A Quote by Antoniette Costa

My head translates emotions into song. Songwriting is cathartic for me. — © Antoniette Costa
My head translates emotions into song. Songwriting is cathartic for me.

Quote Author

At the end of the day I'm not just sending beats in. I'm mixing the song. I'm recording the song. I'm engineering the song. I'm in the studio helping with the songwriting. I'm doing the whole beat - every single piece of it is me.
Keeping my emotions in check translates to me playing a lot better.
'If Our Love Is Wrong' is, quite simply, my coming out song, as I was trying to wrap my head around my sexuality and was starting to learn about songwriting, and that my honesty and my authenticity came from my personal experiences and writing about stuff that genuinely bugged me or upset me.
The big problem with songwriting for me is starting a new song. It's the thing where all the anguish exists, not in the writing of the song, but the starting of the new song. What do I write about? I never know.
A sentimentalist is one who delights to have high and devout emotions stirred whilst reading in an arm-chair, or in a prayer meeting, but he never translates his emotions into action. Consequently a sentimentalist is usually callous, self-centred and selfish, because the emotions he likes to have stirred do not cost him anything.
The big problem with songwriting for me is starting a new song. It's the thing where all the anguish exists, not in the writing of the song, but the starting of the new song.
Hopefully when you listen to a song, you can say, 'That's me,' or 'That's someone I know' - you relate to it in a way that's cathartic.
It seemed inevitable to try to address my feelings about everything that had happened. To a certain degree, it felt cathartic, but it's less cathartic to me than it is illuminating and helping me navigate my own feelings.
Wherever inspiration comes from, it's like I'll hear a melody and chords, almost a rough structure of the whole thing [song]. I'll just hear it and chase what's in my head. The rest comes from jamming with band, improvising, seeing what comes up as well. I'll come up with it off the top of my head, catch it, sing and hum, and if something is missing, just jam, and that's the [songwriting] process.
Sometimes you're writing a song and you have an image whilst writing a song. I don't think you ever base a songwriting process around a video, but when you're writing a song sometimes it'll be a very visual song.
That is what intrigues me; songwriting and song structure and expression.
Music's always been really cathartic. It's the best drug for me to get away from the everyday pressures just for a second via a good song.
I wrote a song called 'Red' and thinking about what that song means to me and all the different emotions on this album they're all pretty much about the tumultuous, crazy, insane, intense, semi-toxic relationships I've experienced in the last two years. All those emotions fanning from intense love, intense frustration, intense jealousy, confusion, all of that in my mind, all those emotions are red. There's nothing in between, there's nothing beige about those feelings and so I called my record that.
For me songwriting is very...it's almost like an accident. 'Oh I accidentally wrote about that.' I sit down with the urge to write a song and then afterward it turns out being really personal. I get really overwhelmed by how I feel a lot and sometimes - I feel like my body and my brain can't deal with all the different emotions and I feel like I'm just going to explode.
I see pictures in my mind and become the character in the song as I'm writing. It's kind of method songwriting, where you're the actor in the song.
It gets quite difficult for me when I listen to pop music. I don't often understand the words, but when someone translates them to me, I think, 'What is this song representing? That women are just there to be treated like objects?'
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!