Popular quotes about Lyrics! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
I usually start with a guitar riff or some little pattern of chords, and then I kind of go from there. Usually my lyrics are the last thing to go onto a song. For years and years I only ever did instrumental, so I'm still trying to get confidant with my lyrics and find the right balance. I'll generally get inspired from the music. I'll have a guitar line, and then I'll have a melody line, and I hook the lyrics up to fit that rhythm. So, my lyrics to tend be very rhythmic as well. They work with the music rather than the music works around them.
Butterfly BoucherI always write lyrics first and the rhythm and the melody come from the lyrics. It always comes from the lyrics: words have rhythm and words have melody.
Ken HensleyI wanted to write some lyrics that had some meaning to them, lyrics that were meaningful to me and hopefully people can take something from that.
Adam RichI have a structured songwriting process. I start with the music and try to come up with musical ideas, then the melody, then the hook, and the lyrics come last. Some people start with the lyrics first because they know what they want to talk about and they just write a whole bunch of lyrical ideas, but for me the music tells me what to talk about.
John LegendI've stolen music before, I don't know anyone who hasn't. But if you're gonna do that, I want you to be able to have an opportunity to know the real lyrics because I really hate it when people put up wrong lyrics online.
Justin VernonI write the music because I can't really write lyrics. But I can write chords like Robin's never heard of. So I provide the music for them to add the lyrics to.
Maurice GibbJiyong hyung's mind can go wild and think a lot of things. This was my first time writing my own lyrics so I only thought about myself, but Jiyong hyung won't do that. He'll think, 'Ah, this type of rap suits T.O.P., this part suits Seungri.' That's how he writes lyrics, but I can't do that yet.
SeungriI detest 'love lyrics.' I think one of the causes of bad mental health in the United States is that people have been raised on 'love lyrics.
Frank ZappaJust because I said lyrics are a sign of the inability to sing doesn't mean....A) I believe that, or B) I don't think they're cool. They are cool. Words are great. I sing along with my favorite songs, but when I am drumming and singing, the words become a note that for me. In the process of playing they have more emotional impact as notes then an actual word.
Brian ChippendaleYeah. My singing and my songs were very influenced by all of that. People would come up to me and ask, Is that a Billie Holiday song? I'd say, No, it's my song. The lyrics would be in my style, but the songs would be very jazzy.
Regina SpektorIt's part of me to get off on those moments where... well, what people would call attention. Obviously, that isn't the be-all and end-all of life, but at the states of creativity that I've reached, well, it helps the lyrics along a little bit.
Robert PlantBob Dylan has a way with words that simply blows me away. When he forgets his lyrics he just makes up new ones on the spot, that is what I called talented!
Gavin RossdaleI remember listening to like gospel-y blues tunes. I'd just listen to the rhythm and the music was upbeat. Always upbeat if you get like a good rhythm you can nod your head. You just feel good. But then when you listen to the lyrics it was quite sad.
Michael KiwanukaI 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 process of applying music to words is a bit like scoring a film. You've got imagery.
Bruce CockburnI grew up with all kinds of music, but my heart was particularly drawn to Country Music because of the guitar playing, the lyrics and of artists like Steve Warner and Vince Gill.
Bryan WhiteI'd like to do a song that I wrote today about our government's increasing infringement on our right to privacy, but the lyrics mysteriously disappeared from my guitar case.
Dan PiraroMy heart is a weatherballoon caught in an updraft of a chinese tax percentage, the tax percentages are unequivocaaaaaaaaaal, Unequivocaaaaaaaaal. This is the sort of lyrics you could never think of, loser. Here's a razorblade go cut yourself
Thom YorkeI don't think lyrics need to be deep - just write whatever comes out of you. You don't need to find intense meaning in everything.
Bethany CosentinoDepth on different levels is so important to me. You look at a band like The Beatles, all their material has so much depth to it. And I want people to be able to run away with my melodies and get lost in them and take the lyrics and be able to relate to them.
Haley ReinhartI carry my iPod everywhere. My favorite group is the John Butler Trio, an Australian jam band. The lead singer and guitarist writes amazing lyrics.
Hope SoloOne of the nice things about being in a band is that you depend on each other for ideas, so it's not all up to me to do everything myself. There's always that fear that you'll run out of stuff. The most difficult part for me is writing lyrics, and that starts to get difficult after you've written, like, 120 songs.
Dean WarehamI want to suggest a feeling. It's ridiculous to assume you can state an opinion. Somebody else can never relate to the lyric in the same way because their whole experience is different. You can only suggest, then people add their own history and experience to the lyrics.
Danielle DaxThe lyrics to the single 'Survivor' are Destiny's Child's story, because we've been through a lot, ... We went through our drama with the members ... Any complications we've had in our 10-year period of time have made us closer and tighter and better.
