Songwriting Quotes · Page 8

If anyone asks me about songwriting, I guess I'd say that you just gotta do it.

— Alex Turner

If you don't try and force it, a song will find the proper moment to come to life.

— Valerie Simpson

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

— Victoria Legrand

I enjoy recording and performing, but it's the songwriting that I love most.

— Conor Oberst

I get a lot of my songwriting done while driving around Nashville - sometimes it comes to me that way.

— Maren Morris

“Hidden in dreams are arts that haven’t been crafted, and songs that haven’t been chanted.”

— Michael Bassey Johnson

I always found very strong images for my songwriting in New York.

— Neneh Cherry

My focus on everything is songwriting, so I write all of my stuff by myself.

— Jade Bird

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

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

Songwriting is like going to church. I'm connecting to something, and it's rewarding in really important ways. I don't need to share…

— Juliana Hatfield

When I was 15, all I knew was that I had to be somebody and that I could be somebody. So I…

— Juan Gabriel

I do look at songwriting as a lot of work. I don't overintellectualize music as a special medium that only some people…

— Jakob Dylan

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

Country music turns the stuff we say every day into a soundtrack...taking an ordinary working man like me into that rough, happy…

— Jay Heinrichs

And Paul hits this chord, and I turn to him and say, 'That's it! Do that again!' In those days we really…

— John Lennon

I knew a lot of chords, but they weren't the chords that came with the melody that came with the idea I…

— Tom T. Hall

Besides my fast and slooow songs, I further divide my work into three main song types: the ballad or story song, the…

— David Massengill

We worked the medley on side two of "Abbey Road" out carefully in advance. All of those mini songs were partly completed…

— George Harrison

Most songwriting like poetry takes a careful selection of words. Sometimes you're just channeling something and a selection of words come out…

— Vance Joy

I do believe we should push each other to write better songs and make better music. We do ourselves a disservice if…

— Bonnie Baker

Metaphors are not user-friendly. They're difficult to find and difficult to use well. Unfortunately, metaphors are a mainstay of good lyric writing-indeed…

— Pat Pattison

What comes first? The melody, always. It's all about singing the melodies live in my head. They go in circles. I guess…

— Bjork

Songwriting was always my passion, it just came out in the form of rap. When I listen back to my old mixtapes,…

— Jelly Roll

We were on a tour, and there were some chord formations that were tough for me to play when I was a…

— Jorma Kaukonen

Listening closely to songs these days, there's a lot of lazy songwriting where people get away with it. I don't want to…

— Steve Gunn

As a songwriter, you're allowed to write anything, and as a person, I am all colors in the rainbow. I've been through…

— Dolly Parton

In the early days, Porter Wagoner would not exactly scold me, but he's say, 'You're writing too many damn verses. You're makin'…

— Dolly Parton

“A critic can call any poem 'doggerel.' That is no more than a slur. 'Doggerel' or 'maudlin' or 'sappy' or 'sentimental' is…

— Jimmy Webb

I just feel like it's easier to co-write sometimes, especially if you have chemistry with somebody. It kind of takes all the…

— Miranda Lambert

I enjoy writing songs that could have been written before [my time]. When I feel like I'm tapping into a deep vein…

— Ketch Secor

I noticed with older songs that I perform that I'm coming from a different place with them now...it mutates the vibe and…

— Ani DiFranco

Read something that YOU want to read, not something that you feel compelled to read.

— Sir David Baird, 1st Baronet

I found songwriting really hard at first, but after a while it was actually very easy.

— Dionne Bromfield

The poems are part of my attempt to understand being in the world in an honest way.

— Dan Beachy-Quick

You don't write a song to sit there on a page. You write it to sing it.

— Bob Dylan

Music really does just boil down to basically, essentially songwriting chords and melodies.

— Flume

Songwriting is my main thing. I know that I'll do that for the rest of my life.

— Emeli Sande

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

— Warren Zevon

I think songwriting has really helped me home in on what I like about myself and my art.

— Olivia Rodrigo