Paul Simon Quotes About Writing

Quotes about: Writing

• Much of songwriting is simply a mystery.

  Paul Simon

  Writing, Mystery, Songwriting

• I just said, you know, this is a great track but this lyric, I don't believe it. It sounds like I'm trying to say something, instead of it naturally coming out of me, like I was saying something that I already knew. Anyway, I can't remember what it was. And either I threw it all out or I threw 90 percent of it out, and kept a line or two. That's happened a couple of times to me. Not too often, but a couple of times. Very aggravating when it does happen.

  Paul Simon

  Couple, Believe, Writing

• The words come. Usually, it's a long time before they come. And then when they start to come, it doesn't take so long for it to be finished. It takes a long time to begin. And then it sort of gets finished.

  Paul Simon

  Writing, Long, Finished

• Most of the time, when I had hits as a soloist - maybe not so much with Simon & Garfunkel - I was surprised they were hits. I didn't know what the hits were. I never thought that 'Loves Me Like A Rock' was going to be a hit, or 'Mother And Child Reunion,' or '50 Ways To Leave Your Lover.' They didn't sound like what the hits sounded like at the time. Radio was more open to things that weren't exactly what every other hit was.

  Paul Simon

  Mother, Children, Writing

• I don't really know why an idea comes to me. But all of a sudden, an idea comes and from experience I can intuit what something means when an interesting line pops up. Or I can intuit what an interesting choice might be. And I can try a couple of different choices, and see which one feels right, and then continue the song to see where it goes.

  Paul Simon

  Song, Couple, Writing

• Most of the time, the songs have jokes in them, little sarcastic things, or purposely kitsch or something. So that's going along with a story, like I do in life, just talking to myself and making fun of stuff and laughing at stuff that's serious. And sometimes it's a good idea to put the laughing into the songs. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's all right just to be serious. But most of the songs have some kind of joke in them.

  Paul Simon

  Sarcastic, Song, Fun

• I really don't know what exactly all the songs mean. Sometimes other people have meanings and when I hear them I think, 'That's really a better meaning than I thought, and perfectly valid, given the words that exist.' So part of what makes a song really good is that people take in different meanings, and they apply them, and they might be more powerful than the ones I'm thinking.

  Paul Simon

  Song, Powerful, Writing

• I don't really like to write at a desk. I like to write when driving in a car. ... Once you're working on it, you're working on it all the time, and sometimes stuff'll come in the middle of the night, in a dream or something. Your mind is working on it all the time.

  Paul Simon

  Dream, Writing, Night

• I sort of recognize it, as opposed to shaping it. Oh, that's a good idea, that's a good line. I wonder where I can use that. And when you get into a rhyme group like 'not,' you got a lot of rhymes, you got a lot of choices. The more you do it, the luckier you get.

  Paul Simon

  Writing, Ideas, Choices

• 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.

  Paul Simon

  Teacher, Writing, Style

• By the time I was 12 or 13, I felt that I was special, because I could play the guitar and write songs.

  Paul Simon

  Song, Writing, Guitar

• Philip Larkin didn't write for several years before his life ended. And when he was asked why he didn't write, he said the muse deserted him. And when I read that, it really had a profound effect upon me, sort of scared me. So that's why I think I have no right to assume that some thought is going to come... But I think, in my imagination, if it is it, there will probably be something else I'm interested in.

  Paul Simon

  Writing, Thinking, Years

  Source: www.wbur.org

• Not every song I write is ecstasy. And it can happen only one time. After that, when you sing the same melody and words, it's pleasure, but you don't get wiped out.

  Paul Simon

  Song, Writing, Pleasure

  Interview with Tony Schwartz, www.uh.cz.

• I don't know what I'm going to write when I begin to write. It feels like you are walking down a path, but you can't see around the bend and you don't know where you are going to go, which is fun.

  Paul Simon

  Fun, Writing, Path

  Source: www.pbs.org

• I'm always going forward toward something, and that something is usually an album, because I like to record. I probably like to record more than I like to write.

  Paul Simon

  Writing, Albums, Records

  Interview with Steven Hyden, music.avclub.com. March 28, 2011.

• The abstract music is just more interesting because it doesn't really have anything to say, but if it is good, it creates thoughts and feelings, and I enjoy that. For me, once the music creates those thoughts and feelings, I begin to write a song about it.

  Paul Simon

  Song, Writing, Interesting

  Source: www.avclub.com

• As soon as your mind knows that it's on and it's supposed to produce some lines, either it doesn't or it produces things that are very predictable. And that's why I say I'm not interested in writing something that I thought about. I'm interested in discovering where my mind wants to go, or what object it wants to pick up.

  Paul Simon

  Writing, Mind, Lines

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