Top 31 Lyricists Quotes & Sayings

When it comes to writers and poets, for me it's Vinicius de Moraes. He's one of the greatest lyricists ever.

If one wants to go on living, one must evolve. Before, when we composed, we would start by a series of music themes. Once created, we would hire writers and lyricists to make up the text and the story line. I was the first to do this backwards with 'Man of La Mancha.'

The most thankless job in our film industry is that of lyricists. Next in the list are writers. These two don't get any recognition at all, whereas they have the most important roles in every film today.

Right from my first film, I've introduced several singers and lyricists to the industry.

Some people are the best lyricists, got the most gas, but they don't know have the personality or the people skills to go out there and network and get they recognition and they name out there. Sometimes people can get in the way of they own selves man, real talk.

Glenn Slater is my lyricist who, of the new young lyricists coming along, is the most exciting, I think.

There is no dearth of talented lyricists and I know many of them don't get an opportunity. After I received success, many of them approached me via e-mail or phone calls to tell me about their work. If I feel that a song written by a lyricist is fit for a film on which I am working as a composer, I give them the break.

There's no reason - not yet, anyway - to believe [Bob] Dylan himself endorses such an attitude; or that he would think of himself as a more profound and worthy recipient than, for instance, any of the brilliant Motown or girl-group lyricists who are more likely to be awarded a Nobel prize for chemistry than for literature. Whether there is more truth and humanity in his best lyrics than in Abba's, or less, is unquantifiable, and it would be meretricious to attempt such a calculation in contesting an argument he has been dragged into.

[I have] my own view about [Bob] Dylan's Nobel prize. Which is, I'm firmly in the Nay camp. I do think the award is a category error, but that's not why. Not in itself. What bothers me is the perceived status of the categories. If pop lyricists were routinely considered for the prize as are authors and poets, I'd still think it mistaken, but I wouldn't much care. But I am quite certain that Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen, for example, both at the very least Dylan's equals as writers, have never been in the running and never will be.

I'm not really a comparison dude. Even when people say 'Big or Pac?,' because they're two totally different types of lyricists.

Composers and lyricists are making songs that are approved by the producers and directors.

Especially on Broadway, composers and lyricists fretted over their creations, obsessed over every rhyme, every critical chord or interval. The stakes were so high. On Broadway, people were watching and judging, especially newspaper critics who knew a thousand ways to slice and dice a songwriter for the entertainment of hundreds of thousands of faithful readers. There was no anonymity for the Broadway songwriter. Even the best could find themselves stripped naked the morning after by the tastemakers and their readers.

I speak from the heart. Certain people follow lyricists and people that put words on a dictionary together, and this and that. I'm more of a rapper that speaks how I feel. I just tell it how it is.

I've always done music with so-called thug- or gangster-type lyricists. I've always been associated with that because I'm from the West Coast.

Although the civil-rights movement did a lot to change how black life was dramatized on the American stage in the fifties and sixties, white composers and lyricists often still rely on familiar tropes when it comes to representing black women in musicals.

I feel like a lyricist is somebody that writes their own lyrics. Now songwriters and lyricists are two totally different things. You can't really be a lyricist if you didn't write your lyrics. There's no passion, there's nothing in it coming from you. It's somebody else's feelings and you just taking it and running with it.

Lyricists play with words.

I'd have to say that Kenny White has earned a place among my favorite singer/songwritersand particularly, lyricists. As we say in the trade “he goes deep.” A true wordsmith AND musician who reveals a fine sense of humor, as well. Put on your headphones and listen carefully.

Composers and lyricists are not responsible for storyline and casting. One can imagine actors shouldering this responsibility, since they charge for half the film. But producers never ask actors to share the losses. Instead, they train their guns on composers and lyricists.

I would like to see more new productions of new material by new composers/lyricists/book writers. I would like to see people take more chances. I think because everything costs so much they're not taking the chances they used to.

What earns my respect is... I love great lyricists, artists that can create incredible rhymes or incredible songs. The same thing goes if you're a singer. I definitely respect that.

Although I was able to study music with teachers, I never studied lyric writing. I read poetry, and I read other lyricists. But they were never writing in the style or the form that I was interested in.

Nas is truly one of the greatest lyricists to ever come out of Queens, which has produced more great MCs than any other borough. He's one of the greatest MCs of my lifetime and in the world. He's also a friend.

When I came into films, I found a vacuum in the field of lyricists, writers and composers.

My thoughts on Eminem have always been that he is one of the greatest lyricists ever. I've never been a fan because I can't relate to a lot of his world views and experiences, but I acknowledge that he's one of the greatest MCs.

Everyone eventually winds up writing about themselves - the problem is finding the best way to go about it. To write about oneself literally, in the first person, presumes a more interesting personal life and philosophy than most rock lyricists possess. John Lennon was good for one great album based on musical direct address, 'Plastic Ono Band.

I think, in reading a few sentences of text, you can just tell the tone, and that's something I love in prose writers but in lyricists as well.

Lyrics should not need to stand on their own; many of [Bob] Dylan's do, but in common with other great lyricists, he has written plenty that falters on the page but soars in song.

Usually when I write lyrics I try to read a lot and listen to a lot of other stuff. Some of my favourite lyricists are like Lou Reed, kind of the classics - Bob Dylan and stuff like that.

Some people are great lyricists, but they're terrible at melody. But I could do melodies till the cows come home.

I rate Morrissey as one of the best lyricists in Britain. For me, he's up there with Bryan Ferry.