Songwriting Quotes · Page 2

To play without passion is inexcusable!

— Ludwig van Beethoven

Great songs aren't written, they're rewritten

— R.C. Bannon

Often the simplest song is the hardest to write.

— Patti Smith

Well, our songwriting process is pretty collective.

— Adam Rich

I am really heavy into songwriting.

— Anonymous

Isolation is a big part of songwriting.

— Natalie Imbruglia

I enjoy songwriting. It's slow-motion improvising.

— Julian Casablancas

Put your faith in God and confidence in yourself.

— Alberta Hunter

In writing songs, I've learned as much from Cezanne as I have from Woody Guthrie.

— Bob Dylan

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

— Joni Mitchell

The trick to songwriting is writing in a poetic enough way that other people can identify with it.

— Lights

Songwriting never gets old. There's always stuff to write about.

— Tori Kelly

Songwriting is such a sensitive energy. It's just a vibration of frequencies.

— Victoria Monet

Songwriting is determined by me, man... just me. I write from real life, you...

— T-Pain

Some people, it [songwriting] comes faster. Some people, it comes slower.

— Leonard Cohen

My songwriting... it's almost like a kind of self-therapy.

— Paolo Nutini

In Nashville, everybody just wants to write the best songs. So it's a very inviting songwriting community.

— Brett Young

At the time I begin writing a novel, the last thing I want to do is follow a plot outline. To know…

— Elmore Leonard

My songwriting process is painful. Songwriting is brilliant. It's a load of fun - when it works. It's really difficult as well.

— James Bay

I'm never nervous about being vulnerable with my songwriting because my favorite artists are ones that are vulnerable. I want people to…

— RaeLynn

The less I talk in bars, write emails, express myself in an emotionally lewd way outside of my songwriting, the more I…

— Ben Folds

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

— Taylor Swift

Those are the magical songwriting moments, when you have a partner that clicks like that. That's a dream come true, man.

— Sammy Hagar

YOU CAN'T TELL UNLESS YOU SHOW FIRST. ... Showing makes the telling more powerful because your senses and your mind are both engaged.

— Pat Pattison

There really are two different schools of songwriting-American and Canadian. It's interesting. You guys have this history of guys like Paul Williams…

— Fred Eaglesmith

I really don't know what exactly all the songs mean. Sometimes other people have meanings and when I hear them I think,…

— Paul Simon

I can't draw. But I can draw with sound. That's the most useful thing I learned in terms of what my craft…

— Linda Ronstadt

I'd advise all you songwriters out there, if you're getting into it for the business, go home and get a job digging…

— Butch Hancock

It was Rick's Rubin idea to have the 'Brooklyn' verse repeat. It already was a story, but having that made it a…

— Scott Avett

I think that female musicians are constantly fighting an uphill battle in general. Even when I'm not writing heartbreak songs... the fact…

— Marissa Nadler

I think you can refine what you do, and become more consistent. And you write better songs that have a better shape…

— Richard Thompson

But my strength was in singing and songwriting, which was a new discovery for me when I was 18. And I decided…

— Jason Mraz

I can't write from the subconscious actually, because a lot of the time when I co-write with other people, I'm writing for…

— Gary Louris

I consider myself to be an inept pianist, a bad singer, and a merely competent songwriter. ... I'm probably writing music now…

— Billy Joel

Writin songs is like a mystery. The most difficult thing to do is have a good idea. If you have a decent…

— Lyle Lovett

I'm pretty critical, but I'm also pretty good at letting go once it's done. There's this existential argument that comes in, at…

— Chris Cornell

To begin with, the key principle of American indie rock wasn't a circumscribed musical style; it was the punk ethos of DIY,…

— Michael Azerrad

['Fire and Rain'] is sort of almost uncomfortably close. Almost confessional. The reason I could write a song like that at that…

— James Taylor

There are no limitations with a song. To me a song is a little piece of art. It can be whatever you…

— Laura Nyro

Especially on Broadway, composers and lyricists fretted over their creations, obsessed over every rhyme, every critical chord or interval. The stakes were…

— Michael Kosser