Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The whole point of music is being able to share your story. I've been songwriting for a long time, usually while on the road, as a way to get my feelings out.
I'm never nervous about being vulnerable with my songwriting because my favorite artists are ones that are vulnerable. I want people to feel like they know me.
It would be amazing to write a song that could be sung 100 years from now by a teenage girl and still be relevant to her - that's a dream of songwriting, maybe.
I always saw songwriting as the top of the heap. No matter what else you were going to do creatively - and there were a lot of choices - writing songs was king.
The Raspberries was formed as kind of a reaction to prog rock, which we didn't like. 'Let's bring some songwriting and harmonies back to music' And we did that.
I want to see the guitar in a non-linear sense that encompasses tones, arrangements, songwriting, audio production, and everything else - you have to do it all.
Great songwriting will never die - it's in the DNA of music - but what's new and exciting is pairing that with new sounds that technology is enabling us to make.
I started songwriting at around age 12, and that was it. I never really stopped. Nothing else ever really crossed my mind. It's truly the expression of who I am.
I like drawing people in the airport or on the bus or in venues. I like catching people in the moment. It's a similar inspiration for me in terms of songwriting.
One of the big songwriting things for me has always been: always think what you do sucks. Because the second you stop believing that, you suck. And that's a fact.
Songwriting is just like any other kind of writing - it's either fiction or nonfiction. You can even get into philosophy and politics, which I've done on occasion.
I actually played guitar before I played drums. And I always play guitar on the Slipknot albums as well, as well as being responsible for a lot of the songwriting.
There's a lot of personal stuff that can go into songwriting but there's also a lot of dramatization and fictionalization. You have to do that to make a good song.
If a woman's aim is to become a singer, I would highly advise her to first develop her craft in songwriting. It's such a powerful tool to have when you're a singer.
The thing is, I feel like it would defeat the purpose of being a musician if I let any kind of fear of failure affect my songwriting or making an album or whatever.
Growing up, I became a huge fan of Freddie Mercury, Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins. That's where I really started developing my songwriting skills on a personal level.
Songwriting was definitely first. I started singing, and then I was rapping; then I went back to singing. As I was growing up, I just taught myself piano and guitar.
There's a lot of vulnerability in songs - I'm not talking about pop songs - from people that are in the art of songwriting more than the commercial enterprise of it.
Not that there is anything wrong with confessional songwriting, there are plenty of people that do that I admire. I think it is great, it just isn't how I do things.
I've never thought about songwriting as a weapon. I've only thought about it as a way to help me get through love and loss and sadness and loneliness and growing up.
The music is in the lead here, and a large part of this, I have no idea what I'm doing. I feel a closer bond with the craft of songwriting, stronger than I ever have.
And I look forward to the time when I can become more indulgent with my songwriting. But this band is a family, and it's a process that we have to grow with together.
I never wrote poetry, just prose. I don't really consider songwriting a form of poetry either. The words are important, of course, but they're dependent on the music.
Songwriting has always been a means to an end for me. That end being a tool to try to understand myself in the world and, through observation, make sense of the world.
For me, in songwriting, I have a route I can take. Maybe there's some forks, I can go this way, this way. But I know those roads. I still have the experience behind me.
I like to keep morale up and not take things so seriously all the time. I enjoy life and laughs but I'm serious about the music. Serious about the craft of songwriting.
In advertising, you have a small window to say the most you can. That's what songwriting is. The difference is, you get to put the leaves on the trees and colour 'em in.
For me, songwriting is really where it's at. I turn to use the guitar just to help me write the songs. That's it. As a result, my guitar playing suffers pretty horribly.
My songwriting is so influenced by orchestrated music, dramatic, super glam rock-y stuff. Two of my biggest influences in songwriting were Elton John and Freddie Mercury.
Songwriting is actually a really great outlet. I kind of recommend it. You get to sum up whatever is going on in your life in a song, then perform it really passionately.
I'm a songwriter-singer. I'm very vocal oriented, of course, but songwriting - no matter whether it's for myself or another artist - is of paramount importance to it all.
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 it with anyone to feel good about it.
We have a camp up in the Adirondacks with no electricity, and I find that it's one of the most fertile places for me as far as songwriting because there isn't much to do.
My friends and I took songwriting very, very seriously. My hero was and still is Bob Dylan, but also people like Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell and that whole generation.
The '80s, no matter what kind of wacky fashion or whatever else that went on in the '80s, the songs that came out of it, there was really great songwriting, in my opinion.
One of the most frustrating parts about songwriting for me is production, but it makes me want to get better at it and ends up being one of the most rewarding parts of it.
There are albums that I listen to religiously just because I'm such a big fan: any Bruce Springsteen album, or old George Strait albums because the songwriting's so strong.
I see songwriting as having to do with experience, and the more you've experienced, the better it is. But it has to be tempered, and you just must let your imagination run.
Traditional songwriting, to us, is where the experimental nature comes in. We're all involved with so much outside activity with really hardcore, experimental music-making.
Raymond Chandler managed to write about L.A. his whole career. Should I keep going writing about New York? Is that what I should be doing? Songwriting doesn't work that way.
I don't think we ever really think about it when we're doing it, because if you sort of go in with a plan of attack, it tends to take away the natural rhythm of songwriting.
With songwriting I spend a lot of time living life, accruing all these experiences, journaling, and then by the time I get to the studio I'm teeming with the drive to write.
I love the pursuit of songwriting, and I've seen what songs can do in people's lives. Some of the stories that come back from songs flying around the globe are so encouraging.
At 18, I got a publishing deal, so I was like, 'I can do this for real and not go to college.' When I was a teenager, my parents dragged me to a lot of songwriting conventions.
I learned classical guitar as a kid at about 7 or 8 years old. When I was about 14, I started dabbling in songwriting. That's when I got into the folky singer-songwriter style.
I got No Doubt on cassette, 'Tragic Kingdom.' And I just remember being so psyched about all those songs and, like, the songwriting and just her voice, and her vibe was amazing.
I feel like, throughout 'True Romance,' I was unsure of myself in terms of songwriting. Even though it was my voice, I feel there were a lot of other voices on that record, too.
The songwriting of Hall & Oates is deceptively complex. There are a number of key changes that pass you by as you're listening to the song because they're so seamless and clever.
The thing about me is that I'm very fortunate to have had the opportunities with Avenged Sevenfold in songwriting. I really think it's helped to bolster my guitar playing as well.
There's been many times when a producer will say, 'I don't think you want to say that.' We were told we shouldn't be so brutally honest about songwriting or radio or the industry.