A Quote by James Vincent McMorrow

I was never a 'sit down with a notepad and write lyrics' kind of person. — © James Vincent McMorrow
I was never a 'sit down with a notepad and write lyrics' kind of person.
You find there's no magic trick, sometimes in the shower, sometimes you're just lying in bed calm, sometimes you're just enjoying life and just have a notepad, it's never far away. Always have a notepad on you, because you never know what's going to happen, take a moment and write it down the minute that comes in your head. Even if you can't deal with it until later, I've had that experience where I was in a wedding party and I'm on stage, I'm like, "I hope I don't forget this, something just occurred to me."
I never sit down to write. When I'm moved, I do it. I just wait for it to come. You just hear it. I can't really describe writing. It's in my head. I don't think about the styles. I write whatever comes out and I use whatever kind of instrumentation works for those songs...A lot of people don't listen to the lyrics, really. A lot of people pretty much only listen to the chorus.
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.
Most of the time, the lyrics are kind of like my secret messages to my friends or my boyfriend or my mom or my dad. I would never tell them that these songs are about them or which specific lyric is about somebody. Often, when I sit down to write a lyric, it is in the heat of the moment, and something has just happened.
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.
I never was a sick like throwing up type of guy. I get nervous with the butterflies in the stomach. I was never a throwing up kind of guy... I'm kind of a pacer. I can't sit down. I can't sit still. I guess that's why I don't ever sit down the whole game.
I just write verses. I don't write all day long. When I have something that needs to be said, I just write it down on my notepad in my iPhone.
I didn't even write the lyrics down. I got in the booth, I put down a little guitar riff and the idea I had was it was going to be really simple, I just want it to be all about the lyrics and I just literally sang the lyrics.
When I sit down and try to write lyrics first - I've definitely done that in the past - but most of the time, they come off as a put-on, or less genuine than you would think. I'm the kind of guy that if I overthink a sentiment or I overthink a statement, it's weird.
When I create lyrics, I just go off of energy. Sometimes I write down my lyrics on my phone and most times I remember the lyrics in my head.
I don't sit down to write a country song. I don't sit down to write a rap song. I just sit down to write a song, you know what I mean? And I try to make that song the best it can be.
When I was 15 or 16 playing in groups, we used to sit in the car and try to write the lyrics down as a song was playing, and we'd assign each person a verse, you know: 'I'm going to do the first one. You go for the second one.' And then sometimes you'd wait an hour for it to come on again so you could finish it up.
I write the music because I can't really write lyrics. But I can write chords like Robin's never heard of. So I provide the music for them to add the lyrics to.
I understand what's going on, and when I see the fervor, when I see 25,000 people that have seats and not one person during an hour speech will sit down, I say sit down everybody, sit down, and they don't sit down, I mean, that's a great compliment but I do understand the power of the message. There's no question about that.
When you sit down and write a song, you kind of have the idea for the song, and you sit there at the piano and you kinda just write it. And then of course later there's some dinking around with it and changing some stuff.
It's never like, 'Now I'm going to sit down and write this or that kind of song.' The melodies may show up in the car, in the shower.
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