A Quote by Barry Mann
If I waited for inspiration every time I sat down to write a song I probably would be a plumber today.
Related Quotes
I just sat down and thought, I'm going to write a song today, I'm going to give it a try. So I just stuck it on a tape like everything else. That was just another song.
We've always dreamt of a TV series and working in film. When we first sat down to seriously write 'A Little Nightmare Music,' to write something for TV was our original inspiration. But all the stuff we were writing down is not going to work on stage. We had to rewrite it so it would work on the stage.
Every time I try to write a song, when I sit down and think I'm going to write, I really want to write a song, and it never works out. It's always when it hits me unexpectedly on a plane or right before I go to bed, something like that.
There's a lot of craft in songwriting. The divine inspiration is when the idea comes. It may be a riff. It may be a word. It may be a phrase. It may be a title. Sometimes, in the best of both worlds, that divine inspiration extends through the whole song. I've literally sat down and written a song from beginning to end, almost complete lyrics and everything without ever stopping...in two minutes. The chorus of 'She's Gone' was like that.
I wake up in the morning and I say 'Ahh! Today's the day for a song! I'm going to write a song today!' And I do. I write a song.
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.
Open this notebook every day and write down half a page at the very least. If you have nothing to write down, then at least, following Gogol’s advice, write down that today there’s nothing to write. Always write with attention and look on writing as a holiday.
Are people crazy? People waited all their lives. They waited to live, they waited to die. They waited in line to buy toilet paper. They waited in line for money. And if they didn't have any money they waited in longer lines. You waited to go to sleep and then you waited to awaken. You waited to get married and you waited to get divorced. You waited for it to rain, you waited for it to stop. You waited to eat and then you waited to eat again. You waited in a shrink's office with a bunch of psychos and you wondered if you were one.
I can't explain inspiration. A writer is either compelled to write or not. And if I waited for inspiration I wouldn't really be a writer.
Write down everything you can think of, no matter how stupid it seems. I always write down my thoughts throughout the day. Sometimes good things come out of it, and I'll find an idea to develop into a song, so my best advice is to try and draw inspiration from everyday things.
Had I mentioned to someone around 1795 that I planned to write, anyone with any sense would have told me to write for two hours every day, with or without inspiration. Their advice would have enabled me to benefit from the ten years of my life I totally wasted waiting for inspiration.
I try to write down every song that comes to me, even though I know that every song that comes to me isnt a song that I need to sing.
I try to write down every song that comes to me, even though I know that every song that comes to me isn't a song that I need to sing.
I'm not the kind of writer that goes, 'I'm gonna write a song about sunshine,' or, 'I've just heard a phrase, so I'm gonna write that,' and then I write a song. I'll wait for inspiration to hit, and you can't depend on it.
Sometimes a song can take up to a year to write, and because I waited that year and waited to work on it that day, it came up that extra 50 percent.
I got the idea for the song 'Bad Company' when I saw a poster for the Jeff Bridges movie, and it reminded of an old Victorian picture that I'd once seen, and it said, 'Beware of bad company.' So I sat down at the piano and started to write the song.
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