Popular quotes about Lyrics! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 6
I didn't know how write a song, (verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, bridge, verse), etc., and I didn't know how to write lyrics, so that's when I thought, well, I don't have to write a song with all those verses and choruses or lyrics. I can just sing everything the way I want to. So I sang all the instruments with my voice and just went with it.
Petra HadenPretty much any given day, barring some major distraction, I get melodies coming to me. Lyrics don't come quite as easily. So I've been inventing little projects and challenges to sort of kick my ass with the lyrics.
Andrew BirdI 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.
GrimesIt's not like changing one word with my lyrics is going to make them more intelligible or relatable. I was always very misunderstood and taken as very pretentious and serious all the time. I would think, "Do you not see there's a lot of tongue-in-cheek and humor here?"
Paul BanksI'm glad that the lyrics reach people and make them understand that we're all the same, really.
Phil CollinsIt'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 PlantMost people think its sex, money, and drugs but Hip-Hop is about lyrics, storytelling, and everybody having a different style. That's just another idea of beautiful, being yourself and creating music that represents you and what you like.
RapsodyI don't understand why America embraces Lady GaGa and Katy Perry and all of the "pop stuff" as much as they do. The Jonas Brothers, Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber are also included, and I don't really get any of that. Maybe that means that I am old. That stuff seems like it isn't that "authentic." Katy has a cool writing style though, and her lyrics can be poignant and mean stuff from time to time. I really appreciate that about her.
Matt ThiessenI usually get my lyrics when I let my mind wander, when you're not really awake, but not yet fully asleep. I keep an open notebook by my bed and then just write whatever comes to me.
Brie LarsonIf you read about a tree, and there is a description, you have to grow that tree in your mind. So that's an active way of looking at media, whereas a movie or a TV will be passive, because they are showing you the tree. In the same way, when somebody sings a song for you, those words get so much in the foreground, that even if you take a minor key of music and then put like happy lyrics to it and people think it's a happy song. So, in a song, you are told what to feel, whereas, in an instrumental music, you get as much out of it as you are willing to put into it.
Ottmar LiebertI 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 SoloPeople really listen to your lyrics if you rap. So, I had to make sure that they were clear and concise.
Mark SallingI'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.
Frank Sinatra, Jr.Two records put me over the top with hip-hop. One of them was 'Planet Rock,' and the other had no lyrics - it was called 'Numbers,' from a group called Kraftwerk. Every kid in the 'hood in New York and New Jersey was popping, locking, and breaking to that record. It was the hottest track on the street at the time.
Queen LatifahIt's more like you write what comes to you... You try to reflect the mood of the songs. Take 'Rearviewmirror', we start off with the music and it kinds of propels the lyrics. It made me feel like I was in a car, leaving something, a bad situation. There's an emotion there. I remembered all the times I wanted to leave.
Eddie VedderIf you wanted to, it would be easy to find some crappy lyrics [of Bob Dylan] from the Eighties to undermine the Nobel Prize.
Bob DylanA 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.
St. LuciaIn Korean, my lyrics are witty and have twists. But translated into English, it doesn't come over. I've tried writing in English, just for me, but it doesn't work. I've got to know everything about a culture, and I don't.
PSYI was a huge fan of this band called Sparks. It was a pretty good inauguration to music since their music is quite complex. They were a little glammy, and me - being a kid and not really understanding the complexity of grown-up lyrics - I took the best out of it. But at the same time, it was mysterious enough and too far away from me for me to really be able to reach it. But they were my first love affair in the world of music. I loved that band.
Johan RenckI 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 BarrymoreThe younger people get into the lyrics in a different way; there's much more of a tactile understanding, which is the way I prefer it.
David BowieI 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.
Boots RileyI think, there are a couple of songs. I'm really proud of How far I'll Go. I literally locked myself up in my childhood bedroom at my parents' house to write those lyrics. I wanted to get to my angstiest possible place. So I went method on that.
Lin-Manuel MirandaMusic's staying power is a function of how timeless the lyrics, song and production are.
Gary WrightWe've played it [Milquetoast] a million times. When you play a song that much you sort of become disconnected with the lyrics. It's just another song essentially about people's opinions and being told how to live your life even though they may have less life experience than you have.
Page HamiltonMy beats and my production aren't dark or emo by any means; it's basically the lyrics I think, and the melody sometimes can be too.
