Songwriting Quotes - Page 6

• Songwriting is about getting the demon out of me. It's like being possessed.

  John Lennon

  Writing Songs, Demon, Songwriters

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• I was sleeping in the woods one night after a gig we'd played somewhere, when I saw this girl appear before me. That girl was Emily. (on how he wrote "See Emily Play") "Chapter 24"-that was from the "I Ching", there was someone around who was very into that, most of the words came straight off that. "Lucifer Sam" was another one-it didn't mean much to me at the time, but then three or four months later it came to mean a lot.

  Syd Barrett

  Girl, Mean, Sleep

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• I've written so many songs about Englishmen, I have to go elsewhere.

  Ray Davies

  Song, Elsewhere, Englishmen

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• I have never acknowledged the difference between serious music and light music. There is only good music and bad music.

  Kurt Weill

  Music, Light, Differences

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• I don't enjoy songwriting.

  Rod Stewart

  Music, Enjoy

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• My vocation is more in composition really than anything else - building up harmonies using the guitar, orchestrating the guitar like an army, a guitar army.

  Jimmy Page

  Army, Guitar, Building Up

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• I'd hate to be a songwriter starting a career today.

  Otis Blackwell

  Hate, Careers, Starting Over

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• Martin, Dave, and I get together and rough out a few songs and put them on cassettes for some reference...With the actual music, I'm not interested in objectivity, quite the opposite. I want a solely and totally subjective experience...A lot of pop music is about stealing pocket money from children.

  Ian Anderson

  Song, Children, Objectivity

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• Inspiration is a word used by people who aren't really doing anything. I go into my office every day that I'm in Brighton and work. Whether I feel like it or not is irrelevant.

  Nick Cave

  Inspiration, People, Office

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• Don't be afraid to write bad songs and then start over and re-evaluate. Songs are like plants, in that you grow them. Some grow really fast, and others need pruning and care...And, finally, a song needs to move you. If it doesn't move you, it will never move anybody else.

  Corey Harris

  Song, Moving, Writing

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• You write down a paragraph or two describing several different subjects creating a kind of story ingredients-list, I suppose, and then cut the sentences into four or five-word sections; mix em up and reconnect them. You can get some pretty interesting idea combinations like this. You can use them as is or, if you have a craven need to not lose control, bounce off these ideas and write whole new sections.

  David Bowie

  Writing, Cutting, Ideas

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• The joy of songwriting only gets messed up if you are trying to follow up a big success, or you are trying to create a hit single, or if you have conscious thoughts of a particular outcome for the music.

  Tim Finn

  Joy, Trying, Outcomes

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

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• I was being musically mentored by a lot of people who were obviously more talented and skilled than I was, and I thought that I would just kind of learn the ropes of songwriting there - like how to do acoustic, country-esque songs, which I like because there's so much story in them.

  Katy Perry

  Country, Song, People

  Interview with Kristen Wiig, www.interviewmagazine.com. February 8, 2012.

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• I always believed that I have something important to say and I said it.

  Lou Reed

  Important, Velvet Underground, Said

  "Lou Reed dead: 14 of the Velvet Underground legend's best quotes" by James Robertson, www.mirror.co.uk. October 27, 2013.

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• All I know is when I start getting serious about songwriting... it's like a playground. All responsibilities slip away and you're with your essence. There can be delight there and self-discovery. You can dance there... I think of it as my serious playground.

  Laura Nyro

  Writing, Responsibility, Thinking

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• I always try to write a song, I never just want to write a record. Originally I was not writing songs for myself. Songwriting is my gift from God.

  Smokey Robinson

  Song, Writing, Trying

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• Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the whole world, and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that.

  Steve Earle

  Coffee, Cowboy, Boots

  "Q&A: Earle takes songwriting break to honor Van Zandt". Interview with Robert Levine, www.reuters.com. April 24, 2009.

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• Often the simplest song is the hardest to write.

  Patti Smith

  Song, Writing, Hardest

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• You have got to discover you, what you do, and trust it.

  Barbra Streisand

  Trust, Self Esteem, Trust No One

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• I really, really enjoy fitting words together - but I only enjoy it when it's easy, when it sort of rolls along by itself. I never erase anything [and] I hardly ever write anything down... The song will be finished before I write it down... I won't write a song unless it serves me in some way, unless I feel I have to write the song to make myself feel better. If you're not overflowing with something, there's nothing to give.

  Fiona Apple

  Song, Writing, Feel Better

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• Whether I was in my body or out of my body as I wrote it I know not. God knows.

  George Frideric Handel

  Music, God, Writing

  Of the'Hallelujah Chorus' in his Messiah. Quoted in Romain Rolland Essays on Music (1948).

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• Some of the songs come so fully, it's like they are pre-packaged. There have been a couple that came in the middle of the night. And I thought, jeez, I'll never forget that. And went back to sleep, and it was gone. You'll hear something years later that another songwriter that you respect writes, and you go, jeez, I think that was the remnants of that song that got sent to me.

  John Prine

  Song, Couple, Sleep

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• Songwriting is a really fortunate skill to have to frame living and to find new ways to observe things you're going through.

  Feist

  Writing, Skills, Way

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• I tended not to be concerned about whether a song was going to be a hit when I wrote it. Because it became evident that none of us knew what was a hit and what wasn't. So I thought if I just write what I like, why shouldn't people like what I like?

  Hal David

  Song, Writing, People

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• I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.

  Tom Waits

  Music, Beautiful, Terrible

  "Tom Waits: A Raspy Voice Heads To The Hall Of Fame". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. May 21, 2002.

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