Popular quotes about Song! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
The difference between a good song and a great song is a good song is one that you know, you'll put on in your car or you'll dance to it. But I think a great song you'll cry to it, or you get chills. I think a great song says how you feel better than you could.
Taylor SwiftIn every song I write, whether it's a love song or a political song or a song about family, the one thing that I find is feeling lost and trying to find your way.
Billie Joe ArmstrongBesides my fast and slooow songs, I further divide my work into three main song types: the ballad or story song, the variation on a theme (saying the same thing over and over and over again) song, and the weird song. It's important to have weird songs, but I find that a little weirdness goes a long way.
David MassengillJohnny [Depp] got this rock 'n' roll old soul to him. If I say a song, he goes, 'Oh yeah. I know that song.' A song he shouldn't know, a song that's not his generation at all. So he might as well have been there.
Alice CooperMy version of 'Georgia' became the state song of Georgia. That was a big thing for me, man. It really touched me. Here is a state that used to lynch people like me suddenly declaring my version of a song as its state song. That is touching.
Ray CharlesHERE Itโs- Can I say? Itโs like the song of a family where everythingโs always all right, itโs a song of belonging that makes you belong just by hearing it, itโs a song thatโll always take care of you and never leave you. If you have a heart, it breaks, if you have a heart thatโs broken, it fixes.
Patrick NessRight away, I knew I didn't want to have that look of other guys with long hair and bell-bottom pants, because everybody else had that look. I kind of adopted my boarding-school look, which made me stand out. Then the next thing you know, the first song on my first record is a song called "School Days." It's about going to the boarding school I went to. So then I just started to write about myself. The very first song I ever wrote was about a guy I met in a boatyard that we were working in. So I've always had this thing about sticking to more or less what I knew.
Loudon Wainwright IIII'd spent five hours that morning trying to write a song that was meaningful and good, and I finally gave up and lay down. Then, "Nowhere Man" came, words and music, the whole damn thing, as I lay down...Song writing is about getting the demon out of me. It's like being possessed. You try to go to sleep, but the song won't let you. So you have to get up and make it into something, and then you're allowed sleep.
John LennonWell, Neighbours wanted to do a song on the show, and they asked me what songs I had. I told them I'd just written this song, called Born to Try, and I had just gone overseas and spoken to some people from Song about it.
Delta GoodremMy philosophy on writing a song for myself is that I always, always, always want to write a song. I always want to write a song. I realize that as a record producer or a singer or whatever I might not, if I recorded on myself or someone else, the first time out I might not give it the right treatment, so that the world or many people will accept it and it'll be a public hit, or anything like that.
Smokey RobinsonThe best thing you can do for a song is to hear it on the radio and to imagine what it could mean to you and then kinda forget the words. Just imagine how you felt when you heard it, if it was one of your songs. If it became one of your songs. If it meant whatever it meant for you and as soon as you see the visual, you get a rapid eye movement relationship with the song instead of an imaginative one. I think that can be dangerous because I don't think I'd want to be listening to a song on the radio and thinking about the video. Whatever that one interpretation was
Ric OcasekBut the reality is when you write a song, you should be able to strip away all the instruments and just have a song right there with an acoustic guitar and a voice, and the song should be good.
Dweezil ZappaI was just fooling around with the piano and Todd [Phillips] was like, 'Hey there's a great spot in the movie [The Hangover] where we need a little bit of a breath in the narrative. You should write a song and stick it in there.' And I was like, 'Well, what should the song be about?' And he said, 'The tiger.' 'Oh, okay.' So I went off and I wrote this song. I came back and Todd and I tinkered with it a little more and then we shot it right then. It all happened in a day.
Ed HelmsI try to find little things that you can do to move the song along and things that serve the song.
Benmont TenchSay an A&R person wants me to do this type of song because they feel it is going to work on the radio, I guarantee you that unless the song is real, there is nothing wrong with having success and I want to be successful. That is why I am, but I do it my own way.
Shane BuntingYou're creating an intimacy that everybody feels, that it's their experience, not yours. I'll never introduce a song and say, now this song is about 'my' broken heart.
Diana KrallWe learnt a lot because we got in with real choreographers who tell you what they need from a song, because a song has to advance the story. Then real directors like Mike Nichols tell you where you can have 'B themes' and 'C themes', and we go oh yes, B themes and C themes! So we were taught in the finest school amongst the finest people. And also by the school of experience.
Eric IdleI've got a song on One Direction's album called 'Tell Me A Lie'. It's a really cute song - I love it. I loved that they liked it. They sound really great on it. I already have it - I'm so VIP with my copy on my computer! It does sound really good.
Kelly ClarksonWe wanted to write a whole song about partying and then taking Yellow Cabs home. That's the weirdest topic we've ever thought of centering a song around.
Taryn ManningThere are choirs singing in your head. If you listen, you will hear the music. It is the song of angels. Pay no attention to the sounds of the world. They are just noises, and even when added up all together they have no value, make no sense. Strain to hear the song of angels. Listen to the melody within your soul.
