Top 1200 Writing Songs Quotes & Sayings - Page 19

Basically I write songs, and I need for there to be a home for these songs.

I've written a lot about southern California, but I don't use the same characters. Leave the people in the songs in the songs, is my philosophy.

If you watch home videos, at 4 years old, I was doing nothing but being the entertainer. Singing 'Boot Scootin' Boogie' in the living room. Then, I guess, just by the grace of God I started writing songs, and somebody happened to like them.

You hear it in your brain. Whatever makes sense. Some songs work well as quartet songs, sometimes they don't.

My family life, my adoption - it could be related to the songs, but I think the songs are deeper than that. They're not just about this experience.

My general approach to making art making hasn't changed much since I was 20, poor, and writing songs in my bedroom wanting to get my art out of my body into the world in some way.

It's easier for fans to consume one or two songs at a time. Not everybody buys records, so some songs can get overlooked.

Writing is a key differentiator. I've used it for 14 years. Writing will not just lead to differentiation. Writing is the credibility you need to create buyer confidence

For me, 'risky' is revealing what really happened in my life through music. Risky is writing confessional songs and telling the true story about a person with enough details so everyone knows who that person is.

Actually, I've taught creative writing in Turkey, at an English language university, where the students were native Turkish speakers, but they were writing their essays in English, and they were very interesting - even the sense of structure, the conventions of writing, the different styles of writing.

We didn't say, 'Hey, we're gonna pick a bunch of cover songs,' or, 'We're gonna write an original song that has to sound like this, because we're a metal band, so we're gonna cover some metal songs.' We did the opposite. We just said, 'We're gonna have fun with these songs, and we're gonna try different things.'

Writing has to do with truth-telling. When you're writing, let's say, an essay for a magazine, you try to tell the truth at every moment. You do your best to quote people accurately and get everything right. Writing a novel is a break from that: freedom. When you're writing a novel, you are in charge; you can beef things up.

I started quite late. I only discovered that I could write a song when I was, like, 17... some musicians, they're starting out, writing songs when they're, like, 12, 13. I never thought I would go into songwriting when I was that young.

I wanted to try to make songs that worked as songs, not just as productions. People wanted me to do a solo acoustic session, they were like "Can you play song on the piano?" and I was like "Not really. It doesn't really work." I wanted to write songs that would work in a variation of instrumentation.

It's not like I'm writing full songs or full parts and setting it aside for Slash because, generally, I like him to make the first move and hear where he's coming from and what his concepts are, and then I build from there.

I kinda learned to sing singing to Echo and the Bunnymen songs and Smiths songs: Morrissey would be a big favorite.

I started writing songs when I was 10. It was a natural way to express myself as a kid. It wasn't until I started listening to jazz, joined the choir and picked up a guitar that my little hobby became something far more serious.

It's great for my daughter to see Beyonce and Taylor Swift, women that are in charge of their own careers, writing songs from their own perspective and taking people to task. That's very different from when I was growing up - it was all like, 'Stand by your man.'

There's a lot of vulnerability in songs - I'm not talking about pop songs - from people that are in the art of songwriting more than the commercial enterprise of it.

Sometimes I do an automatic songs, songs that you don't really think about, or work on. You just look back and it sorta surprises you.

It is jazz music that called me to be a musician and I have always sang the songs that moved me the most. Singers, like Frank Sinatra and myself, we interpret the songs that we like. Not unlike a Shakespearean actor that goes back to the greatest words ever written, we go back to the greatest songs.

I think being married and in love and all of that changed how I write songs and what I want to sing about and the type of songs that I like.

Whether it's writing a monologue or writing standup or writing a screenplay or writing a play, I think staying involved in the creation of your own work empowers you in a way, even if you don't ever do it. It gives you a sense of ownership and a sense of purpose, which I think as an actor is really important.

Writing songs is a profession; so it's not an attempt to take things from my interactions with other people and for some reason give them to a total stranger to listen to. I find it offensive to hear other people do that.

Right now-whether you're in writing courses getting "paid" in credit for writing, or burdened and distracted by earning a living and changing diapers-figure out how to make writing an integral part of your life. Publication is good, and gives you the courage to go on, but publication is not as important as the act of writing.

I was doing theater in my high school, and I started writing sort of silly songs on the piano backstage in summer theater. I eventually put them online and started getting this little following.

'Evil men have no songs.' How is it that the Russians have songs?

