Ben Gibbard Quotes About Songs

Quotes about: Songs

• For me, a song doesn't really take flight until it has a lyric on it. ...Without a lyric that I'm happy with, it could be the greatest song ever melodically or arrangement-wise, but it doesn't have any resonance.

  Ben Gibbard

  Wise, Song, Writing

• I want to write songs with complete sentences. I almos have this obsession with short-changing words. I would never be so pretentious to say that my lyrics are poetry. ... Poems are poems. Song lyrics are for songs.

  Ben Gibbard

  Song, Writing, Want

• Hall & Oates is one of the few musical groups as satisfying now as it was back then. There's something incredibly musically satisfying about their songs. Nothing has diminished my love for them.

  Ben Gibbard

  Song, Musical, Groups

• When I listen to Airplanes record, it takes me back. I remember a lot of my thought processes when I was 20 or 21, writing those songs and recording that record. I wonder what I was thinking when I was trying to say a particular thing. I hear some of the weird little nuances in the recording; I can hear what the room sounded like. I remember what it smelled like. I can remember sitting up in guitarist Chris Walla's bedroom and for the first time in my life having this realization like, "Maybe I can do this. Maybe I can make music that in some capacity people will enjoy and come see me play."

  Ben Gibbard

  Song, Writing, Airplane

  Source: www.avclub.com

• If there is one thing I think I have accomplished, it's that I always thought of myself as a very literal songwriter, and as I look at some of those older records, I don't hear it now the way I did when I was 20. I think it is undeniable that the songs have become more instantaneously descriptive and literal. I'd like the songs to be more storytelling, but also have the turns of phrase within them that would hopefully distance my writing from the pack. I feel like on those older records there are a lot of attempts at clever turns of phrase.

  Ben Gibbard

  Song, Clever, Distance

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I've covered Avril Lavigne. I like good pop songs, and I don't think there should be any kind of preconceptions about where good pop songs come from.

  Ben Gibbard

  Song, Thinking, Kind

  "Postal service album keeps on delivering" by Rodrigo Perez, www.mtv.com. September 16, 2004.

• The songwriting of Hall & Oates is deceptively complex. There are a number of key changes that pass you by as you're listening to the song because they're so seamless and clever.

  Ben Gibbard

  Song, Clever, Numbers

• I don't spend my time perusing message boards to find out what people think about me or if people think my songs are good or if people love that lyric or this or that. I just want to be happy with it myself - and if other people like it, that's great.

  Ben Gibbard

  Song, Thinking, People

  "The Meaning of Life". www.pastemagazine.com. April 10, 2008.

• I take things a little bit more critically now, like, "What did I think I was saying in that song? What is this song about?" I thought the lyrics were incredibly descriptive, and now they sound really cryptic and weird. I'd like to also think that when I listen to songs from Something About Airplanes that I'm proud of my development as a writer. I don't think I was doing anything poorly at that time, but I can certainly see how my writing has changed.

  Ben Gibbard

  Song, Writing, Airplane

  Source: www.avclub.com

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