Popular quotes about Song! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 15
I'm one of those people that I make a song... then I write another song and then I'm like, 'But this song is so much better than this song,' and then I kind of ditch that song. It's a long process.
Fefe DobsonThere are no limitations with a song. To me a song is a little piece of art. It can be whatever you like it to be. You can write the simplest song, and that's lovely, or you can just write a song that is abstract art. ... A lot of my songs are very serious, I'm like dead serious about certain things and I feel that I'm writing about the world, through my own eyes. ... I have a love for simple basic song structure, although sometimes you'd never know it. ... Most of the songs I wrote at night. I would just wake in the middle of the night. That's when I found the space to write.
Laura NyroI would say a great song [is where] you like everything in the song. The lyrics move you, the beat makes you want to dance and you feel invincible when you listen to that song. A good song I think you can listen to but you get tired of it really fast.
Aino JawoI'm a panicked karaoke participant because I am always searching for a song in the moment. I don't have my go to song. I will be driving along and I will be like, "That should be my karaoke song!" and then I forget what song it is.
Will FerrellI feel like this song [Yello, "Oh Yeah"] was probably done in a couple of minutes in a studio. There was probably no thought behind it; they were just playing with some samples and threw it together. I feel like there's no dream behind the song. Usually there's a dream or some kind of passion attached to a song. This song feels very empty. It made a lot of money for the songwriters but at the expense of culture.
Margaret ChoActually think anybody ever approaches writing any song, I think the song approaches them, truth be told. Usually what happens is that a song arrives and afterwards you say that "I wrote the song," and it's not actually true; they find you, they write themselves.
Jon FratelliWhen you sit down and write a song, you kind of have the idea for the song, and you sit there at the piano and you kinda just write it. And then of course later there's some dinking around with it and changing some stuff. But there's this thing that happens when the song first comes out, that sort of magic when it first comes out of the ether, and you can't even really explain where it comes from. That happens so much with music, and people understand that with music. But I really think that a lot of movie and TV should be the same way.
Trey ParkerI think every time I play, every show is different, and I think that at a certain point a song isn't about you anymore. It's about the audience, it's about how the song has worked its way into other people's lives and that kind of keeps the meaning of the song new, because you see it reflected in other people every night.
Annie E. ClarkA song that sounds simple is just not that easy to write. One of the objectives of this record was to try and write melodies that continue to resonate...Everything that happens to you influences your writing...The writing process for me is pretty much always the same-it's a solitary experience...I have yet to write that one song that defines my career...Beck said he didn't believe in the theory of a song coming through you as if you were an open vessel. I agree with him to a certain extent.
Sheryl CrowI've been on a real Credence Clearwater kick. I've been collecting their albums on CD -- right now I really like 'I Put a Spell on You.' I don't know who actually wrote it; it might be a traditional, or like, an old blues song, I haven't looked in the liner notes, but it's the first song on their first album. I love all the hits; I mean @#$%&, I like every one of them. I think my favorite song by John Fogerty is 'Have You Ever Seen the Rain?' They're my favorite American band of all time, totally.
Ben KwellerOn past records I usually did start with a story or an idea for a song and then write around it, but on Achilles' Heel I would just start writing and try to let the song and my sub-conscience determine the direction. which is a goofy way of saying I tried not to decide before hand what the song and or the characters would do and be like.
David BazanI have this idealistic and maybe naive thought that almost any song can be anything. If you record one song today, it would maybe be exciting and cool. But I could record the same song next week and it would be something completely different.
Sondre LercheNo one can threaten poetry. It's always been there, always will be. Humans need it to live: it has sustaining powers. How could we (anyone) get through adolescence without some form of song? Song is only a version of lyric poetry that is carried more by melody than by internal coherence and unity. but lyric and song - they are the same.
Gregory OrrEverything runs smoothly. I'm never uncomfortable with anything I do. I never feel like I regret anything. I love music. All kinds of music. I'm a producer first. I feel like I can do anything and still be myself. You hear a song and you're like, "Juicy J is on this song, Juicy J is on that song," but it's still me at the end of the day.
Juicy JI was starting to play the ukulele at the same time I was having all these conversations with [the late Ramones guitarist] Johnny Ramone, these intense tutorials staying up late and listening to the music he grew up on, and picking up what's a great song and what makes a great song. He was all about lists and dissecting songs, like what's a better song by Cheap Trick: "No Surrender" or "Dream Police"? Sometimes you'd be surprised by the answer. It was an interesting dichotomy between hanging out with the godfather of punk rock and starting to play the ukulele. They came together.
Eddie VedderTo write a love song that might be able to make it on the radio, that is something that is terrifying to me. But I can definitely write a song about that chair over there. That I can do, but to sit and write a pop song out of the clear blue sky, that is very difficult and I admire the people that can do it.
Barry ManilowI am saying what comes out, because I'm really not a methodical writer. I'm not a good building writer, where you are like "well, I going to make a song today, and I think it will be a pop song." Some people are great at it and it's beautiful. If I am feeling musical and I pick up the guitar, usually something will eventually come out and I'll see where it goes.
William FitzsimmonsAs a songwriter I hate this whole, 'If it's a sad song, it has to sound like a sad song thing.' And that goes all the way back to my days with the Format. I'm an insane narcissist, so if I have to get something off my chest, I'll get something off my chest.
