Songwriting Quotes · Page 16

As a songwriter, if you can touch people and make them feel a little less alone in the world, then you've done…

— Tom Cochrane

If you told the truth, that was all well and good and if you told the un-truth, well, that's still well and…

— Bob Dylan

I think Gram did his best work in co-writes. Sometimes when you're working with one other person, it's such a magical thing.…

— Chris Hillman

Both with songwriting and playing a role, you're delivering the truth of something in a moment. In a lot of ways, it's…

— Alison Sudol

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…

— Willie Dixon

Songwriting is different from music, although I don't deny now that it would be nice to have a little more background in…

— Neil Diamond

After two years in the songwriting world, I wrote 'All About That Bass.' L.A. Reid heard it and signed me as an…

— Meghan Trainor

I sit down with a guitar player and if there's a situation I feel strongly about, or a guy that I've been…

— Avril Lavigne

I lived in Nashville for about five years. It was almost like me going to college for my craft. I immersed myself…

— Jamie Lynn Spears

It was my 16th birthday-my mom and dad gave me my Goya classical guitar that day. I sat down, wrote this song,…

— Stevie Nicks

I don't think there are any clichés I try to avoid. As soon as I spot a cliché, I go for it.…

— Stephin Merritt

I don’t shake at the site of alcohol anymore. I don’t feel the need for it. If anything I’ll get stoned. I…

— Julian Casablancas

I've always known that I was a gifted person. ... I've always felt like I would be punished, severely, if I didn't…

— Merle Haggard

The funny thing is, because I was doing a lot of theater when I was a kid, and a lot of that…

— Guy Pearce

I started just concentrating on songwriting when I was abut 20; I'd been in rock bands six or seven years, kinda got…

— Billy Joel

I could send myself right back to the day that I wrote "Angel Of The Morning," how it felt. I had a…

— Chip Taylor

With Sleater-Kinney, we did a lot of improvisation in our live shows, and even our process of songwriting involved bringing in disparate…

— Carrie Brownstein

Out of my entire annual output of songs, perhaps two, or at the most three, came as a result of inspiration. We…

— George Gershwin

I've always gravitated towards songwriting that happens easily and spontaneously, because those have always been my best songs.

— Jane Wiedlin

As I started writing about loss and grief, I was taking what felt unmanageable and using my songwriting, my sense of poetry…

— Rosanne Cash

I think the zenith of popular songwriting to the United States of America was that period that started in the '20s and…

— Linda Ronstadt

Be serious. Life hurts. Reflect what hurts. I don't mean that you can't also be funny, or have fun, but at the…

— John Irving

Most of us have the residue of thousands of songs in our ears, that if you end up songwriting, I think you're…

— Tom Waits

I take songwriting very seriously and I wouldn't want anything I do to be construed as frivolous or mundane.

— Billy Squier

Songwriting really kicked in with the guitar. I was going through a lot as a kid. There had been a lot of…

— Jade Bird

Melody is the first thing that comes to me when I'm songwriting. I learned piano classically first, and then I went into…

— Emeli Sande

I swear I have at least one good song idea a day. But if I don't get pen to paper in ten…

— Cary Ann Hearst

I think songwriting is the ultimate form of being able to make anything that happens in your life productive.

— Taylor Swift

It doesn't stop. It really doesn't stop. It's the way I live every single day. I don't do anything else. I have…

— Steven Morrissey

I see pictures in my mind and become the character in the song as I'm writing. It's kind of method songwriting, where…

— Diane Warren

I feel like I'm creeping closer to finding the situation that triggers songwriting, which is obviously an extreme of an emotion.

— Laura Marling

I sit down to the piano regularly at nine-o'clock in the morning and Mesdames les Muses have learned to be on time…

— Anonymous

All the songs that were written for that album are just all our first sophomore songs. So they're all from real life.…

— Ann Wilson

To me, songwriting is the backbone of Nashville. Looks can go, fads can go, but a good song lasts forever.

— Alan Jackson

What's interesting about songs where the writer is genuinely in love with words is that it's easy to read the lyrics like…

— Ann Reed

I'm the only girl songwriter that fights for a lot of things. I fight for songwriting fees, which record labels want you…

— Ester Dean

Early in my songwriting career, when I was learning a lot about writing songs, I'd force myself to sit down until I…

— Luke Bryan

I guess when we're happy, it's easier to go with the flow, and when that happiness or joy is interrupted, that's when…

— Jeremy Fisher

Sometimes they work, and sometimes they just won't. Sometimes you get hung up on them. When that happens, you just throw it…

— Loretta Lynn

At 18, I got a publishing deal, so I was like, 'I can do this for real and not go to college.'…

— Meghan Trainor