Songwriting Quotes - Page 27

• The idea of songwriting is a transformative thing, and what I do with songwriting is take situations that are quite ordinary and transform them in some way. Apart from things like the murder ballads, the songs I write, at their core, are quite ordinary human concerns, but the process of writing about them transforms them into something else.

  Nick Cave

  Song, Writing, Ideas

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• The big problem with songwriting for me is starting a new song. It's the thing where all the anguish exists, not in the writing of the song, but the starting of the new song.

  Nick Cave

  Song, Writing, Problem

  "Nick Cave is not in the business of telling people what to do". Interview with Christopher Kompanek, music.avclub.com. April 8, 2013.

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• My friends and I took songwriting very, very seriously. My hero was and still is Bob Dylan, but also people like Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell and that whole generation.

  Kazuo Ishiguro

  Hero, People, Generations

  "Living memories" by Nicholas Wroe, www.theguardian.com. February 18, 2005.

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• 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

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• This little four-string songwriting tool started changing the way I brought songs to the group.

  Eddie Vedder

  Song, Groups, Tools

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• Taking a song and bringing it to life in a professional recording studio can be an intimidating process at first; I know it certainly was for me. So to be able to offer support and guidance to an emerging singer-songwriter is a huge honor. I look forward to playing a role in such an exciting time of someone's songwriting career.

  Colbie Caillat

  Song, Careers, Support

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• But there's a thin line between songwriting and arranging. ... Recording at home enables one to eliminate the demo stage, and the presentation stage in the studio, too. ... And I think it's safe to say that the single very impressive figure to me was Merle Haggard. ... Dylan can do no wrong. ... Glenn Gould was my hero. Glenn Gould was my idol. I loved him. ... I loved Hendrix. I mean, really, really loved him. As if he were one of the great classical composers. And he was. That's how I saw him.

  Warren Zevon

  Hero, Home, Mean

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• When you get married and have children, and you start having hits and success and your business starts growing, there's less and less time for songwriting.

  Josh Turner

  Children, Growing, Married

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• The way Jacques Brel writes a story, getting into the character, bringing out all his faults and qualities in the same song.... Not that I could ever write in such an epic way, but it really is a different way to go about writing lyrics...and I find that quite inspiring.

  Zach Condon

  Song, Writing, Character

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• But there's a thin line between songwriting and arranging.

  Warren Zevon

  Lines, Arranging

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• Basically, I'm just a guitar player that figured out I wasn't ever gonna be able to buy dinner with my guitar playing so I got into songwriting, which is a little more profitable business.

  J.J. Cale

  Player, Guitar, Littles

  "JJ Cale, songwriter behind Cocaine and After Midnight, dies aged 74" by Matt Williams, www.theguardian.com. July 27, 2013.

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• Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Writing, Poetry, Mind

  'A Defence of Poetry' (written 1821, published 1840)

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• Raymond Chandler managed to write about L.A. his whole career. Should I keep going writing about New York? Is that what I should be doing? Songwriting doesn't work that way.

  Lou Reed

  New York, Writing, Careers

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• Finding great songs is the hard part of my gig - it's not as hard as songwriting, that's much more daunting - but I love playing other people's music.

  Bonnie Raitt

  Song, People, Gigs

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• I consider music to be storytelling, melody and rhythm. A lot of hip-hop has broken music down. There are no instruments and no songwriting. So you're left with just storytelling and rhythm. And the storytelling can be so braggadocious, you're just left with rhythm.

  Jack White

  Broken, Hip Hop, Hips

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• But this is pretty new for me, both songwriting and singing.

  Krist Novoselic

  Sight, Singing

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• Upwell is one of the most terrifyingly great bands I have ever known out of Seattle. Their musicianship and songwriting is monstrous... They're heavy like Soundgarden or Zeppelin with killer female vocals, but with their own unique style.

  Jack Endino

  Unique, Style, Zeppelins

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• It's unfashionable to admit, but playing music makes us happy and makes us smile.

  Chris Hesse

  Playing Music

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• The songwriting was almost like something I did while I was waiting for my daughter to come back.

  Joni Mitchell

  Daughter, Mother, Waiting

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• I'm a fairly tormented artist, and I'm less willing to indulge myself in self-pity, outside of songwriting.

  Dave Matthews

  Music, Artist, Self

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• I had this talent for these stupid little teenage songs. I just couldn't get anyone to sing my songs, so I had to sing my own tunes. ... The thing is to be able to outlast the trends. ... They are actually manufactured entertainment groups. They are a product of technology. What you are listening to is technology.

  Paul Anka

  Song, Teenage, Stupid

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• I wake up from dreams and go, 'Wow, put this down on paper.' The whole thing is strange. You hear the words, everything is right there in front of your face. ... I am always writing a potpourri of music. I want to give the world escapism through the wonder of great music and to reach the masses. ... And I remember going to the record studio and there was a park across the street and I'd see all the children playing and I would cry because it would make me sad that I would have to work instead.

  Michael Jackson

  Dream, Children, Writing

  "Michael Jackson - Life in the Magical Kingdom". Rolling Stone Magazine, www.rollingstone.com. February 17, 1983.

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• I don't know exactly where the ideas come from, but when I get into a songwriting mode and it's coming along, it's like you're on the front end of a boat and you're going through the water, and the breeze is blowing through your hair and the water's smooth, and you're going out to sea. I love that feeling.

  Robert Earl Keen

  Writing, Hair, Sea

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• I am really heavy into songwriting.

  Teyana

  Heavy

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• Country music turns the stuff we say every day into a soundtrack...taking an ordinary working man like me into that rough, happy country of longnecks and short tales.

  Jay Heinrichs

  Country, Writing, Men

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