Top 1200 Singer-songwriters Quotes & Sayings - Page 5

I think that's the great thing for us - we're a band full of songwriters, and we're capable of writing all kinds of songs.

I'm basically a songwriter, man. Songwriters are down in the fine print, you know? And I really enjoy that.

I quit my software engineer job, decided that I would be a singer, and got married. Those days, there were no platforms like the 'Indian Idol.' It was like, you decide to become a singer, and then what do you do? It must have been tough for my wife getting married to a man without a job.

It really wasn't until I realized that country music had a whole underworld of songwriters that I dug into it.

I think a lot of songwriters would agree that it's often easier to find inspiration in misery.

I love it when people refer to me as a singer-songwriter. I get flutters in my stomach because they say, 'This is Grace VanderWaal, singer-songwriter,' not, 'This is Grace VanderWaal, winner of 'America's Got Talent.'' I'm so proud of that; it's such a big chapter of my life. But it's nice to kind of not be known as just that.

A great song can make a terrible singer sound good, but a good singer - you put a great song on top of that, you're really in great shape!

All my favorite songwriters are American - Jad Fair, Jonathan Richman and Jeffrey Lewis.

Songwriters such as Alanis Morissette write about the constant balance of contradictions, and that's something I adhere to in my life and work.

I don't know why songwriters struggle. They have to, I guess. If you're a young songwriter, quit struggling. It makes you look bad.

Paul McCartney, one of the best songwriters of all time, has only produced manure for the past 25 years.

I feel there must be an enormous amount of really talented songwriters out there who can't sing.

I'm probably much more influenced by film-makers and painters than I am by other songwriters or poets.

I had already been a young singer. And once, as a profession, I was a young singer, what you would call a soprano in England, but I was an alto in singing Jewish music in bar mitzvahs and weddings and synagogues throughout New York City because, after Israel, New York is probably the biggest Jewish community in the world.

When you research prolific songwriters, it is usually later in their career they write songs that they distance themselves from, or it's about other people.

I'm one of not even a handful of British Asian popstars who are maninstream. Of course I was always tagged as British Asian singer Jay Sean as opposed to pop R'n'B singer Jay Sean.

I never took singing lessons. I guess, I feel comfortable with it, but I do not feel like a singer. I never want to sing without a guitar in my hand. I consider myself more of a songwriter, rather than a singer. I could never be in a wedding band and just sing Marvin Gaye songs.

Well, the teacher I studied with for nineteen and a half years was a man named Paul Gavert. He was a great lieder singer, so basically I'm a trained lieder singer because of that teacher. The teacher I currently study with - since 1995 - is Joan Lader, who also studied with Gavert.

I wouldn't consider myself a songwriter at all. Maybe I piece together a certain little thing here and there, but songwriters are people who do this with sheet music.

Paris Singer had vastly more to do with shaping my character than Mother had; although Mother made innumerable sacrifices for me, and Paris Singer made none. I wanted to be like him.

I didn't want to be the crippled songwriter or the crippled singer. I wanted to be the singer or the songwriter who was crippled. I wanted to be larger than life and a man among men.

All we do as songwriters is rewrite the songs that have impressed us till we find our own voice. It's part of learning the craft.

I've just always been around great songwriters. To me, they were the standard.

So many songwriters peak in their early 20s because they're living off their passions.

In the past, being young, I might have been standoffish to working with other songwriters.

Unless you use the vocoder the way Daft Punk use it, it is very limited. When they sing it's almost human. It sounds sexy. I just used it as an effect. It wasn't because I was not able to sing; I'm not a great singer, but I had some hits as a singer, too. It's a nice effect.

When I sing a pop song, I'm a pop singer. When I sing a country song, I'm a country singer. I've been very lucky to cross over, because by doing that, you can't be pigeonholed.

When I was a teenager, I dreamed of being an opera singer like Maria Callas or a jazz singer like June Christy or Chris Connor, or approaching songs with the kind of mystical lethargy of Billie Holiday, or championing the downtrodden like Lotte Lenya. But I never dreamed of singing in a rock-and-roll band.

There's no concession to the fact that Dylan might be a more sophisticated singer than Whitney Houston, that he's probably the most sophisticated singer we've had in a generation. Nobody is identifying our popular singers like a Matisse or Picasso. Dylan's a Picasso - that exuberance, range, and assimilation of the whole history of music.

