Quotes About Lyrics

maybe memories are like karaoke-where you realize up on the stage, with all those lyrics scrawling across the screen's bottom, and with everybody clapping at you, that you didn't know even half the lyrics to your all-time favourite song. Only afterwards, when someone else is up on stage humiliating themselves amid the clapping and laughing, do you realize that what you liiked most about your favourite song was precisely your ignorance of its full meaning- and you read more into it than maybe existed in the first place. I think it's better to not know the lyrics to your life.

I never write a tune before the lyrics. I get the lyrics and then I write around them. Some people write music and the lyrics come along and they say, 'Oh yeah, I've got something to fit that.' If that's the way people write songs, I feel like you might as well just go to the supermarket.

Do I start with the lyrics? No. Quite honestly, it's the opposite. I generally get the melody first - I kinda fiddle around on the guitar and work out a melody. The lyrics are there to flesh out the tone of the music. I've tried before to do things the other way around, but it never seems to work. Obviously, I spend a lot of time on my lyrics, I take them very seriously, but they're kinda secondary. Well, equal, maybe. I think sometimes that if you write a poem, it should remain as just a poem, just... words.

The challenges change depending on the song. There are some songs where the lyrics are really a challenge and then there are other songs where the lyrics are there and the music is a challenge. And then you've got rock songs where the challenge is the tightness of the arrangement with the band. The music and the lyrics are there, but it's a challenge to get the arrangement correct. So I wouldn't be able to point to one thing. What the challenge is changes all of the time.

I try to write lyrics that will be able to function on their own if they get separated from the music. But I wouldn't want to take anything away from poets, who work without the frames songwriters get from melody, and I think lyrics should be considered as their own thing.

My forte is playing along and singing along to music I love. I mean, who knows, maybe I could develop that knack or develop that ability to write, and I do actually co-write with people and friends, which is fun, too, because then I don't have to worry about writing lyrics, because for me writing lyrics is impossible.

Sometimes melody and sometimes lyrics. It depends on the tempo and feel of the song. Slower pieces usually begin with melody and faster ones with lyrics. I write for the song and it leads me to my conclusion.

[The lyrics and melody] usually come a little simultaneously, but I would say the lyrics are first; usually I have the idea for a story in my head, or few lines.

I listen to a variety of music. The only common point is strong lyrics; I'm more obsessed with lyrics than music. I need to hear a form of truth, and if it's a hard truth, even better.

(Talks about Lucky You) "The song was about a girl who didn't fit in and she didn't care and she was different than everyone else. I think there's a long chorus of me singing "Do do do do do do do do do do". It's very young and I look back and it's kind of interesting to hear those kind of storylines and the lyrics that I used to write compared to the lyrics that I write now.

Why in the hell do journalists insist on coming up with a second rate Freudian evaluation on my lyrics when 90% of the time they've transcribed the lyrics incorrectly?

And just as you can find hip-hop lyrics beating up on all these groups, including young Black men themselves, the primary producers of the music, you can also find lyrics celebrating them.

It's funny, I write lyrics in a bizarre way - I'm always writing lyrics, mostly when we're traveling or walking around New York, that's when I'm writing most of the stuff.

I want to say my life inspires my lyrics, but I also try to abstract them as much as possible because I don't want to refer to my life explicitly. I'm definitely really embarrassed by my lyrics.

I'm proud of the lyrics because I take a lot of care in writing them. I try to make it so people will want to go in and get really into the lyrics. I hope there are different corners to them, with lots of levels-without sounding pretentious.

Ironically, when I was playing in my first band, I would deliberately not write down any lyrics. I have a really good memory and I would just keep them in my head.

I write the lyrics based on what is going on in my life - I'm not going to write about the old hair metal stuff, like castles and stuff.

I'm glad that the lyrics reach people and make them understand that we're all the same, really.

Yeah. 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.

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 process of applying music to words is a bit like scoring a film. You've got imagery.

