Most of the songs I write just very directly from my life. I don't have a big imagination. Whenever I tried to write from fantasy, it comes out sounding really fake.
Most of the songs I write are just very directly from my life. I don't have a big imagination. Whenever I tried to write from fantasy, it comes out sounding really fake.
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.
I always think its easier for me to write without thinking about the strict meter that's required for songs and song structures and things like that. It's much easier to just write on the page.
The kids of today have taken over the music business - most of them very young. Simply because they write and jot down a few notes, they have the idea that they can write songs.
I don't write down my experiences, but I have a very decent memory. I have tons of books in which I write down phrases as they occur to me. That's how I write songs. I'll need a line and I'll go through the books and find it, the right rhyme and everything.
With every album, the approach is find the best songs you can find, write the best songs you can write and try to sound better.
There's a saying, 'It's easy to write songs, but very difficult to write great songs.' I'm going through that right now.
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 always tell people I write songs, but I'm a writer. It's a difference. I can write songs to music, but I can write a story. I can see ideas spark in me.
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.
Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.
I just love to play rock and roll. I love to write songs all the time
about what's up on these streets. I write songs about people getting killed; I write songs about people getting beaten up; I write songsabout people getting taken to jail by the police; and I also write songs about love and happiness.
I like to write pop songs and the stuff I write is fairly poppy, so I thought maybe my lot in life was to write pop songs for people. It never felt right writing songs for other people to sing, though.
I don't want to change the way I write my songs, I like the way I write my songs, so I keep 'em the same. I'd like to write more country songs, but other than that, I'm pretty good where I am.
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.