A Quote by Paul Simon

Much of songwriting is simply a mystery.

Paul Simon

Quote Topics

Much Mystery Simply Songwriting

Quote Author

Paul Simon
American - Musician
Born: October 13, 1941

Songwriting is a mystery. And it's a mystery to me that it's a mystery. But that sounds stupid.

Neil Finn

The first mystery is simply that there is a mystery, a mystery that can never be explained or understood, only encountered from time to time. Nothing is obvious. Everything conceals something else.

Lawrence Kushner

There's a standard of songwriting that, when you start immersing yourself in those types of songs, it raises your own bar as a songwriter. There's also simplicity in the songwriting. It's much harder to be simple than it is to be complicated.

Sinead O'Connor

I draw the line at letting people into my songwriting cave. To me, that's where the alchemy happens and where the mystery is.

Amanda Palmer

My songwriting has brought so much to me as an artist and my ability that I have as an artist has brought so much to my songwriting that they live off each other. Without one, the other one dies.

Ahmad Balshe

Every man is half God, half man; he is both spirit and flesh. That is why the mystery of Christ is not simply a mystery for a particular creed: It is universal.

Nikos Kazantzakis

We keep thinking of deity as a kind of fact, somewhere; God as a fact. God is simply our own notion of something that is symbolic of transcendence and mystery. The mystery is what’s important.

Joseph Campbell

I think we're very much in a mystery here in this life and that artists try to pierce the mystery with their art.

Mary Gauthier

I think people try so hard to learn everything that they miss all the wonderful essentials. There is so much mystery in life that you should leave a mystery.

Iris Apfel

Human beings are like detectives. They love a mystery. They love going where the mystery pulls them. What we don't like is a mystery that's solved completely. It's a letdown. It always seems less than what we imagined when the mystery was present. The last scene in `Blow Up' is so perfect because you leave the theater still dreaming. Or the end of `Chinatown,' where the guy says `Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown.' It explains so much but it only gives you a dream of a bigger mystery. Like life. For me, I want to solve certain things but leave some room to dream.

David

You can't manufacture inspiration, so a lot of it is still a waiting game for me. There's still a lot of mystery to songwriting. I don't have a method that I can go back to - they either come or they don't.