I first bought a Buffy Sainte-Marie record when I was 12, and her music has always remained with me. In the 1960s, as a political activist, Buffy’s lyrics were fearless, and I’m very grateful for all the risks that she took.
The first time I heard ‘White Man in Hammersmith Palais,’ I loved the vulnerability in the music and the lyrics.
I love clever lyrics.
Lyrics need to be good, but they don’t need to be obvious right away.
Pac get busy. People can’t take nothing from him. On the lyrics, he get busy, straight up.
When I was younger, I was terrified to express anger because it would often kick-start a horrible reaction in the men in my life. So I bit my tongue. I was left to painstakingly deal with the aftermath of my avoidance later in life, in therapy or through the lyrics of my songs.
I’ve tried every which way for writing lyrics – everything from using really bizarre imagery and metaphors, sort of obscuring the facts of what I’m singing about, all the way over to a song like ‘Losing My Mind,’ where you’re just reading my thoughts as they’re occurring.
To me, the lyrics of the song define the kind of style it is.
As a firm believer in the power of songwriting, I feel privileged to be part of a team that continues to help us all understand the true force and impact of lyrics and music around the world. Genius is special – it’s remixing the digital playbook and owning a new space in music and tech.
I love ‘Sunday in the Park with George.’ I saw that when I was just, just starting theater school, and I remember singing ‘Finishing the Hat’ or at least reading the lyrics to ‘Finishing the Hat’ and other songs from ‘Sunday in the Park with George’ to my mom to try to explain why I wanted to be an artist.
Bob Dylan has a way with words that simply blows me away. When he forgets his lyrics he just makes up new ones on the spot, that is what I called talented!
I get the lyrics of a tune and interpret them my way.
The reach of Coke and McDonald’s is undeniable, and I’m thrilled these iconic brands are joining forces to inspire local communities through messages of peace and motivation in unique ways. It’s an added bonus that they are using the lyrics to ‘Rise Up’ as a part of those messages.
The process is always the same. I get an inspiration for a new song, I put it down on paper immediately so I won’t lose it. When I am ready to go to the studio with it, I play it a few times on the piano and edit, add, and type the lyrics and take it to the studio. Sometimes I don’t have anything on paper.
People ask me if I left the lyrics open to ambiguity. Of course I did. I wanted to make a whole series of complex statements. The lyrics had to do with the state of society at the time.
Music critics think of lyrics first and don’t consider melody but so many songs are lyrically depressing but musically great, and that’s why they become classics.
Personally, I have a hard time playing live. A big part of it is because the lyrics are really private.
I write a lot of lyrics and I’m involved in the producing process, because it’s like, if I’m singing it, I want it to be something that I can relate to.
I think my voice worked out fine, but it was a lot of work for me. And I was very self-conscious about it. I was a bit self-conscious about writing lyrics too.
When I first started writing music, it was all really angry, angst-y lyrics. But then there was a point where I realized that people are clearly listening to what I have to say, so if I have the power to bring somebody up, why would I bring them down?
Lyrics are coming to you all the time. I get inspiration in the middle of the night.
I sing. I used to think singing is going to be the route, and I still sing to this day. I still try to write lyrics.
I am happy that I could collaborate with poets like O.N.V. Kurup and Yusufali Kechery in my career; they wrote meaningful lyrics, which made my songs last longer.
I think ‘Adiye/Yadike’ is unique and fresh and something new for Indian films. It brings together the blues and gospel feel with Tamil folk lyrics.
Yes, Justin Bieber is a contrivance. Yes, Justin Bieber’s lyrics are insipid – worse still, disingenuous. Yes, his tattoos stink. Yes, he’s lousy at skateboarding. But what does any of this actually matter? In case you missed it, Bieber won.
My interest in the theater led me to my first writing experience as an adult. My husband David wrote the music and lyrics and I wrote the book for a children’s musical, ‘Spacenapped’ that was produced by a neighborhood theater in Brooklyn.
I usually write lyrics first, and then when I get home or close to any kind of instrument, I usually make a melody for those lyrics.
People tend to put too much focus on the lyrics. It’s not the be-all and end-all of our songs.
