A Quote by Matt Berninger

A lot of my lyrics are approximate meaning without me knowing why they sound right. — © Matt Berninger
A lot of my lyrics are approximate meaning without me knowing why they sound right.
There are many songs that have become popular and people sing along with it without knowing the meaning of its lyrics.
The lyrics are not an important thing to me. In fact, it can be a distraction. If I knew the language enough to know it was a horrible love song with stupid lyrics - like most of the popular songs are today in the English language that I hear - then it would be much more of a turnoff then if it would allow me to interpret it from the expressive capabilities of the vocalizing or of the sound itself, which allows me to create my own meaning for it, which elevates it into a higher piece of work for me.
Drinking and partying never appealed to me in lyrics - they don't have a lot of meaning behind them.
It's not that you get a cliché and then wiggle it about or use synonyms. You don't take an ordinary decorative paragraph and give it style. What you're trying to do is be faithful to your perceptions and transmit them as faithfully as you can. I say these sentences until they sound right. There's no objective reason why they're right. They just sound right to me.
I think that too many people think too much about my lyrics. I am more a person who works with the sound of a word than with its meaning. Often I just choose the words because of the rhythm not because of the meaning.
Lyrics are important, but it's hard, because English isn't my first language - although it feels like it is these days! I grew up with amazing melodies, so getting that right on a song has always been the key thing for me, but there's no reason why a great melody doesn't deserve great lyrics.
First we start with the lyrics. Most of the lyrics are done by Stefan Kaufmann and me. When we have enough lyrics and enough stories we have the lines to make titles. Then we collect all the ideas of everybody in the band and see which ideas fit together the best with the lyrics to get the right atmosphere. That's the way we compose.
One often speaks without seeing, without knowing, without meaning what one says.
An approximate answer to the right problem is worth a good deal more than an exact answer to an approximate problem.
I wanted to write some lyrics that had some meaning to them, lyrics that were meaningful to me and hopefully people can take something from that.
The Tao belongs neither to knowing nor not knowing. Knowing is false understanding; not knowing is blind ignorance. If you really understand the Tao beyond doubt, it's like the empty sky. Why drag in right and wrong?
I think me, Sean Bonnette and Laura Jane Grace, and a lot of the bands people feel that way about, we're just really honest in our lyrics. I think we got really lucky in that the right kind of people who would appreciate that heard us at the right time, because there are plenty of people that are honest in their lyrics.
Of true knowledge at any time, a good part is merely convenient, necessary indeed to the worker, but not to an understanding of his subject: One can judge a building without knowing where to buy the bricks; one can understand a violin sonata without knowing how to score for the instrument. The work may in fact be better understood without a knowledge of the details of its manufacture, of attention to these tends to distract from meaning and effect.
My third mother is my paternal grandmother. Her name is Viola. She gave me my sense of knowing why, or knowing why it was important to ask why. She made me understand that I don't have to believe everything I hear.
My No. 1 piece of advice, especially for someone who's an actor-singer-dancer - a triple threat, they're called! - people say, 'What's the most important?' I always say acting. Without knowing why you're singing or what you're singing about, it's just noise. And without knowing why you're moving your body, it's just flailing of arms.
I must act now without knowing the results. Thus, I give my actions their only possible meaning for me.
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