Top 1200 Singer-songwriters Quotes & Sayings - Page 7

It's funny, I think after you are a star like Sting and you no longer think you need any guidance or aid - it would be great to see those stars work with other songwriters.

I was one of several songwriters I think interviewed [for Moana]. I'm a huge fan of Disney animated movies, and I've always wanted to write an animated score since I was a little kid.

I've studied several guitar players and songwriters, mostly from Al di Meola to Dimebag Darrell, from Freddie Mercury of Queen to Kurt Cobain of Nirvana and Bradley Nowell of Sublime.

Songwriting is the way of perpetual want. Songwriters are the blessed/cursed people. You will never have a moment's peace in your life. You will always be wanting the next song.

And of course there's so much music in and around our family. I had a piano during Christmas because it's obviously useful through the season. There are so many people, songwriters, who are around.

I don't deserve a Songwriters Hall of Fame Award. But fifteen years ago, I had a brain operation and I didn't deserve that, either. So I'll keep it.

Sometimes songwriters and singers forget that. They get a melody in their head and the notes will take precedence, so that they wind up forcing a word onto a melody. It doesn't ring true.

I've just gained so much confidence in the booth since the 'Sit Still Look Pretty' era. I'm working with really talented producers and songwriters who bring out the best in me.

One thing we have to remember as songwriters is that we have to consider that country music is the country's music. That doesn't mean that everybody's rural.

For a producer, you want to be in L.A. You want to be close to the action, and in L.A. there are always singers, artists, songwriters, collaborators and other producers. It's easy to get access to all that, which gives you more opportunity to work records.

People in Ireland take in the whole song. After a long history of great singers and songwriters and poets, they are able to consume the entire song - not just the external; they go inside.

My grandma was a church organist for 40 years, and she got me into jazz music and great songwriters, Harold Arlen, George Gershwin, all those folks. I can't do it, but I have a profound respect for it.

Singers, musicians, and songwriters don't want to use the word "acting" because we want it to be more real than that - we want it to come from us: naturally, truly, really.

I think if you look back at the lead singers that left groups that didn't make it, you'll see that a lot of them were songwriters like Lionel Richie. I mean, they were able to control their own destiny.

Some people are songwriters, and some people are just recording artists. I'm both. I write and record.

There's a track called 'Why Not Nothing' about how the world's turning so conservative and so religious at the same time. I think it's up to the songwriters to give another side to the coin, and my music does that.

Alan's publishing company was in the Brill Building, and of course, the Brill Building was where all the songwriters hung out because that's where all the publishers were.

I’m wearing out this new Coal Men record. I think it’s masterful start-to-finish. Dave Coleman is one of Americana music’s great songwriters, and I hope this record gets the attention it deserves.

I was at a picnic, and there were a lot of songwriters. I remember praying, 'God I wish you would give me a song.' About five minutes later, my ears popped, and I saw everybody in slow motion. Nobody knew what I was experiencing.

There are certain topics songwriters stay away from because it's hard to go there. I didn't sit down and go, 'I want to write something about my dad now.'

Randy Newman and I grew up together in Los Angeles. We are both products of the film studio era. Randy is one of the great songwriters of our time and one of the fun people to be with.

I just love all the music. My grandma was a church organist for 40 years, and she got me into jazz music and great songwriters, Harold Arlen, George Gershwin, all those folks. I can't do it, but I have a profound respect for it.

A lot of time, if you spend too much time in Nashville, songwriters get caught up in charts and numbers and the music business politics.

I'm a binge writer. I work in the music business fulltime, in artist management and developing songwriters and recording artists, and so juggling my job I carve out as much time as I can on the weekends.

I really believe in myself. I'm the hardest worker I know, and one of the best songwriters. There's a craft to it, and it takes a long time to hone it, and I work really hard at it.

Songwriters, we're always looking for new concepts, fresh concepts, and there are only so many ways you can talk about partying, really.

I'm not an R&B singer, I'm a singer. I can sing any music that makes me feel inspired whether it's Country, a little bit of Rock and roll but within my roots as well. I'm not going too far with it, but it'll be within my roots. I feel like trying a different way to express my music because so many people have already taken from what I've done in the past and it kind of makes me not want to ever do anything that I've done before.

There's so much fear involved in trying to do something you don't know how to do that drugs and alcohol can become a big part of your life if you have an addictive personality or are very unsure, which most songwriters are.

I feel like I'm really accomplishing something with harmony and melody. Ultimately, again, I'm not a singer, some people can sing with an "I" or an "a," some people can sing and they can sang. I think I can "sang" more than anything. I'm not a formal singer and I'm an MC, but it's secondary to the second nature of just melody. You know but ultimately I'm a writer and I do soul music. Whether it's in song form or rhyme scheme, it's soul.

