songwriting.

I think Bob Dylan showed us that songs can rise to the level of literature, and he proved it over and over again. That’s why they keep trying to get him a Nobel Prize for literature: because there is no Nobel Prize for songwriting.

But if you want to be a songwriter-based musician, whether you play punk or rock or country or jazz, whatever, you have to work on your songwriting and you have to work on being able to play in front of people, I think. That performance is how you create the groundwork for a lasting career.

I’m such an emotional person that when it comes to songwriting, I can click into whatever zone I need.

What I took back, because of my exposure to the Jewish music of the 30s and the 40s in my upbringing with my father, was that kind of theatrical songwriting. It was always a part of my character. This desire to make people laugh.

I like songs in all different genres and types. My production and songwriting is everything from pop rock to hip-hop and everything in between.

Songwriting is different from music, although I don’t deny now that it would be nice to have a little more background in music theory.

When I get all focused on songwriting, I get into all the marketing and promotion that we do to make it happen. Then the right song comes along and blows it all out of the water. The right song will do it for you every time.

When a lot of musicians change styles, their songwriting suffers because they want to be different.

I love watching movies, and I’m very inspired by movies when it comes to songwriting!

But the classic Tenacious D songwriting is Jack or myself will have an idea – I might have a riff – and we’ll improv. And once Jack’s feeling it, we turn on the tape recorder and start jamming, improv on that riff, improv on those lyrics, and then go back and see if there’s anything good in there.

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

I didn’t move to Nashville with any inkling or dreams of getting a record deal. I didn’t have those stars in my eyes. I just wanted to take a break, relax, and figure out songwriting.

To have John Mellencamp compliment my songwriting? That was unreal.

My songs are basically my diaries. Some of my best songwriting has come out of time when I’ve been going through a personal nightmare.