Close Quote by Tobias Forge

Every writer writes in different ways, and so some write the music first, while others write the lyrics first, and some write while they…

— Valerie June

Music is first, lyrics are secondary.

— Kurt Cobain

I'm without a doubt a producer first. The lyrics happen towards the tail-end of the process, mainly because they're more stream-of-consciousness. It's very rare…

— Washed Out

When I'm writing with John Leventhal, the music that he's written mostly comes first. And I'll write the lyrics and the melody.

— Shawn Colvin

I always write the lyrics first. There are one or two exceptions over the years, but that's pretty much the way it's been. The…

— Bruce Cockburn

Usually [the lyrics] go from one word to the next word - there's no finish line. The music was that way, too.

— Stephen Malkmus

I generally have lyrics first, but you can't help that when you're writing lyrics you start to get a melody in your head. So…

— Billy Bob Thornton

I would say the songs that have different lyrics. I always write the music first, and there's a couple of songs on this box…

— Billy Joel

It's always amazing seeing the song-writing process. A song just starts off as just an idea or a story you want to tell. It…

— Manika

The vocals are what immediately draw people in and sell the song.

— Jerry Harrison

On the first two albums, I essentially began with lyrics and placed the music underneath or around the words.

— Perfume Genius

I always write the first and last song of an album first, and then the middle just kind of happens.

— Bradford Cox