Sarah Barthel"The River" [song] is also, yes, very metaphorical. Rivers are cleansing. As long as human beings have been on the Earth we've used rivers to cleanse ourselves. And, for me, the lyrics "something in the river," I think is - well, the river is a metaphor for where I was at the time.
LadyhawkeI think it need realness, you should speak on thing that you know about, that you being from, that you experienced or that you been around, you know. I think you need a good hook, good beats and good lyrics.
Obie TriceIf it wasn't for this person's privacy, I'd be able to talk pretty freely about this subject on a personal level. The record's about not her. It's about my struggles through years of dealing with the aftermath of lost love and longing and just mediocrity and just bad news, like life stuff. And in the [record], where the title comes from, the lyrics are actually a conversation between me and another girl, not this Emma character.
Justin VernonNo matter how many times people try to pick my lyrics apart, nobody will really understand what these songs truly mean to me because I would rather not get into it.
Bert McCrackenLegions of young hip-hop fans are as against this as hip-hop's most fierce critics. There is a huge underground movement within hip-hop circles that against these representation. You can hear this message on tons of lyrics and rap songs produced by independent emcees. But they are fighting against a well-oiled and well-financed machine.
Bakari KitwanaI never wrote music or arranged songs or lyrics when I was under the influence of anything but coffee. That's not gone away.
Chris CornellI wrote lyrics that were intensely personal to me a few years ago. Maybe people know me better now.
Kylie MinogueWhat I love about lyrics is that they don't have to be very complicated. A good sentence over a great chord with a good melody - all you need is that one moment.
Jason SchwartzmanI've got pages and pages of snippets of stuff, and if Max [Hershenow] sends me a track to write to I'll go through all the stuff and the initial reaction of gut and how it makes me feel and I'll sort of go from there and start pulling my favourite pieces of my lyrics and that will be a very literal word collage and from there I'll sculpt it for and whatever reason the song sort of presents itself. It's a bizarre process.
Lizzy PlapingerI wasn't writing the music. Ed would write a piece of music. I'd listen to it and come up with a melody and then we would arrange it. We'd put it together and I would write lyrics to my melodies.
Sammy HagarThe best song lyrics seem to me so artful, so brilliant, so warm and humorous, with both passion and wit, that my admiration is matched only by my envy.
David LehmanI can't say I was consciously thinking of the big changes in the music business when I was writing the lyrics, but change, uncertainty, flux, impermanence - these are things I'm acutely aware of. And I enjoy facing it all.
Rivers CuomoBooker T. Jones sounds more pithy and forceful than ever on โPotato HoleโโฆMr. Jones still jabs terse, unhurried melodies that sound as if he knows the lyrics but would never tell. Where the M.G.โs suavely underplayed their aggression, the rockersโ multiple-guitar attack, with distortion and feedback, gives the music teeth.
Jon ParelesOf course I can appreciate the musicality of the pieces and sometimes the lyrics are generic enough to be listened to without reference, but I often feel cheated if I don't know what the hell is making this person burst out into song.
Christian CampbellThey're the salt of the earth, those girls. They don't sit each night and compare notes on groups, criticising lyrics, asking if it's valid. They just play the record... yeah, and maybe they dance. I love them. I love them dearly
David BowieI'm not the kind of guy who walks around with a notebook writing lyrics. For me, melody and song structure come first and foremost. Unless the melody gets stuck in my head, I'll move on. Once I have the musical idea pretty firm, I just try to write words that are incredibly honest and relate to my life on that given night. I'll sit with the music on my headphones and pen and paper all night long until it's done.
Cary BrothersWell the artists that inspire me were, first of all I would say Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, John Holt, Alton Ellis, Errol Dunkley, Delroy Wilson and Dennis Brown you know. They have unique voice and sweet melody and you know, good lyrics those time yeh. The music was very nice in that time still seen, because you find that even the musical part, the musicians concentrate more on the melody than everything, more than how they concentrate on the money that time you Know
Gregory IsaacsI wanted to be an artist after all, and my teachers told me these were the best authors the 20th century had to offer. But these books sucked. They were so boring and sloppy and plotless. And Bob Dylan's lyrics seemed nonsensical to me - almost like he had just gotten high and written down whatever random thoughts occurred to him.
Simon Rich