A Quote by James Taylor

It's true that I can write a song and not really be sure what the meaning of it is. — © James Taylor
It's true that I can write a song and not really be sure what the meaning of it is.
The hardest song to write is a protest song, a topical song with meaning.
I'm never sure if I'll ever write another song, what the song will be about and if what initially sparked the beginning of a song might complete it.
Sometimes when you're writing a song, it's work, and you really have to make sure you're kind of pounding out every little piece of it. And then sometimes you write a song, and you turn around and you go, 'How did we do that?'
I really, really enjoy fitting words together - but I only enjoy it when it's easy, when it sort of rolls along by itself. I never erase anything [and] I hardly ever write anything down... The song will be finished before I write it down... I won't write a song unless it serves me in some way, unless I feel I have to write the song to make myself feel better. If you're not overflowing with something, there's nothing to give.
It's a really big struggle for me to write a song. Songs take either 30 seconds for me to write or a year or two to piece together, depending on the song and how I'm feeling on any given day. I don't really like to write music at all unless I am completely unbothered by touring.
You don't really write a hit song - you write a great song, and then, if the public decides it's a hit, they take over from there. The song becomes its own monster.
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.
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.
Actually think anybody ever approaches writing any song, I think the song approaches them, truth be told. Usually what happens is that a song arrives and afterwards you say that "I wrote the song," and it's not actually true; they find you, they write themselves.
So if somebody writes a song that appears to have some meaning then everybody thinks that it's a really heavy song.
To write a love song that might be able to make it on the radio, that is something that is terrifying to me. But I can definitely write a song about that chair over there. That I can do, but to sit and write a pop song out of the clear blue sky, that is very difficult and I admire the people that can do it.
I always try to write the best song I can in the moment, and those songs are often going to end up on Death Cab for Cutie records. I don't set out to write a solo song or write a band song. I just write, and where that songs ends up is kind of TBD.
It takes a long time for me to just say 'I'm going to get a tat.' I really do my homework on it and make sure that it's perfect and the way I want it and make sure there's always meaning because I never get anything without meaning.
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.
Early on I realized when you write a song about someone, it flatters them on some level, and gives you a lot of room to move within a relationship. A song can kind of get the girl, for sure.
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."
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