Nate RuessI'm constantly working on something new, whether it's a Garbage song, or for someone I'm producing or a song for film or TV whatever it is. I guess I'm sort of living in the moment and moving towards what I'm doing next. I think most artists are like that.
Butch VigSinging is a way of releasing an emotion that you sometimes can't portray when you're acting. And music moves your soul, so music is the source of the most intense emotions you can feel. When you hear a song and you're acting it's incredible. But when you're singing a song and you're acting it's even more incredible.
Amanda SeyfriedI don't write songs, songs write me. ... Writing a song can be agony or ecstasy. It can take half an hour or half a year. ... The popular song is America's greatest ambassador.
Sammy CahnThen I played the song that hides in the center of me. That wordless music that moves through the secret places in my heart. I played it carefully, strumming it slow and low into the dark stillness of the night. I would like to say it is a happy song, that it is sweet and bright, but it is not.
Patrick RothfussOn 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 BubleIf you were to say to me that you needed a romantic and sentimental song in four hours, I would have that song written in four hours.
Alice CooperI think that a great song needs the full package. I think that a great song needs everything from lyrics, to melody, to music, and it needs to be interesting and it needs take you in and swallow you and swish you around, and then regurgitate you back in better form.
William BeckettI think the music should definitely underscore the sentiment of the song, and it can work for or against it. It has just as much power in creating a kind of perpendicular sentiment in the music, creating a nice friction that also plays up some of the tension in the song.
Colin MeloyWhen I went travelling around Europe there was the Eurovision song contest on, and I got a bit dunk and we missed our train to Budapest the next day. Anyway, when I got back I kind of realised how many songs there were about people giving up things for somebody, so I thought I'd make a song about giving up things I don't have. These elaborate things that I don't have that I could give up to somebody, and I kind of thought there was kind of some sweet sentiment in that.
George EzraNot that I play guitar anywhere near as well as she sings, but I think I have always had a tendency to play solos the same way, in emotional relation to the structure of the song. I choose simple lines, and only play what seems emotionally relevant, and often express that emotion in time, that is in play or resistance to the set time of the song.
Matthew ZapruderI think that the song, the song "Stand By Me" is one of those songs that... and someone asked me, what was you thinking about or what was you feeling about? It's something that, songwriters just write songs. It's like an artist that paints. They paint what they feel. It's not, it's not about how many of these painting I'll sell it's just how they feel at the moment. And that's how I wrote "Stand By Me".
Ben E. KingAll these different groups of people that are put right in the path of billions of dollars of American tax payers' money. If I had enough time I could have named all of those people [in the song], too! The song would have been 400 minutes long.
John FogertyI didn't have song rights for the first video because I didn't know that it was going to do what it did. So for the second video, I decided better safe than sorry. It is a really gray area as to whether or not you even need song rights to make a video like that.
Judson LaipplyThe reading of the song is vital. The written word is first always . . . first. Not belittling the music, but it really is a backdrop. To convey the meaning of a song you need to look at the lyric and understand it.
Frank SinatraMy songs, they have just the one chord, there's none of that fancy stuff you hear now, with lots of chords in one song. If I find another chord I leave it for another song.
Junior KimbroughIt's hard enough to make a good song and a good recording of that song. But to try to tailor it to some outside force is just like - It's never been a factor in what I've done or what the band's done.
James IhaTo me, a political song is also a personal song. Most political activism has been driven by empathy for other people and the desire for a world that's less divisive. Even if songs aren't overtly political, they can make a listener more empathetic.
Conor OberstI didn't sit down and write a song like, "I want to write a song about this," but I just spent so much time living in this affectively charged space of the live show, with its risks and the incredible reward that comes from people knowing me, recognizing me, affirming me. And then I would wake up in the morning and have an eight-hour drive where I would read George Saunders and listen to Grouper and Pure X. And you bond so much with your tour-mates and your bandmates because it's this weird, quite desperate way of living.
How to Dress WellForgetfulness heals everything and song is the most beautiful manner of forgetting, for in song man feels only what he loves.
Ivo AndricAsh paused as he entered the house to find the three women lined up and... singing to... dear gods, anything but this. "Fergilicious." All he needed was for Simi to be here and off-key with them since it was her favorite song and he'd spent the better part of the last year cursing whoever was dumb enough to introduce that song to a hormonal teenaged demon. Worst part? Simi wanted him to call her Similicious.
Sherrilyn KenyonIn 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 JonesWhile I wanted to be supportive of Kanye [west] on the phone call, you cannot 'approve' a song you haven't heard. Being falsely painted as a liar when I was never given the full story or played any part of the song is character assassination.
Taylor SwiftYou always want to write the perfect song. But no one will ever write the perfect song, I guess. I would just like to write on that has all the elements of what I'm tring to do. And I'm working on it. I'm always working on it.
Mose AllisonOne of the nice things about a favorite pop song is that it's an unconditional truce on judgment and musical snobbery. You like the song because you just do, and there need not be any further criticism.
Henry RollinsIt was a slow process. You gotta remember I hadn't recorded a song sober in seven years. So it took me awhile to even feel like I could record a song sober.
Eminem