I know my lyrics might be weird to some, but they’re not like that to me because I know where they come from – I know the secret.
I never walk into the studio and say, I’m going to write a song called… ‘X’ or called ‘Slow Me Down.’ I write a ton of lyrics, often the title is somewhere in those 10 pages of… I call it brain vomit. It’s kind of like whatever comes out of my head and I’m unabashedly just writing it down.
If I’m in the shower sometimes I’ll blurt out some lyrics to whatever song’s in my head that day. It’s a lot of Migos and Drake.
People assume that the meaning of a song is vested in the lyrics. To me, that has never been the case. There are very few songs that I can think of where I remember the words.
Before I met Bad Bunny, I had this image of him from his lyrics and songs, and I met a very cultured and nice man that I could have deep conversations with.
I like to write in fairly everyday language – I’ve always tried to write lyrics that, if people would speak the words, it wouldn’t sound like a song.
But then you have to write a song, so at that point, I picked up the reins and started to write lyrics.
I love knowing that people are connecting to my lyrics, my music and me.
The fact that I’m shouting that I have Gangnam style makes people crack up. Imagine if Brad Pitt was singing the song – would it be funny? A twist is important when it comes to writing lyrics.
When I hear someone, instantaneously, I’m like, ‘Who’s singing?’ You’re giving people so much of yourself, and my voice is the most natural, distinctive tool I have. It’s up to me to express myself on a wider scale than just writing vocal melodies and lyrics.
I would love to write a song that’s exciting, bright, and has a fresh melody and lyrics.
People always talk about the lyrics of Leonard Cohen, but I like his melodies. They are very defined and original.
Composers now just don’t have the depth of inspiration for melody. Most of the lyrics of the pop songs you hear today are repetitious. They’re almost nursery rhymes, as if written by children – which they are.
We take a lot of care with lyrics because we don’t want to offend anybody.
At art school, a teacher said: ‘The best paintings are when you get lost in a piece of work and start painting in a stream of consciousness.’ I wanted to do music, not art, so started writing lyrics that way. The first song I wrote was called ‘Ice Cream and Wafers.’ The next was ‘Holding Back the Years.’
Guess what, Beyonce? White people like your music, too. White people buy your songs on iTunes, memorize your lyrics, and admire your talent and beauty. Little white girls wanna be like you just as little black girls do, but instead of that, you’d rather perpetuate the great battle of the races.
On ‘Love Letters’, I focused exclusively on songs with lyrics, creating a collection of songs that directly address heartbreak and its ensuing emotions in a way that instrumental music can only hint at.
I privilege the music over the lyrics.
I like lyrics a lot.
I don’t know if it’s my music, my lyrics, my sound, and knowing the music business the way I do-all I can say is, my career has lasted way longer than I expected.
I get even more nervous singing when everyone’s fallen silent, but I really try to communicate the meaning of the lyrics, and there’s people there listening to that, and if they’re moved by it, then I’m moved as well.
Too many times you come across lyrics that sound like you’ve heard them before or you can’t really relate to them. And I think that I write songs that sound fresh and sensual in kind of a layered, lush way. But I also think that they are real, and that’s why I wanted to call the record ‘Inside Out.’
I pretty much started the lyrics and I hit a roadblock and I think Kerry finished them up. Then I came back and did the ending part. The whole ‘Raining Blood.’ That part. But it pretty much came together easy. It’s a short song.
I have never been able to separate – nor have I wanted to – my personal love and desire for truth, passion, and understanding from my lyrics.
There are loads of fan sites for the ‘Edge,’ including deviant art, song lyrics using ‘Edge’ language, multiple entries on Wikipedia, there are even some ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?’ games all about the ‘Edge.’
Most of my lyrics are little stories about my experiences or those of my friends.
I wrote all the lyrics on ‘Good Vibrations’ and most of them in ‘Kokomo.’ ‘Kokomo’ was extremely popular and fun to sing – it’s probably one of the bigger sing-along songs in our show. But then ‘Help Me Rhonda,’ ‘Surfin’ USA’ and ‘California Girls’ and ‘I Get Around’ and ‘Fun, Fun, Fun’ are great songs as well.
