Melody Quotes - Page 35

• I am moved more by melodies, song structure, and evocative textures.

  Geddy Lee

  Song, Texture, Structure

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• 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.

  Don Henley

  Wind, Singers, Sometimes

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Being a purely instrumental album, it makes a musical statement, not a religious one, and I hope that people can feel the emotion of the great melodies, even without the words.

  Kenny G

  Religious, People, Musical

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• People fall into patterns at fast speeds, when really, to have a clear musical thought - the kind of musical thought that makes a melody work - our brains just can't think that fast. At a certain point, you're going on automatic.

  John Frusciante

  Fall, Thinking, People

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• Reggae, oh man. It's the ultimate music. The positivity. The musicality. The whole cultural expressionism of it. The danceability. Just the cool factor. The melody factor. Some of it comes from a religious place. If there were a competition of who makes the best religious music, it would definitely be the Rastafarian reggae.

  Lupe Fiasco

  Religious, Positivity, Men

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• Most of those melodies are me trying to find out what notes fit, and then hitting ones that don't fit in a very interesting way.

  Brian Eno

  Interesting, Trying, Hitting

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• The point about melody and beat and lyric is that they exist to engage you in a very particular way. They want to occupy your attention.

  Brian Eno

  Attention, Want, Way

  "Brian Eno: Success ruins artists". Interview with David Mitchell, www.salon.com. October 1, 2011.

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• At school, I enjoyed playing the bassoon. I was in the orchestra and played the melody when the other boys sang hymns at prayers time.

  James Dyson

  Prayer, School, Boys

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• I won't deny a song or a melody. I can't deny it.

  Fred Durst

  Song, Deny, I Can

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• There were people who incorporated melody before me, but I would deem myself the first person to successfully rap and sing.

  Drake

  Rap, People, Firsts

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• It's very much a piece of myself when I write a song. I don't mean to say it's very personal, like the lyrics mean something personal to me. When I write a song, that's my taste in music - my taste in chord progressions and melodies.

  Zooey Deschanel

  Song, Mean, Writing

  "Zooey Deschanel Can Play the Ukulele". Interview with Mark Mikin, www.esquire.com. July 17, 2009.

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• I find sadness and strife to be so much more interesting with an upbeat melody.

  Zooey Deschanel

  Sadness, Interesting, Upbeat

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• What happens a lot with songwriting is that a melody or rhythm or something stays with you like catching a cold. And during that time what happens is that I can then fit things on to it, it all fits and glues together. Sometimes it's crazy cos it can almost be anything. But if you catch the cold then the nonsense makes sense. It's like you're getting beamed it, like with a ouija board and something's pushing your hand. It's not a pleasant experience necessarily.

  Thom Yorke

  Crazy, Hands, Together

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• Do I start with the lyrics? No. Quite honestly, it's the opposite. I generally get the melody first - I kinda fiddle around on the guitar and work out a melody. The lyrics are there to flesh out the tone of the music. I've tried before to do things the other way around, but it never seems to work. Obviously, I spend a lot of time on my lyrics, I take them very seriously, but they're kinda secondary. Well, equal, maybe. I think sometimes that if you write a poem, it should remain as just a poem, just... words.

  Iron & Wine

  Writing, Thinking, Guitar

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• I knew a lot of chords, but they weren't the chords that came with the melody that came with the idea I had for the song. Melodies are simple things. If you see a train wreck, there's a melody. If you see a little daisy blowing in the breeze, there's a melody.

  Tom T. Hall

  Song, Writing, Simple

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• I have a structured songwriting process. I start with the music and try to come up with musical ideas, then the melody, then the hook, and the lyrics come last. Some people start with the lyrics first because they know what they want to talk about and they just write a whole bunch of lyrical ideas, but for me the music tells me what to talk about.

  John Legend

  Writing, Ideas, People

  Seventeen Interview, www.seventeen.com. November 23, 2006.

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• Elton John can be a master of the sleight of hand. The arrangements make it seem like there are substantial melodies underneath the tracks - but almost nothing demands repeated listenings. Similarly, he always sounds like he's singing up a storm, but his voice glosses over the material, reducing most things to an uninteresting sameness.

  Jon Landau

  Hands, Voice, Track

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• Every time I write a song, it's different. I'm all about the rhythm of the words and the melody. Musically, you gotta have a throbbing pulse going. But as far as what it's all about, there's a million ways to go. You have to invent a new code for every song. Then you have to break it. It's like Scrabble or a crossword puzzle on steriods. I could talk about the process for days. But it's never dull and there's no one way in.

  Dan Bern

  Song, Writing, Pulse

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• Doo-wop is special music to me because it's so straightforward and melody-driven and captures emotions.

  Bruno Mars

  Special, Emotion, Driven

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• People are always asking me what my lyrics mean. Does it mean this, does it mean that, that's all anybody wants to know. F**k them, darling. I say what any decent poet would say if you dared ask him to analyze his work: If you see it, dear, then it's there. ... I think my melodies are superior to my lyrics. ... I was never too keen on the British music press. They've called us a supermarket hype, and they used to suggest that we didn't write our own songs.

  Freddie Mercury

  Song, Writing, Mean

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• I usually dream of melodies. When I wake up I have them in my head. I usually come up with things in the middle of the night because that's when my mind is the quietest. I always have my tape recorder, pen and pad by my bed just in case.

  Leona Lewis

  Dream, Night, Mind

  "Leona Lewis Has a Health Condition That Makes Her Scared of Balconies" by Lexi Petronis, www.glamour.com. October 16, 2012.

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• I had a dream that Louis Armstrong was playing the 'Swept Away' melody. I have no idea where it came from. But Louis Armstrong was playing it and singing the song to me. I woke up-it's a borrowed melody no doubt-and wrote it down. If I hear a song and I choose not to put it down, that's me neglecting to accept that song. I think there's a very spiritual and godly-type ting that happens, and it happens to way more people than we know. It's just that very few of us choose to engage it.

  Scott Avett

  Dream, Spiritual, Song

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• When comedy is good, it's jazz. The beats of it, the looseness, the improvisational part, the music-the way you hit the inflection, the high notes of a joke. It's all melody to me.

  Billy Crystal

  Art, Way, Comedy

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• Country music to me is heartfelt music that speaks to the common man. It is about real life stories with rather simple melodies that the average person can follow. Country music should speak directly and simply about the highs and lows of life. Something that anyone can relate to.

  George Jones

  Country, Real, Simple

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• I listen to the summer symphony outside my window. Truthfully, it's not a symphony at all. There's no tune, no melody, only the same notes over and over. Chirps and tweets and trills and burples. It's as if the insect orchestra is forever tuning its instruments, forever waiting for the maestro to tap his baton and bring them to order. I, for one, hope the maestro never comes. I love the music mess of it.

  Jerry Spinelli

  Music, Summer, Order

  Jerry Spinelli (2007). “Love, Stargirl”, p.74, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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