Quotes About Lyrics

There's no difference between lyrics and poetry. Words are words. The only difference is the people who are in academic positions and call themselves poets and have an academic stance. They've got something to lose if they say it's all poetry; if there's not music to it, and you have to wear a certain kind of checkered shirt or something like that. It's all the same. Lyrics are lyrics, poetry is poetry, lyrics are poetry, and poetry is lyrics. They are interchangeable to me.

[Opetaia Foa'i] brought in the melody and the lyrics, but the lyrics were in Tokelauan, and so, we talked about what it could mean and whether this could be the ancestor song. So, I started writing English lyrics to sort of the same melody.

Frank [Zappa] was not a big fan of having lyrics, but sometimes he had things to say that lent themselves to lyrics.

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 don't write lyrics, the lyrics write Thom Yorke

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 have to decide whether I'm just laying down a groove, kind of a bed and canvas for the lyrics and music to live on, or trying to illustrate something in the lyrics.

When I published my first novel, Slammed, I included lyrics at the beginning of each chapter from one of my favorite bands, The Avett Brothers. The overwhelmingly positive response from readers to those lyrics really surprised me.

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.

I approach song writing three different ways. One way is where I write the initial melody and lyrics first and then take it in to the producer to collaborate. Another way is where the producer sends me his initial musical track ideas and then I write the lyrics and melody over his track. The third way is where we just jam out in the studio and see what we come up with.

Basically, no one else gives me any opinions on lyrics. I don't ask for them. If they did, I would listen.

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.

It's crazy to see people having tattooed my lyrics on their body, and quite frankly writing is just an outlet for my voice and getting it out there.

Most 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.

I 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.

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.

A lot of people heard 'Murda Business' and thought it was about killing people, trying to be tough and hardcore. If you actually listen to the lyrics, it's kind of silly and playful.

If my lyrics mean something special to someone... that's the most important thing to me.

A digital download is not as visceral as buying a CD, removing the shrink-wrap, putting the disc in your player, and pouring through the booklet of lyrics and liner notes. The digital age has removed us from the tactile experience of what it meant to listen to an album.

I just kept it real and had the freedom to do what I want. It's not designed for any age group. It's not made for radio. There are no edits. The whole album contains explicit lyrics but that's because you need it.

I don't think I ever wrote a song. I can write a lot of jokes, but when I try to write lyrics they're the most direct, non-figurative words, like, 'I like you, I like you,'... and that's it, for the whole song. People would go, 'Ooh, this guy's Dylan or something.' It gives me a lot more respect for songwriters, actually.

I don't have any favourite lyrics. Honestly, all of them I love 'em to death - it's the same with songs. I don't have just one favourite lyric, I love them all.

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.

Most of all I like to sing my heart out to lyrics that really speak to people.

I 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.

Every time I see a film or TV show, I think about how that composer made those choices and how that director envisioned music and how that could work onstage or in a film and how you could support that even further by putting lyrics to it.

I sing 'All Apologies' with my own lyrics. People want to sing along, but then, oops, they realize it's a different story.

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.

In 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.

Well, I don't care for Paul Ryan's sound or his lyrics. He can like whatever bands he wants, but his guiding vision of shifting revenue more radically to the one percent is antithetical to the message of Rage.

Lyrics should not need to stand on their own; many of [Bob] Dylan's do, but in common with other great lyricists, he has written plenty that falters on the page but soars in song.

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

The only music minister to whom the Lord will say, 'Well done, thy good and faithful servant,' is the one whose life proves what their lyrics are saying, and to whom music is the least important part of their life. Glorifying the only worthy One has to be a minister's most important goal!

Probably some of the songs I never even really listened to the lyrics. Half of them I'd hear off the radio and was probably singing the wrong words and didn't even know it.

I saw that something changed in terms of the way I approach writing. I don't know. Before, everything was just sort of pieced together; and more and more nowadays I'll have complete songs - chords, lyrics, a melody - and we'll apply to those songs what we feel is required. That has happened much more on Humbug album than on any of the others.

Each song had a different way of coming about. In some, the music was written first while others it was the lyrics. We didn't want to overthink anything too much - we just wanted to, writing-wise, chuck out as many ideas as possible.

'Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow,' if you go through the lyrics, is such a haunting melody, and the words are, for a pop song, pretty deep and dark.

I'm not crazy about country-western music. But the lyrics are good. "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy" is pretty clever.

Sometimes 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.

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

I'm a bit of an insomniac. I'm always thinking. I've got a lot of ideas for lyrics and shows. I have a notepad by the side of the bed and voice recorders around the house.

If your life had lyrics, would they be any good?

A good song has to have a great melody, and the lyrics have to touch my heart. Now, if it's just a little toe-tapper, got to make me feel good somehow or another, or when I sing it I can't make you feel good.

Sometimes I'll have a whole song done without having a beat - I'll just rap on an instrumental tempo and recreate a whole new song just around the lyrics.

In Van Halen there were moments, like in some of the ballads, I put my heart and soul into those records. Those lyrics when I sang 'em, I gave myself goosebumps.

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.

I 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.

To me, the lyrics of the song define the kind of style it is.