Top 1200 Singer-songwriters Quotes & Sayings - Page 4

The biggest question I have is if you're a rock singer or a rock 'n' roll band, or if you're a pop singer... if you've made your way in another genre of music and now you want to make a country record, why? That's my question. Why?

Songwriters write songs, but they really belong to the listener.

Mine is an actor's voice, not a singer's voice, but the part was written for an actor (Richard Burton), not a singer.

Now any person who plays an acoustic guitar standing up on stage with a microphone is a folk singer. Some grandmother with a baby in her arms singing a 500-year-old song, well, she's not a folk singer, she's not on stage with a guitar and a microphone. No, she's just an old grandmother singing an old song. The term "folk singer" has gotten warped.

Probably most successful songwriters have an innate songwriting ability.

We pride ourselves on being great songwriters.

The biggest question I have is if you're a rock singer or a rock 'n' roll band, or if you're a pop singer if you've made your way in another genre of music and now you want to make a country record, why? That's my question. Why?

I hate it when songwriters go on and on with the same idea.

I would love to play with Rufus Wainwright. He's one of my favorite songwriters.

I fell in love with Nashville and wrote with some of the best songwriters here.

Yes was without a singer at that point, cause they were doing ABWH, so you had ABWH, and then you had the 90125 band without a singer.

Canada has a great tradition of supporting songwriters.

(For songwriters) Development of your facility as a musician is also important.

All songwriters are known as 'topliners' because the vocal goes on top of the track.

Most of the best songwriters that ever lived couldn't read music.

At the end of the day, all people want to do is hear a great singer sing a great song. They don't care about what vocal changes it went through. You can't screw up a great song and a great singer.

There's a lot for screenwriters to steal from songwriters, in terms of getting to the point.

There’s a lot for screenwriters to steal from songwriters, in terms of getting to the point.

What I mean is that none of my talents had a - what's that great word - rubric. A singer, an actor, a dancer - there was nothing I could really say I was. The writing came much later. And, actually, thank God, because if I had said I'm a singer, I would really have just had one thing to do.

My dad has a lot of foresight and decided that I would not do any shows in Mumbai till I became a singer and got to sing my own songs. He knew that if I started earning money from shows, I would not have the time and aggression to rough it out to become a singer.

How can a song all about struggling with the afterglow of fame thrust someone into fame? How can a lyric like, 'I'm just a singer who already blew his shot,' give a singer another shot? I don't know... but it's funny.

Very unique: I was a singer-songwriter-guitarist. Very unusual in the late Seventies to find a singer-songwriter, and on top of that, a guitarist.

I know I can cut it with any songwriters in the world.

It's unfortunate we've never been just songwriters.

Carole King is one of my all-time favorite songwriters.

Never say that your life is to be a singer. You want to sing because it's a part of your life. But if you don't succeed as a singer, it doesn't mean you don't have a life and it's over.

A cabaret song has got to be written - for the middle voice, ideally - because you've got to hear the wit of the words. And a cabaret song gives the singer room to act, more even than an opera singer.

I'm called a folk singer, and I'm not too sure about that. I went about my life approaching music not from the point of view of a singer, but from the point of view of an actor. That's how I first started to sing.

When I lost the use of my hi-hat and bass drum legs, I became basically a singer. I was a drummer who did a bit of singing, and then I became a singer who did a bit of percussion.

I never let anyone tell me anything growing up and I knew I wanted to be a singer. I would say to every single person that entered my life, 'I'm going to be a singer, I'm going to be on billboards and I'm going to smash it!' You have to put it into the universe, you've got to be positive and not let anything hold you back.

When I used to live in Asia, they used to say, "If you're going to sing karaoke, you want to go after the worst singer." And I'd be coming in Deutsche Telekom after the worst singer.

We felt like, first and foremost, we were songwriters.

I love being part of the ASCAP family of songwriters and composers.

A soul singer is always singing to their crowd. They're always singing about their woes to you. And I really appreciate that when a singer is making you feel... when they're directing it at me. When they're including me.

Songwriters are still the brightest people in any room.

I went to university and studied English literature, and I forgot about music. I was gonna be a journalist. But then I decided to try and be a backing singer, and my mum was like, "Go for it." If that didn't work, I was gonna go to law school. I was just being boringly sensible; trying to be a singer felt a bit indulgent.

I trained as a singer before I was an actor. I was a kid singer, I went to theater and choir school, and then I got music scholarships throughout my education. And that's what I was going to do. And then I took a left turn and went to drama school and became an actor.

Everyone has their own path in life, no matter if it's being a celebrity or a singer. Quite frankly, I didn't move to Nashville and tell myself I wanted to be a singer because I wanted to be a celebrity or I wanted to be somebody that people admired. I wasn't about that. I just loved music.

And I can say this, most of the people who have recorded my songs are songwriters themselves.

Fundamentally, our job as songwriters is to sit down and listen.

There are phrases that are totally cliche that we, as songwriters, owe it to ourselves to not use again.

I never thought about becoming a professional singer, but I am in touch with Bono about releasing a musical movie. It will be about an Irish band during the '70s who are looking for fortune in Las Vegas. I should play the singer of the band but I don't want to sing in front of anybody.

People expect not just songwriters but all personalities to pontificate about their egos.

I know exactly what songwriters are going through.

I love music and songwriters from the '60s and '70s.

I hate when songwriters refer to their songs as babies.

I wouldn't really call myself a Jazz singer I think it's offending to real Jazz singers to call me a Jazz singer.

Traditionally, songwriters can't sing. And that holds true in my case, also.

I don't think I'm the worst singer, but I don't think I'm the best singer.

I really studied her singing, trying to see what it was about her that made her such a natural, incredible singer. Because sometimes as a singer, you really have to work to reach a certain note. And for Donna Summer, it seemed effortless.

She was twenty and had come to realize that, though she had a voice, she wasn't a singer; that to endure and embrace the life of a singer demands a whole lot more than a voice.

Songwriters tend to make records instead of talking to people.

You know Marques Houston, you know I'm a dancer, I'm a singer, but I wouldn't want to do a movie that I'm a dancer and a singer in. I want to do movies that people can take me more seriously in as an actor, because when you're making that transition, it is tough.

I won because I was the people's favorite dancer, and that's what I work with these Idols on. There have been 1,000 singers before you that are as good or better than you, but you're not trying to be the best singer ever. You're trying to be the people's favorite singer.

I'm lucky to be collaborating with a lot of great songwriters/producers - and it's all about chemistry!

Before any girl was making me her Man Crush Monday, I was a singer. Back before I had muscles, when I had a bird chest, I was a singer. I've always been like this, and I've gotten better because I've progressed.

I'm not a singer. I'm not an R&B singer. I'm an artist.

A lot of the great songwriters in history have been collaborators, with a separate lyricist.

The line between producers, songwriters, and remixers is so thin.

I've learned as much about writing from songwriters as I have from other writers.