I'm a writer, first and foremost, and I sort of take my cues from the songwriters of the '70s, who are talking about what's really important to them.

People go, 'Oh, you're another guy who crossed over to country.' I say, name another one. Name one other pop singer who's done what I've done as a country singer. There isn't one.

Travis Barker is one of the greatest drummers ever, and all the guys in blink are really good songwriters.

Now, I'm fully aware that there is only one figure more pitiable, more ludicrous, more inherently ridiculous than a bad singer who keeps on singing, and that's a bad singer who keeps on singing because he has issues.

A list songwriters and producers are reluctant to give Kesha their songs because of her weight.

One other thing, if it's possible, as songwriters, you should also develop yourself as record producers.

I can only say thank you and thanks also to all of the great songwriters who wrote those wonderful songs that became number ones.

I can speak for most songwriters - those breakup love songs are so easy to write, as far as the inspiration and all that.

There are so many great songwriters that I love and respect, it's an honor to get the opportunity to sing any of their songs.

Frequently, as so many poets and psalmists and songwriters have said, the invisible shift happens through the broken places.

We as songwriters are in the same position as a professional fisherman. Our fishing grounds are kind of fished out.

One of my favorite songs is 'Ghost' by Indigo Girls. Emily Saliers wrote that, and she is one of the most talented songwriters ever.

I will say one thing: Mick Mars is one of the greatest songwriters I've ever met in my life and had the pleasure to work with.

I find so many songwriters today are missing an element... either the production is amazing but the songs aren't, or it's the other way around.

If someone asked what kind of music I play, I wouldn't say I'm a folk singer; however, if folk music means music for the people, and playing music to entertain them and share different messages, then sure, I'd like to think that I'm part folk singer.

Chuck Berry invented rock 'n' roll. He was one of the best songwriters of the 20th century.

I have really been blessed in my career with some wonderful songwriters and in turn, songs.

With songwriters like me who are prolific, you just write the song and then put it on tape.

I've had a tremendous career and I get more phone calls from people who've been on 'X Factor' asking how they get on the ships. The ships are a very lucrative job for any singer and I would advise any singer to go and work on them and try it for a while. If you are not good enough, you will not get on.

Lennon and McCartney became great songwriters because they were prepared to listen to and learn from all types of music.

In the race for wealth, a neighbor tries to outdo his neighbor, but this strife is good for men. For the potter envies potter, and the carpenter the carpenter, and the beggar rivals the beggar, and the singer the singer.

I think I've been influenced by everything I've ever heard. The first thing I ever heard was my grandma, who was an opera singer. The first song I ever learned was the 'Nessun Dorma' from Puccini's 'Turandot.' My father was a big band singer, so I used to hear him walking around the house singing standards all the time.

Songwriters can’t explain. You get an idea and you don’t know where it’s come from. And if you’re lucky, you have a pencil or pen and can write it down.

In reality - and we've always said this - yes, we are girls, women, but, first and foremost, we're musicians and we're songwriters.

I do remember actually learning chords to Beatles songs. I thought they were great songwriters.

Well, the teacher I studied with for nineteen and a half years was a man named Paul Gavert. He was a great lieder singer, so basically Im a trained lieder singer because of that teacher. The teacher I currently study with - since 1995 - is Joan Lader, who also studied with Gavert.

I have never called myself an opera singer. Other people do, but I always call myself a classical singer. I'd love to do opera, but I'm still too young and I don't want to do it until I'm ready. I realise that when I do that it's going to be... up for discussion, shall we say, so I want to get it right.

I listen to music mostly in the evening. I've come to love what is called world music, like the Zimbabwean Oliver Mtukudzi and the Colombian singer Marta Gomez. I also love the Irish folk singer Mary Black. Other favorites include Chet Baker, Eva Cassidy, and Billie Holiday.

I'm not a pop singer; I'm not a jazz singer. And I know I sing like not a whole lot of people do; I also know that a lot of other people act like I do. And better than I do. But what informs the singing is the acting. They're not separate from each other.

As songwriters, we can go in and write for other artists in a time where you aren't necessarily feeling inspired for yourself.

Before the Beatles, songwriters were very anonymous people and nobody paid any attention to them.