A Quote by Gord Downie
I write lyrics. putting words and melodies to my songs. That's a real challenge, I take it on vigorously.
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The challenges change depending on the song. There are some songs where the lyrics are really a challenge and then there are other songs where the lyrics are there and the music is a challenge. And then you've got rock songs where the challenge is the tightness of the arrangement with the band. The music and the lyrics are there, but it's a challenge to get the arrangement correct. So I wouldn't be able to point to one thing. What the challenge is changes all of the time.
I write all my own songs and they are just simple melodies with a lot of lyrics. They usually have to do with current events and what is going on in the news. You can call them topical songs, songs about the news, and then developing into more philosophical songs later.
I want to write songs with complete sentences. I almos have this obsession with short-changing words. I would never be so pretentious to say that my lyrics are poetry. ... Poems are poems. Song lyrics are for songs.
Jim had melodies as well as words. He didn't know how to play a chord on any instrument, but he had melodies in his head. To remember the lyrics he would think of melodies and then they would stay in his head. He had melodies and lyrics in his head, and he would sing them a cappella, and we would eke out the arrangements.
There is a great temptation with songs, melodies and lyrics to overcomplicate them but in fact, you find that the most enduring melodies are often the simplest.
I used to print out lyrics from Nas songs and write my own lyrics in the same syllable count but with different words and different rhymes.
I never write a tune before the lyrics. I get the lyrics and then I write around them. Some people write music and the lyrics come along and they say, 'Oh yeah, I've got something to fit that.' If that's the way people write songs, I feel like you might as well just go to the supermarket.
We want to challenge Marilyn Manson and the rap people with the bad lyrics to write some positive songs.
Most Radiohead songs are actually REM songs, I just have a mentally ill child read the lyrics aloud and then I change the melodies a bit.
As far as melodies go, I could probably write 100 songs in a day - with no words of course - just because I love melody.
We like to take pop songs that have really cool, complex melodies or lyrics and strip away all that fluff and electronic noise, and put them back as if they were written for a singer and a piano.
Songs like 'Peaceful World' and songs that are responsible with their lyrics and talk about love and harmony can take the forefront and do something for real.
In Latin America, people want you to write beautiful melodies and words. But there are also songs that do well because they show the reality of life.
If you can say the lyrics almost like a poem and they stand up, that's a great thing. Some songs have great lyrics and I don't like the melodies, and vice versa.
Springsteen's 'Thunder Road' and Carole King's 'It's Too Late' are examples of why I am a singer/songwriter. I practice these songs every day. The melodies are timeless in the rock world, the lyrics are words that I need to say, and they need to be heard again.
At first, I was using my sister Susan's lyrics, as I could not write myself, only the music. And then one day, she and I had a fight, and she threatened to take away the lyrics from all the songs that I put the lyrics to, so it was that day that I began writing my first lyric to the music.
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