I work in bits and pieces. When I'm touring it's difficult. After touring, when I have space and time, it's a process, something I've been doing since I was 10 or 11 years old. I collect lyrics, melodies, bits and pieces, and finally it all comes together. It's hard to say - I've been trying to figure out how the process works.

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

When I write lyrics, it's only when I'm angry or hurt or sad. So lyrically it's never really easy going. And the music is always really intense.

I privilege the music over the lyrics

You'll also need to invest in yourself with the kind of promo that targets your specific audience to help build that word of mouth. Most importantly, believe in what you're doing and in your music and lyrics.

Hopefully people can look at our band and see that we're a heavy rock band. We're definitely not a metal band, but we're a band that focuses on meaningful lyrics and melody.

I mean, my wife is always like - I don't write lyrics. So I couldn't, like, really technically write a song for anyone. I could write a very nice instrumental. So she always sort of gives me a hard time because it's just such a ridiculously impossible standard to live up to, that your step-dad wrote that song for your mom.

As soon as you start to think of that thing that you want to convey or say, you can always just say it much better than you can actually rhyme it or stuff it into a song. It's very, very difficult to just kind of get your point across without going the back way. And you have to be good at that, to not think about things so hard. Let the pen take over, so that it's somebody else's job to dissect the lyrics and tell you what you're all about.

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.

I 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.

After that, I specifically started writing lyrics. I would like sweat and think and get it all together.

Vocals are not central to what I do, and I've never liked singing live. I've always been more inspired by rhythm, texture, harmony than vocal melodies and lyrics. Plus, for me, I can better express my musical ideas through instrumental music than vocal music, the emotional interpretation of which can easily supersede the actual musical content or aim.

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.

Songwriters might write cynical, world-wise lyrics and constantly talk about money, but most of us are downright naive when it comes to business.

A more detailed world is a more complicated and complex one, and therefore a more empathetic one. I feel Gord's Downie lyrics are exceptionally empathetic, or that's what they accomplish. The fact that they can cross all those cultural cliques and boundaries really amplifies that, to me.

I always write knowing that people will hear it, but also hoping they'll see it. So a lot of times I make lyrical decisions based on what looks better. Also I write based on what I saw for a video. I obsess over lyrics in the hopes that they'll endure in different ways. I'm very precious about it.

Anyone who wants to know who I am can just read my lyrics - I've always written about who I am.

I don't see myself as the boss. I sing and write the songs, and it would feel strange if somebody else wrote the lyrics I sang.

"The way I feel about music -- any song, any style -- is that there is no right and wrong, only true and false. If the music and lyrics are conceived out of honesty and if the production of the song goes along with its original message, then what has been expressed is art, regardless of what anyone's opinion is of it. So things are a lots impler if you just tell the truth.

How can you consider flower power outdated? The essence of my lyrics is the desire for peace and harmony. That's all anyone has ever wanted. How could it become outdated?

When I write, it is always the melody that comes first, and it just happens to be the case that the most beautiful tunes are sad, and the lyrics follow the mood of the melody.

It's such a rush doing a concert and seeing people actually mouthing the lyrics.

I remember going into a raggedy studio, still with my work uniform on. At the time, I was driving money trucks for Wells Fargo, so I had my gun and hat, which weighed me down in the heat. It was 97 degrees here in New York, and they had to turn the air conditioner off because it was too loud. So, I say, "Damn, it's hot in here!" That's how we came up with the song, "Damn, It's Hot." It was from our soul. We just got together, sang and made our own lyrics.

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.

I felt a kinship with country music, because country has lyrics that tell stories

If you're single, then I'm single?" What's that supposed to be? Lyrics to a pop song?

I think a domestic situation can change you and your attitudes. I suppose if you did get a bit content, then you might not write savage lyrics.

Phillip is a repository of random snatches of film dialogue and song lyrics. To make room for all of it in his brain, he apparently cleared out all the areas where things like reason and common sense are stored.