A Quote by Regina Spektor

It doesn’t feel natural for me to write some diary type song. I want to write a classic like Yesterday but weird songs about meatballs in refrigerators come into my head – I can’t help it.
I can't write story-songs, like I couldn't write a Bob Dylan or Tom Waits song. I can only write whatever weird phrases come into my head, and hope that they're good.
I find that I end up liking songs if I really have an idea of something I wat to write about-some problem in my life or something I want to work through; if I don't have something like that at the root of the song, then I think I end up not caring about it as much. I gravitate towards some kind of concept or idea or situation that I want to write about. Very often I have to write, rewrite and come at it from an opposite angle...and I end up writing the opposite song that I thought I was going to write.
There are no limitations with a song. To me a song is a little piece of art. It can be whatever you like it to be. You can write the simplest song, and that's lovely, or you can just write a song that is abstract art. ... A lot of my songs are very serious, I'm like dead serious about certain things and I feel that I'm writing about the world, through my own eyes. ... I have a love for simple basic song structure, although sometimes you'd never know it. ... Most of the songs I wrote at night. I would just wake in the middle of the night. That's when I found the space to write.
I don't want to write the song that I wrote yesterday, and I don't want to write the song I'm going to write tomorrow; I only write the music I'm writing now.
You should write songs about what you feel, but you can't write in such a way like it's a diary entry. You should write it in a way that people understand in their lives.
I usually don't write songs by people calling me and saying, 'Write a song about this.' Usually I'm just going with what I want to write, so you never know.
Throughout all of the changes that have happened in my life, one of the priorities I've had is to never change the way I write songs and the reasons I write songs. I write songs to help me understand life a little more. I write songs to get past things that cause me pain. And I write songs because sometimes life makes more sense to me when it's being sung in a chorus, and when I can write it in a verse.
If I hear one of my songs by anybody, it's a dream come true every time for me as a songwriter, because I want to write a song, I want to write a song that the world can sing and will always sing.
Now I don't drink, and I get up in the morning and I write in my diary, and I can write in my diary for hours if I feel like it. And I'm still sober so I can write the stories that I'm working on, and I can sit at the desk as long as I need to. So that changed a lot, I think.
The people at the record company had asked me if I could write a song about my life, my relationship with God, and where I'm from. Well, I can't write a song on purpose, my songs come in a moment of inspiration or desperation.
I sit and I write automatically. I don't really try to write. My subconscious mind takes over and writes the songs for me. Songs come very easily for me. When I'm inspired, it takes me 20 minutes to write a song.
I tend to write songs critiquing myself. The best way for me to deal with stuff is to write a song about it... That's not to say all my songs are like that.
I feel like my songs are like diary entries for me. So I usually write about things that have happened to me specifically or sometimes it can be someone who's close to me.
I don't want to do children's music. I write kids songs, but the kids songs I write are for my kids - like when I'm putting them to bed. We sing some song that we made up but I don't want to make a record like that.
I think from a major-label perspective, if you were on the flip side of things and that's the world you were used to working in, your interpretation could be, "Oh, they're having trouble writing songs," when really it's like, "No, I'm not ready to write songs, I don't want to write a song right now, if I did write a song, it would be forced."
The thing that bothers me is that it seems like all the sensitive stuff I write just goes unnoticed . . . the media doesn't get who I am at all. Or maybe they just can't accept it. It doesn't fit into those negative stories they like to write. I'm the kind of guy who is moved by a song like Don McLean's "Vincent," that one about Van Gogh. The lyric on that song is so touching. That's how I want to make my songs feel. Take "Dear Mama" - I aimed that one straight for my homies' heartstrings.
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