Neale Donald WalschOn social media and [in person] I hear stories of how a song like "Home" helps. Whether it's a guy overseas coping with missing his family or something deeper and terribly dramatic. Somebody once told me that ["Home"] is the song they listen to when they go to the cemetery to visit their child that passed away. It gives them hope. At the end of the day, that's all what I want to offer people.
Michael BubleI'm in a house where if the washing machine shuts off, it sings a song. If iPad gets a message, it sings a song. I'm living in a real postmodern time - every single thing sings to you to tell you it's started, it's stopped, you've got a message, you didn't get a message.
Abel FerraraIf I come across an issue, or something I feel strongly about, and I happen to think of a song that would go in that direction, then I do it. But that's not what I start out, necessarily, to do. Sometimes I may have an idea for a song - "Well, I'm going to write about a thing.
Charlie DanielsDon Quixote was a song for a 1969 Michael Douglas movie called Hail Hero! I wrote the title song for the film and they also used the Don Quixote one I had submitted.
Gordon Lightfoot"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.
Fiona AppleIn Georgia where children work day and night in the cotton mills they have just passed a bill to protect song birds. What about the little children from whom all song is gone?
Mother JonesThe reason I've gotten into script-writing, which was accidental to begin with, was that I found it was a far more effective medium for violence. Which is something that I'd always written in songs, but the violence always sat strangely within a song. And I was always interested in the way in which you listen to murder ballads and things like that - these weird lines would kind of come out, like, I drug her by the hair or something - that sat weirdly in the song. Film seems to be a medium designed for betrayal and violence.
Nick CaveYou're always going to write and draw inspiration from things that you're feeling, things that you've felt. It's kind of impossible not to unless you're writing a song and there's an exact scenario that you're trying to write a song for.
Harry StylesI'd always put on little shows at home, but when I was 11, I did a community event in Woodford, where anyone could go. You had three days of vocal training and performed your song at the end. I sang 'I Say a Little Prayer.' It's a tough song to sing but they gave me the confidence to go for it and belt it out.
Naomi ScottIn terms of love and romance, it just seems less and less like that's ever going to happen again, or be a possibility for me. I feel like I've irrevocably lost so much. You want the surprise, but it gets harder and harder to find, whether we're talking about romance, or somebody else's song, or your own song.
John MausThe melody and the structure of a song always comes first for me, so the emotions behind it can sometimes be a challenge: What am I feeling about this song? Where did the melody come from? I want it to be heartfelt.
Avey TareOkay, a truly great song is a song that makes its own aesthetic intentions clear and then lives up to them and exceeds them in an interesting way. Alright?
Stephin MerrittSometimes 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.
TygaEverything has to be intrinsic plot-wise in the same way, to use the Linda Williams analogy but to move it on a bit, as musicals - in old musicals, like in an old Cole Porter musical, you get the action, then they do a song, which reflects a moment - everything stops while that is being sung - and then you restart. These days in most musicals, the plot keeps moving through the song. I think it would be nice if someone constructed some pornography where the sex continues to propel you through the story.
Neil GaimanI always know when a song is good or close to finished. When I sing it, it makes me feel the emotion. My tears will start flowing or I'll start laughing. I'll start feeling whatever intensity or emotion was the seed of that song.
Michael FrantiI love playing the new songs live. I hate playing a new song and then having to play an old song again, it feels really boring.
Katie StelmanisI grew up listening to all kinds of music, everything from country to rock, pop, R&B and even rap, so for me, music is music and a great song is a great song.
Jason AldeanThe song "My Way" is a very remarkable song. It is also difficult to sing because you've got to convince people that what you're singing about is the truth. It's a man who is very proud of having achieved everything that he's achieved his way.
Christopher LeeIf you perform on a stage or you sing a song, it's like you sing your song, and then the words go into the air, and then they go into somebody's body through their ears, so it's kind of like penetrating somebody. It's kind of like having sex with somebody - but, obviously, from a great distance.
Jarvis CockerA bell's not a bell 'til you ring it, A song's not a song 'til you sing it, Love in your heart wasn't put there to stay, Love isn't love 'til you give it away!
Oscar Hammerstein IIWell, I Am... I Said was a very difficult song, very difficult because I really had to spend a lot of time thinking about what I was before the song was written.
Neil DiamondI'm a songwriter. So I'm OK. But when I wrote "Stand By Me" as a song and to know that the song will probably be here for hundred and hundreds of years to come, it's great, you know. And it was just simple lyrics.
Ben E. KingEvery time I try to write a song, when I sit down and think I'm going to write, I really want to write a song, and it never works out. It's always when it hits me unexpectedly on a plane or right before I go to bed, something like that.
Bruno MarsWhat can you think when one review says "this album is brilliant, and all the songs flow into the utmost brilliant song 'The Upside-Down Cross'" then another review says "this album is brilliant, except for that horrible and pointless song 'The Upside-Down Cross'," and another review will say "Jeffrey really sounds confident and relaxed on this new album", the next reviewer says "Jeffrey sounds more depressed and awful than ever" - these totally contrasting reviews happen all the time!
Jeffrey Lewis