I'm just fortunate to get to sing songs composed by such great musicians. It's a bonus that the songs have been received well.

Bands have always written songs against what they see as wrong. Ronald Reagan really made for a lot of songs.

Throughout history the leaders of the countries have been very particular about what songs should be sung. We know the power of songs.

Good new songs are the backbone of the music industry. There isn't an artist out there who could survive without hit songs.

So, it ended up being what you have there, seven songs brand new and ten live songs which is a good mix.

I was playing the piano when I was three, writing songs when I was ten. I had a lot of experience before I got to college. I knew I wanted to be a singer, so anyone who met me, I didn't let too much time pass before I showed my talent.

I've only recorded my own songs. I don't consider myself a great singer, so I wouldn't be comfortable interpreting other people's songs.

We were concerned with having good songs, not just songs that go two hundred miles per hour.

To create an album of 12 songs, I've got to write about 80 songs. Half of those are totally weird and rubbish.

I like songs that sound like classics. There are songs that might be cooler or have better production, but I like songs that sound like they're timeless.

When I became a parent I forgot about the part of myself which was very emotional, very dour a little depressed - but very good at writing emotional songs.

When we were writing for Panic whether we knew it or not, having that name over the songs we were trying to do made me second guess things and change things. I started to go against my instincts.

After writing quite a few songs now, I have not a method but a way of being patient with a couple of verses or a certain set of chords. I can match them up quicker now than I used to. The one thing you do improve is songwriting.

I never stopped writing. I started writing when I was twelve years of age. And I was writing all the time. But nothing was translated until thirty years after I started writing, when The Hidden Face of Eve was translated in 1980.

With the 'iCarly' soundtrack, I didn't get to write any of the songs. I just picked songs that meant a lot to me that I really liked.

Five or six songs leaked from the original version of 'Encore.' So I had to go in and make new songs to replace them.

Dawes is a rock 'n' roll band playing guitars, writing songs, working in a certain tradition. Through our attitude and personality, I hope, you can hear a song and go, 'That's a Dawes song.'

I try not to be overly literal. When I'm writing songs, I write down a lot of words, and then I try to simplify it. I like to give people hints or words that make visual pictures for them.

When I first got into country, I was trying to do the traditional country thing, and I still have a heart for traditional country. But the songs I was writing just weren't falling into that category.

I am equally capable of doing club songs, slow rock songs and any other kind as well.

Writing songs is an essential part of my life: my mother teaches piano, and I have inherited my grandparents' passion for music, especially from my grandfather Tommy, who was a great drummer. It's no coincidence that I play the drums best, but I am also good with the guitar and the piano.

I have so much music that I do. Just like how a visual artist is always sketching something but they might not share it, I'm always writing songs or coming up with melodic lines on piano or guitar. It's therapy. It's always happening.

Smokey Robinson writes the heartfelt songs, whereas it was my job to write the songs about weakness and failure in love.

I was always into pop music, Destiny's Child, songs with catchy music. Even when I was writing when I was younger, it wasn't all about expressing myself; it was just about making fun music.

I literally left school and went straight into music via art college for a year, and I've been so involved in my job of writing songs that the more actively involved part became channeled into standing on the stage and saying things that way.

Sometimes, we've made songs where we're angry and yelling, and then there are some songs where we're just having fun and dancing and happy.

My favorite songs to sing have always been songs about regret. I don't know why that is, but to me, that's country music.

Writing fiction is very different to writing non-fiction. I love writing novels, but on history books, like my biographies of Stalin or Catherine the Great or Jerusalem, I spend endless hours doing vast amounts of research. But it ends up being based on the same principle as all writing about people: and that is curiosity!

When we were writing songs for the Eagles, Don Henley would be involved in some new love relationship, and he was always excited about them. But we were all waiting for the day that they would break up.

That's the perfect audience: singing along to every word, knowing the songs, appreciating the non-hit songs, stuff like that.

Some hit songs are really stupid, and who knows why they're hits. But a lot of hit songs are really good. I agree with Jim [Lauderdale] in that I think the really good ones are songs that when you hear it [sic]...there's just something about it that touches your heart, and you don't know why.

I do pay performance royalties on others' songs I perform live, but I'm not recording these songs and putting them up for sale.

Usually, my rhymes are just in my head. I start off with a theme, and once I start rapping and writing and singing, the chorus and all that, it just starts flowing. Then it's done in about an hour! I write a lot of songs.