I’m grateful to songwriting and recovery to bringing me to a place of peace.
You can’t manufacture inspiration, so a lot of it is still a waiting game for me. There’s still a lot of mystery to songwriting. I don’t have a method that I can go back to – they either come or they don’t.
I love my complexion, but like so many of us, in the early years at primary school, I grew up thinking that my dark skin wasn’t a great thing. I’ve found freedom in music and songwriting, which has given me a freedom in how I present myself. I’m glad I’ve got makeup to celebrate that with.
Songwriting was a gift that came to me when I needed it the most.
The purpose of my songwriting is to put the things I have been through in a song in order to help others who may be in a similar situation.
I think probably the only thing that is around in these songs is that I was really lonely when I wrote a lot of them. But it was really by my own choosing because I was devoting myself to songwriting and dancing and I wasn’t really going out and seeing people.
Speaking and singing were equally common in my house. I started songwriting about the time that I started forming sentences.
I enjoy songwriting. It’s slow-motion improvising.
The songwriting of Hall & Oates is deceptively complex. There are a number of key changes that pass you by as you’re listening to the song because they’re so seamless and clever.
I love Frank Ocean. For me, ‘Channel Orange’ is the best LP ever. I love his voice, the songwriting, everything.
When I graduated high school, I bought a guitar and, at first, didn’t really think I’d get into the songwriting thing as much as I did. But after learning a few songs of other people’s to play on the guitar, I got bored with that and just started writing songs on my own, and that’s kinda how it came about.
George Harrison is perhaps one of the most creative people I ever met, not only in his music and songwriting, but just the way he lived his life, decorated his gardens and homes. He was a dear friend of mine. His entire approach to music was very unique.
I don’t really know that there’s any real rules for songwriting.
The guitar influence that affected my songwriting came from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.
I don’t think we ever really think about it when we’re doing it, because if you sort of go in with a plan of attack, it tends to take away the natural rhythm of songwriting.
Songwriting’s a weird game.
Songwriting is a burst of inspiration and then a long bit of work and a tremendous bit of desperation.
Songwriting really anchored me.
I like a lot of older, ’60s or ’70s-style songwriting.
For me, songwriting is really where it’s at. I turn to use the guitar just to help me write the songs. That’s it. As a result, my guitar playing suffers pretty horribly.
Insatiable,’ the album, was more of a project, really… it was more like a songwriting excursion and an exclusive deal that hadn’t really ever been done that often before… me being like, ‘ooh I’m an entrepreneur,’ rather than ‘this is my singing career.’
The whole point of music is being able to share your story. I’ve been songwriting for a long time, usually while on the road, as a way to get my feelings out.
It was actually working with Kendrick Lamar that pushed me further into the act of songwriting, specifically.
Songwriting was always my ‘plan B’. I didn’t even know that songwriting was a job until my late teens!
Making sounds that literally no one has ever heard before because the software and the technology’s never been there, and pairing that with great songwriting, then that’s what’s exciting for me. That’s what I wanna do.
My dad gave me the ‘Introducing Dionne Warwick’ album when I was, like, 14. It was the first time I’d heard Burt Bacharach’s songwriting and her voice, and it rocked my world. She’s such a great singer and communicator. It really helped me shape my own style.
Sometimes when you start writing a song, you dont know where theyre going to lead you. You just kind of follow the ideas that come in. Its all kind of stream of consciousness. Thats whats so fascinating about songwriting. Its kind of magical.
The ‘Sodajerker’ podcast is the work of Liverpool songwriting duo Simon Barber and Brian O’Connor.
My process of songwriting comes from a very real place: a place that when you watch ‘American Idol’ – God bless it, it’s probably an awesome experience that these people are having, but it’s not a real one.
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.
My songwriting… it’s almost like a kind of self-therapy.
After two years in the songwriting world, I wrote ‘All About That Bass.’ L.A. Reid heard it and signed me as an artist.
I knew that collaborating on songwriting would be difficult for a lot of people, because I was known very much, for my independence and the fact that I wrote these quirky songs that were not typical structure, not typical sound – you know, really original stuff.
Fifth Harmony as a group represents more confidence, more girl power, more unity. They’re anthems, as opposed to confessional songwriting about one person’s life when there are five individual women.
I just love The Cure. I think that their songwriting is so next level, and I really like the juxtaposition between this bad boy attitude and a softer, more emotional idea.
But there’s a thin line between songwriting and arranging.
I really feel like I’ve nailed songwriting. It’s my specialty; it’s what I’m good at.
I’ve always listened to a wide variety of music, and I know that shows through my songwriting evolution.
I’m a songwriter-singer. I’m very vocal oriented, of course, but songwriting – no matter whether it’s for myself or another artist – is of paramount importance to it all.
I struggled with a lot of doubts around my songwriting and around what I was and what my purpose and mission were.
Think back to the early rock n’ roll records, and the average record length in the ’50s – and well into the ’60s – was two and a half minutes. It’s very hard to put that much songwriting into two and a half minutes.
With acting I am being led by the script, other actors, the director, etc. But with songwriting I feel it is much more self reliant and allows me to be in the creative experience without being as dependent on others.
Both with songwriting and playing a role, you’re delivering the truth of something in a moment. In a lot of ways, it’s the same thing.
Songwriting was my own journey. I never fit in with structure in songwriting.
I got a sociology degree and then had an opportunity to go to graduate school. But I said no, because I wanted to give songwriting a shot.
If I weren’t a performer, I would be still be writing and songwriting. Plus, I also really want to get into producing.
The way that I write is very instinctual and based off raw feeling–I’m a very emotional person and I think that comes across in my writing. Also the songwriting that I enjoy, for example Elliott Smith, Leonard Cohen and Nico tend to be both photographic and visceral.
When you tune your guitar in a different way, it lends itself to a new way of looking at your songwriting.
I sat in on some songwriting classes, and it was really bloody hard, a lot of music theory. I’d be sitting there, and they’d be talking all this music theory, and the teacher would say, ‘Let’s ask our guest Jimmy what he thinks,’ and I’d be sitting there thinking, ‘Please don’t ask me, please don’t ask me.’
I’m getting bored performing the same songs over and over. Songwriting comes and goes.
Battle rap is about how much you can say and putting so many different words and expressions together to get your point across, and songwriting is like, how can I get that same point across but by saying less.
I think women gravitate toward me because I am a woman producing and songwriting, and there’s none out there. There really isn’t.
I already had top 10 records before ‘Sunshine Superman,’ with ‘Catch the Wind’ and ‘Colors,’ but this was a real breakthrough for me. It was a consciousness change for songwriting, as people are now saying I initiated the psychedelic revolution with this album, ‘Sunshine Superman.’
Songwriting is too mysterious and uncontrolled a process for me to direct it towards any one thing.
For the most part, the real work is done in the songwriting stage and recording; the next step is presenting to people.
With songwriting I spend a lot of time living life, accruing all these experiences, journaling, and then by the time I get to the studio I’m teeming with the drive to write.
Songwriting has really allowed me to enjoy life and look at it from an objective place.
Creating something beautiful out of pain helps ease the pain. So, that’s kind of how I got to songwriting – quite honestly out of desperation.
My songwriting is so influenced by orchestrated music, dramatic, super glam rock-y stuff. Two of my biggest influences in songwriting were Elton John and Freddie Mercury.
I attended a post-college program in L.A. for Music Business and Production. Took several courses involving Music Production, Arrangement, and Songwriting.
For a songwriter, you don’t really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes. And you try to understand them and take them apart and see what they’re made of, and wonder if you can make one, too.
