Songwriting Quotes - Page 14

• I enjoy writing songs that could have been written before [my time]. When I feel like I'm tapping into a deep vein in the body of American music, it gives me strength as a writer, like I'm dipping my pen into a deep ink well. That's the folk music tradition. Like Pete Seeger said, 'Everyone's a link in the chain.' It's a strong chain, so rely on it. ... I believe it takes all those great songs in the past to make your song even a little bit good.

  Ketch Secor

  Song, Strong, Believe

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• Dear Sir: I will wish to establish my name as the best Ethiopian songwriter. But I am not encouraged in undertaking this as long as 'The Old Folks At Home' stares me in the face with another's name on it.

  Stephen Foster

  Home, Names, Long

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• Songwriters might write cynical, world-wise lyrics and constantly talk about money, but most of us are downright naive when it comes to business.

  Willie Nelson

  Wise, Writing, Cynical

  Willie Nelson, Bud Shrake, Edwin Shrake (2000). “Willie: An Autobiography”, p.144, Rowman & Littlefield

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• We wrote a song, while sitting on a trampoline & we loved it so much that we ended up recording it as a duet

  Taylor Swift

  Song, Duets, Sitting

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• Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Merle Haggard, Hank Williams. All of them are different styles, but those are the songs that make the times. They're the songs that last through time.

  Dolly Parton

  Music, Song, Style

  "Neil Young pays tribute to country music". www.today.com. August 27, 2005.

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• Great songs aren't written, they're rewritten

  R.C. Bannon

  Song, Written

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• People say you make your best work when in despair, but I think happiness is a good place to write from.

  Paul Weller

  Writing, Thinking, People

  Interview with Decca Aitkenhead, www.theguardian.com. March 11, 2012.

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• In making movies, time is so short-because it is so expensive-that we tend to neglect the place from which the best ideas come, namely that part of ourselves that dreams. The unconscious is our best collaborator.

  Mike Nichols

  Dream, Writing, Ideas

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• I am nervous that the craft of songwriting is taking a nose dive...And since I'm a songwriter and I connect with an interpretative, you know, interpretation of a song, I miss it. I just miss it.

  Barry Manilow

  Song, Missing, Noses

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• For years I walked around with the phrase "Green River" because I had seen that on a soda fountain drink when I was probably 8 or 9 years old, and I went, 'Gee, I like that.' Another one was "Lodi", which I thought sounded really cool. I got this cheap little empty plastic notebook at my local drugstore, and bought a little slab of filler paper and the very first title I wrote in it was "Proud Mary". I had no idea what that title meant.

  John Fogerty

  Notebook, Years, Ideas

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• Apropos, is not the Scotch phrase 'Auld Lang Syne' exceedingly expressive? I shall give you the verses on the other sheet. The words of 'Auld Lang Syne' are good, but the music is an old air, the rudiments of the modern tune of that name. ... Dare to be honest and fear no labor. ... Opera is where a man gets stabbed in the back, and instead of dying, he sings. ... Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure thrill the deepest notes of woe. ... Critics! Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame.

  Robert Burns

  Cutting, Men, Scotch

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• I wanted to create a more spontaneous outlet for my songwriting to have alongside the more long-winded process of making an album. I wanted to have some fun.

  Jens Lekman

  Fun, Long, Albums

  Source: pitchfork.com

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• People have been brainwashed into believing that it's got to be down or it wouldn't be blues. But it's not so. It's got to be a fact or it wouldn't be blues.

  Willie Dixon

  Believe, People, Facts

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• It won't be long before we'll be writing together again. I just hope they have a decent piano up there.

  Frederic Loewe

  Music, Writing, Together Again

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• I'd advise all you songwriters out there, if you're getting into it for the business, go home and get a job digging ditches or something. Get a life. You'll learn a lot more, and you won't write a lot of rotten poetry.

  Butch Hancock

  Jobs, Home, Writing

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• The words to country songs are very earthy like the blues. They're not as dressed up and the people are very honest and say, 'Look, I miss you darlin', so I went out and got drunk in this bar.' That's the way you say it. Where in Tin Pan Alley they would say, 'Oh I missed you darling, so I went to this restaurant and I sat down and had a dinner for one.' That's cleaned up now, you see? But country and blues tells it like it is.

  Ray Charles

  Country, Song, Tin Pan Alley

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• Unlike some of my peers, I haven't really hit a writer's block. When I hit a block I just paint, which is an old crop rotation trick.

  Joni Mitchell

  Block, Peers, Rotation

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• When it's raining you can't find enough things to catch it in. When it's not you can stand out in the middle of the street in a dress and a funny hat and nothing's gonna make it rain. I go through periods - or spells - when I'm more receptive.

  Tom Waits

  Rain, Dresses, Hats

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• Something good happened to my writing when I stopped being afraid to do something simple, for the fear that people might think I couldn't do something more complex. Don't be confused by the word simple. Simple is not easy, it is clear voiced, and fearlessly elegant.

  Carrie Newcomer

  Confused, Writing, Simple

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• If a song's about something I've experienced or that could've happened to me it's good. But if it's alien to me, I couldn't lend anything to it. Because that's what soul is all about.

  Aretha Franklin

  Song, Soul, Aliens

  FaceBook post by Aretha Franklin from Aug 30, 2011

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• You can do anything you want to do, if you know what to do.

  Betty Carter

  Want, Macgyver, Knows

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• Success is important only to the extent that it puts one in a position to do more things one likes to do.

  Sarah Caldwell

  Success, Work, Important

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• Creativity is the greatest rebellion in existence.

  Rajneesh

  Inspirational, Spiritual, Creativity

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• I sought to reform minstrelsy among refined people by making words suitable to their taste, instead of the trashy and really offensive words which belong to some songs of that order. ... Some of my songs should be performed in a pathetic, not a comic style.

  Stephen Foster

  Song, Order, People

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• I think sometimes songwriting becomes diluted when you have lots of components to mask a lack of core.

  Victoria Legrand

  Thinking, Sometimes, Mask

  "Beach House". Interview With Brian Howe, pitchfork.com. March 17, 2008.

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