Beyonce KnowlesSo, youโre hitting on Clare the Fair.โ โIโm not hitting on her. Iโm exploring the possibility of seeing her on social terms.โ โHeโs hitting on her,โ Owen said around a mouthful of chips. โYouโve still got that thing you had for her back in high school. Are you still writing bad song lyrics about heartbreak?โ โSuck me. And they werenโt that bad.โ โYeah, they were,โ Ryder disagreed. โBut at least now we donโt have to listen to you playing your keyboard and howling them down the hall.
Nora RobertsI get a lot of shit because I put "I" in the lyrics all the time. The "I" is always for someone else... When I say "I," it's so that when that person is singing along with the song, it empowers them.
Henry RollinsTo all companies please stop using Xmas songs and inserting your own lyrics. Write your own music. I am boycotting you until you stop.
Bill EngvallI think my voice worked out fine, but it was a lot of work for me. And I was very self-conscious about it. I was a bit self-conscious about writing lyrics too.
Jerry HarrisonA lot of times, I'll have a goal, I'll start writing, and I'll end up in some far off place, which is good. It's nice to have a focus, but letting the lyrics write themselves where they need to go is important.
James HetfieldOriginally I had a block about appearing in a musical. I went to a voice teacher for a while, but that did no good. My range is about one and a half notes. I ended up talking the musical numbers, which was revolutionary at the time. The lyrics are extremely intricate. They move along like a precisely acted scene. If you miss a word - heaven help you - the orchestra rattles past like an express train, and you've got to run like the devil to catch up.
Rex HarrisonI usually start writing stories from tone and not from content - kind of like people who create music and invent the lyrics later on.
Etgar KeretThe way I feel about Crunk Feminists. Here you have a bunch of bloggers who are not even quoting any feminists' works who are telling me what I can do better when I've been doing this as my life's work while y'all still in college! What are you talking about? And their criticism was of the idea that we should approach people like Rick Ross and Lil' Wayne with love when they have lyrics that we don't like, as opposed to approaching them with hate. That's their issue: How dare I say I approach Rick Ross with love!
Talib KweliI got into songwriting because I'm not very good at communicating sometimes, just my true words, so music was always my way of expressing myself and being able to put things into lyrics that I couldn't say necessarily in my everyday life.
LIZMen felt a chill in their hearts; a damp in their minds. In a desperate effort to snuggle their feelings into some sort of warmth,one subterfuge was tried after anothersentences swelled, adjectives multiplied, lyrics became epics.
Virginia WoolfI think, then, there's the sort of, like, political dimension to lyrics. One of the problems that I've had with my output as a lyric writer is that I look back at it and there's some turn-of-phrases and some images and some kind of montage-y kinds of things I'm really proud of. But it kind of bums me out that people have told me again and again that they don't really understand what I'm trying to say.
J. RobbinsI should attempt to write a love song, I have written lots of poetry about love so I could turn those into lyrics. I'm a sucker for romance - always have been, always will be. I love walking down the beach and listening to my iPod and belting them out. What would we do without love songs?
Drew BarrymoreMetaphors are not user-friendly. They're difficult to find and difficult to use well. Unfortunately, metaphors are a mainstay of good lyric writing-indeed of most creative writing. ...metaphors support lyrics like bones.
Pat PattisonIf you're 30, 40 years old, you're not getting listened to by minors. Like, Jay Z has some of the sickest lyrics ever, but I would never buy his CD, just because of my age and because of his age.
Young ThugSometimes it's nice to be able to reflect on the music itself and then write lyrics that I feel anyone can relate to. It's not my dreaming tree that is dead. The feeling of a loss of hope is universal. There are moments that we've all felt a little bit of it, so I don't think it is something that is too hard to identify with.
Dave MatthewsI didn't really think I would be a musician. I always thought I'd be a writer. I wanted to be a writer in college, but I thought I could be a better musician. I loved the process of writing music and lyrics more than I loved the process of sitting at my computer and writing. Because of that, I thought I would be a better musician than a writer.
Leah SiegelFrankly I don't listen to lyrics (a problem in that I apparently work in musical theatre) I just want a good tune that doesn't require the use of too much grey matter.
Christian CampbellI'm more honest in my lyrics than I am in anything else. It's where I feel the most safe to express myself. I write about growing up, my family, Maddie and getting pregnant. If I've lived it, why wouldn't I talk about it? I guess that's been the coolest thing - realizing that it's OK to just be myself and really tell my story.
Jamie Lynn SpearsSometimes my lyrics are about things that are, well, not the brightest, but I have been working with this outlook for such a long time that it's not dark to me anymore. It's just something that you work through and in the end, it's a lot of happiness.
Karin Dreijer Andersson