Quotes About Lyrics

I didn't want the lyrics to be about specific things in my life, I wanted them to be about generalised experiences I'd had. So when I'm writing about relationships or somebody leaving you or something, a lot of lyrics are partly about failed relationships I'd had, but they were also about my Dad, and being abandoned as a kid.

People are always asking me what my lyrics mean. Does it mean this, does it mean that, that's all anybody wants to know. F**k them, darling. I say what any decent poet would say if you dared ask him to analyze his work: If you see it, dear, then it's there. ... I think my melodies are superior to my lyrics. ... I was never too keen on the British music press. They've called us a supermarket hype, and they used to suggest that we didn't write our own songs.

I mean, there's an aspect I've always said that is - it's, you know, it's not poetry but it's kind of like it. It's not song lyrics but it's kind of like song lyrics. It's not rap but it's kind of like rap. And it's not stand-up comedy but it is kind of like stand-up comedy. It's all those things together.

I 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.

Finally I started really opening up as a songwriter and an interpreter and taking songs from all kind of genres and stripping them down to just lyrics and the story inside the lyrics, and trying to make them really mine.

I make up new lyrics to well-known lullabies. Mostly because I don't actually know a lot of the lyrics.

You can get into a comfort zone writing lyrics, like wearing a mask. But I wanted to feel uncomfortable when I was listening back to the lyrics; I wanted to squirm.

Not only do you need great lyrics, a great message, a great story, great vocals, great chords... you also need great instrumentation, great editing, great sonics, great mixing, and great mastering. It all comes together to make something truly great, and I think each element combines together to create a powerful impact on the consumer.

I used to play guitar for myself and write lyrics and listen to different styles of music.

It'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.

People pay attention to lyrics, and the race matter was delicate.

I don't really plan what comes out of my mouth, and that's what makes most of my lyrics entertaining.

Shay sometimes talked in a mysterious way, like she was quoting the lyrics of some band no one else listened to.

I didn't really start writing music or lyrics or turning them into songs until I went to San Francisco.

What I look for in a voice is for it to be unique. I don't really care if a singer sings well. Really, it's about emotion, or being able to sing the lyrics and actually mean it. A lot of singers sing good notes but forget about what words they use.

I pay attention to lyrics and I know what rap fans care about. I try to write for the average listener and I'm conscious of the mainstream without selling out.

I privilege the music over the lyrics

A lot of times when I'm writing lyrics, I just think about insecurities that I might have and turn them into a scene. Some things may be true, and some things may not.

I've never heard of any one single artist being the subject in an ongoing series of radio programs for decades. Bearing this in mind, that's the kind of thing Frank Sinatra brings out in his audience, his followers. It's personally satisfying to me because his music by and large was the greatest quality of lyrics, melody, orchestration and, of course, his magnificent approach to telling a story.

Lyrics are my racket; music is play - the fluff stuff.

Although it's pretty rare that I'll get completed, finished lyrics to a song and feel like it's done, and then decide that it's not worth doing. Usually, I can tell along the way - even if it's something I've been working on for a couple of months - that it's just not going to work. Maybe I'll come back to it a few months or even a year later, or maybe it's just gone.

Of course, no lyrics are ever unintentional, but I think bands like Wolf Parade and the Arcade Fire have a tendency to touch on big themes without really following through on them or tying them in to a particular logic.

I get even more nervous singing when everyone's fallen silent, but I really try to communicate the meaning of the lyrics, and there's people there listening to that, and if they're moved by it, then I'm moved as well.

A lot of the people I was writing with think a lot more about lyrics and a lot more about the details from the beginning. That kind of thinking made me a little self-conscious because I was suddenly having to judge what I was doing early on in the process.

One of my big goals as a human being is to continue to write what's really happening to me, even if it's a tough pill to swallow for people around me.... I do fear that if I ever were to have someone in my life who mattered, I would second-guess every one of my lyrics.

As a song writer when I first was aware of the Beatles and started, you couldn't avoid hearing it, not that I, I tried. And what, what struck me was not so much the songs or the part of the songs that, that seemed unique to me were, was more melodic at the beginning than, than the lyrics because they were still talking about, you know, I love you, I don't love you and I need you or don't need you.

I was never a 'sit down with a notepad and write lyrics' kind of person.

I basically try not to waste any lines in any of my songs, and I think the witty phrases and funny lyrics I have bring a smarter sound to college hip-hop.

I have found in black metal the lyrics are profoundly beautiful... a pathos and mythos at the same time.

The first thing that inspires any song is a chord progression. When I have one I really like, I get into the lyrics even more.

Writing a song doesn't heal things. Even if the song comes up with a solution, it's still only a theory. Going out and living my lyrics is a whole other deal. That takes courage.

Every song with lyrics is lyrical.

I'm not psychic, but my lyrics are.

I'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.

We human beings are tuned such that we crave great melody and great lyrics. And if somebody writes a great song, it's timeless that we as humans are going to feel something for that and there's going to be a real appreciation.

I've never been a fan of getting someone to sing the generic, love song lyrics and sticking on top of the feature. If I'm gonna collaborate at all, it has to be in a way that makes the track a whole and not two parts.

Lyrics are tough for me and I never feel like they're quite done.

Imagination is the key to my lyrics. The rest is painted with a little science fiction...All I'm writing is just what I feel, that's all. I just keep it almost naked. And probably the words are so bland...I just hate to be in one corner. I hate to be put as only a guitar player, or either only as a songwriter, or only as a tap dancer. I like to move around...Music doesn't lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.

I put a lot of work into my lyrics. Not all my stuff is meant to be scrutinized, though.

Nothing really goes through my head when I'm performing live, I normally just look out into the crowd and see the fans and it makes me feel really happy - especially when they all sing the lyrics back, it's amazing.

I think I have a vested interest in thinking that the lyrics are important, but I think for us it's important that we all write things that mean something to us, and I think we're not really in the business of writing la-la-love-you chart pop songs. It needs to have a personal pulling in the gut for me, to want to write anything about it.

I didn't get into Tupac [Shakur] until a little later, once I started understanding rap and people's stories. Eminem was the first rapper that I actually started dissecting the lyrics, and once I got attached to his stories, then I started listening to Dr. Dre, then Snoop 'cause they were all under one camp.

I would agree with that. But when I write lyrics, personally I don't care if the person who is listening to it understands what I'm saying or not; and I write them like that specifically. You know, I have my views; I don't feel the need to have people have the same views as me. So if they find the meaning in the songs and it's the same meaning as the one I intended then fine and dandy and if they don't, they don't.

What a gulf between impression and expression! That’s our ironic fate—to have Shakespearean feelings and (unless by some billion-to-one chance we happen to be Shakespeare) to talk about them like automobile salesmen or teen-agers or college professors. We practice alchemy in reverse—touch gold and it turns into lead; touch the pure lyrics of experience, and they turn into the verbal equivalents of tripe and hogwash.

I would say I'd rather dig a ditch, you know, do hard, manual labor than write lyrics.

On the whole, it bums me out that lyrics seem to be written as afterthoughts nowadays. Not sure why this is, but hopefully things will come around again and bands will once again want to "communicate" "ideas" with their audience, and not just content themselves with providing attitude and atmosphere with clichés on top.

I actually find a lot of pleasure in writing lyrics.

I don't fake my music. If I want to be known for anything it's for creating honest music. Noting is fake or will ever be fake about the lyrics and pain in my music. My music I live it.