I just want to make a beautiful film. I've had it in my head for so long, so I want to try. Every now and again I get scared. And that's not really how I operate in songwriting or as Sia the artist, the singer. I don't operate from a place of fear. But this is such a new area for me. I still have some insecurity. So, like, once a week I get washed from the top of my skull down to my toes with this vomitous feeling of fear. I think, "Just don't do it. You don't have to do it. You're already a singer and a songwriter. Really, you don't have to make a movie.".

When Drake sings, it makes everybody feel like they can sing. Not saying he's a bad singer - he's a good singer - but it just makes everybody feel like, 'If Drake can sing, I can sing, too.'

Every morning is good news, every child that is born is good news, every just man is good news, every singer is good news, because every singer is one less soldier.

I don't think rock n' roll songwriters should worry about art. I don't think it comes into it...as far as I'm concerned, Art is just short for Arthur.

I will always really work hard to write as much as I can, but I also love sitting back and waiting on those big Nashville songwriters to send me some great songs, too.

Bad facts make bad law, and people who write bad laws are in my opinion more dangerous than songwriters who celebrate sexuality.

I got behind that pencil and nothing happened for many years, but since they put me in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, I've turned around. I took a good look at myself and said, I think it's time to get back at work.

I've had offers to sign a record deal, but the people I've talked to have wanted to package me and have me meet with songwriters who've written stuff for Whitney Houston, that sort of thing. That's not at all my style.

Anyone who knows the history of the Pete Best Band or the Combo, we were on the verge of breaking in in America. In the mid-'60s, I had great songwriters; we wrote some great stuff.

Authors can write stories without people assuming that they are autobiographies, but songwriters and poets are often considered to be the characters in their works. I like Michelangelo's vision, 'I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.

You need to understand that a skilled professional songwriter can accelerate your success as an already talented musician. These people are writing every single day, so their craft is really sharp, and it's the best songwriters who consistently get on the radio.

When I listen to my favorite songwriters, they have such simple melodies and chords. I occasionally manage to stop at the right time, but all too often I keep on going until I have way too many notes and words. But that's just what I do.

Having listened to great songwriters like James Taylor and Carole King, I felt there was nothing new that was coming out that really represented me and the way I felt. So I started writing my own stuff.

I did enjoy Nashville a lot of the time, because I made really good friends who were really good songwriters, and they would be a joy to hang out with.

Songwriters are expanding time rather than compressing time. My short stories tend to be old fashioned, with a beginning, middle and end.

I wish I wrote songs like Donald Fagen, Walter Becker, Don Henley, Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson, so many of the songwriters I admire. They have the ability to say things.

The rest of the band tend to notice things like the door getting opened for the lead singer. And the door shuts on the rest of the band. The lead singer doesn't notice that, but the rest of the band does.

I can imagine lyrics becoming better written by smart machines rather than stupid musicians. Songwriters generally have nothing to say. They may as well be replaced by machines.

There are quite a few honest songwriters out there writing about relationships and their own personality traits. But for some reason, once they step out of the bedroom, their honesty doesn't seem to come with them.

Communion was born out of shared frustration in 2006. We felt that although the likes of MySpace and YouTube opened up the playing field for songwriters online, people's discovery of these new artists was only skin deep.

I think songwriters are more related to fiction writers. The Odyssey was a story in song. To me, that's so beautiful, all those painted characters, all those travels and adventures.

The Songwriters Hall of fame, that's the one all the big-time writers get into, the really great stuff, the Broadway stuff and all that. That would be something, to get your name in there.

I've been lucky enough to support some absolute legends and incredible songwriters over the years, including Hozier, Daughter, Willy Mason, Catfish and the Bottlemen, Nick Mulvey, and Benjamin Francis Leftwich.

I have written with some amazing singers and songwriters - the moment with Snoop Dogg was amazing - but being able to tell an Aboriginal story is bigger than anything that I have ever known.

I consider every one of the Disney films that Bob & I worked on, to have been the luckiest break any two songwriters could have ever had. They all aimed at quality and timelessness. That's why they live over the years.

I remember one day going in the studio to sing and then going to work with three separate songwriters before I came back in the studio. I was running on empty.

Some songwriters have never been in a band, but the One Direction guys can relate to me, as I've been through the same kind of experiences as they have.

Maybe, whatever influence we have, other songwriters or women or whatever can feel like they can have a place too, I guess. Or that they don't have to do things the way that we've been taught we have to do them.

People expect not just songwriters but all personalities to pontificate about their egos - they just wanna see someone talking about themselves constantly. I'm not interested in that.

Most of our artists are songwriters, so the songs are still central to all this. If you don't have great songs, it doesn't matter the marketing or how many times you are on TV; you can only polish it so much.

When I first got to Motown, Smokey was already a fixture there. To me, he is one of the greatest songwriters and poets, so anything they ask me to do for Smokey is going to get a yes.