Popular quotes about Song! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 28
Musically, though, you're a character and you're singing a song. If you're not your own character, you're the character in the song, most of the time. Even blues musicians, a lot of them who were the most realistic, at times, they were singing a song and portraying a character in the song. There's something to be said for getting involved in the emotion of a song, too, with the characters.
Jack WhiteThe 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 SwiftI wouldn't want someone assuming that some negative song has some truth between me and my wife. There was a song that one of my buddies sent me, and it was an awesome song. It was about this woman who had fallen in love with a man that wasn't her husband, and I love everything about the song except for the fact that I personally cannot sing it. It would kill me if someone thought I was singing it about my wife.
Aaron WatsonI always try to write a song, I never just want to write a record. Originally I was not writing songs for myself. ....And I can say this, most of the people who have recorded my songs are songwriters themselves. ... Even if I don't release it myself, somebody else might hear it and want to record it. When you write a song, it gives it that potential. When you write a song, a song has longevity. ... So I wanted to sing inspirational music, and that's exactly how I approached it-only the words have been changed to declare my relationship with God. Songwriting is my gift from God.
Smokey RobinsonActually 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 FratelliBesides 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 MassengillWe haven't started playing it live yet but we're going to. And then 'Warpaint' is a song that's really, really close to me because it's actually - we've had that song for many years now and it's changed so many times, it's been through every reincarnation of our band with every drummer, with sometimes with me playing drums, it was when we were a three-piece, every incarnation of the band that we've had we have played that song.
Theresa WaymanIf 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 LiebertBut I saw this video, not even the whole thing, and I just knew that it was going to be my favorite song for...for the rest of my life. And it still is. It's still my favorite song... Lincoln, I said you were cute because I didn't know how to say--because I didn't think I was allowed to say--anything else. But every time I saw you, I felt like I did the first time I heard that song.
Rainbow Rowell'Unbelievers' was a song that we felt like we could tackle, so that's one of the reasons we wanted to start playing it live, we really believed in that song and we still believe in that song a lot.
Rostam BatmanglijRight 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 IIIAll you gotta do is think of the song in your head. And it doesn't matter whether you can play it or not, you can get somebody to play it. With songs I've written, there's a song called "The Statue", which I can't play. There are songs that I've written that I've actually just hummed on - there's a song on one of the albums they have there on the Internet called "My Love Was True" and it's almost operatic. I can't play it. But I can sing it.
Don McLeanI would never sit and write a song in front of anyone, because you're so vulnerable. I don't know at what point in the process that it becomes acceptable to pass them on. When a song wants to be written, it will be written. When it does come, I will very rarely go back and edit lyrics. I'm quite a rational human being, and the only part of my life that I can't rationalise, or can't make sense of, is how a song gets written or why.
Laura MarlingIt's better to find a composition through an instrument and to play it and record it because you have something. It's a composition, and the song is good. It lives as a song. The worst is when you have a song and nothing is working well when you produce it. It's not like what you expect in your imagination. It's the worst because it requires a lot of work.
Nicolas GodinWhenever I think I know something is a classic, or an amazing song, I realise it's still so subjective, because you and your friends could be talking about something, say, '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' - an amazing classic song - or someone would be like, "'Hey Jude' is an amazing song!", and I'd be like, "I don't really like it."
Jay WatsonIf you are a cabaret artist and you are mostly singing other people's songs, you're asking them to rethink a song, listen to it in a different way. The most impact you can have while asking them to re-listen to a song is if it's a song they know very well.
Alan CummingI would say "These Days." It was the title song to an album I put out, and it's really this song that you'll hear throughout the episodes and the season in the show. I write all my music, I'm an independent artist so we do it all in-house and that song embodies exactly what the title says.
Mike StudIt's good when someone says, "Would you write a song for this purpose," or "would you record a song for this purpose," or "would you help me realize this song," again, for this purpose.
Will OldhamYou are hearing this song, and you're 16, and it's a song about love, or a girl. And then maybe there's a girl at school that you like. So you're going to be thinking about that girl. That song is sort of about that girl. The songwriter doesn't know that girl, obviously. He wrote it for something else. But there's the specific meaning with the universal again.
Craig FinnI don't sing a song unless I feel it. The song don't tug at my heart, I pass on it. I have to believe in what I'm doing.
Ray CharlesI really get inspired by songs. Like, if I hear a thug "Want to kill ya" song, I'm ready to go out and get crazy. Or if you hear this really sexual, sensual slow song, I want to go have sex. I'm very animalistic when it comes to stuff like that. Very basic emotions.
Channing TatumI hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim too ugly or too this or too that.
Woody GuthrieI keep reminding people that an editorial in rhyme is not a song. A good song makes you laugh, it makes you cry, it makes you think.
Pete SeegerExperience is all I have. I equate song-writing with archeology. Every day you dig. You dig into different places within yourself - even finding places that you've rarely been. And buried within the soil is song.
Jon ForemanI wanna make stuff that sonically sounds really good. I don't wanna make a song about how people think I'm this when I'm really that. I don't wanna make a song about how I grew up broke.
KreayshawnThe very strength that protects the heart from injury is the strength that prevents the heart from enlarging to its intended greatness within. The song of the voice is sweet, but the song of the heart is the pure voice of heaven.
Khalil GibranThe first song I wrote was the first song I remember thinking, "Well, maybe I can do something here." The very first one. By the second one I knew I could do something.
Suzanne VegaWhen I start working on a batch of tunes - like roughly 10 solid tunes - I always know there'll be another 10 to follow, because for every song I invest a lot of time in, there's another song waiting behind it.
Ryan AdamsI love truthful songs that tell a story and talk about people and their lives. If a song calls for a tear, then we will cry. If a song calls for a smile, then we will laugh. That is what I like to do.
Gene WatsonIn folk music, I've always been fond of the fragment. The song that has one verse. And you don't know anything about the characters, you don't know what they're doing, but they're doing something important. I love that. I'm really a sucker for that kind of song.
Jerry GarciaI can write songs, but I'm not gonna really feel good about the song unless it feels like me, and I'm not gonna release a song or put it on an album or play it in concert unless it really feels like me.
Brett DennenWhen you wrote a song way back in the day, you were writing material to play live. And you would buy the CD at the shows if you like the show. You may not listen to the CD, you might just throw it in the back of your car and let it warp in the sun. The main thing was you saw the song at the show.
Travis MorrisonYou can write a song about a girl or you can write a song about walking down the shops, and it's fine. I just try and do something as meaningful as I can without trying to be a pretentious loser because it's genuinely just how I see things.
Matt CorbyRock n' roll was a bad and evil thing. l remember once I was singing a Barry Manilow song, "Mandy," In the back seat of the car. It came on the radio, and I kind of sang with it, and I got smacked In the mouth because that song was "evil."
Axl RoseNo one worries about genre when they're dancing. They're not asking themselves, 'Is this song a dubstep song?'
SkrillexSo, once I've written a song, you know, I'm pretty happy with what the song is on its own terms.
Duncan SheikI try to write songs just for the song itself. I don't try and think about where it's going to end up, that way you're writing for the good of the song.
Jon ForemanI 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. KingMy 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 KimbroughSometimes 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.
Ronnie James DioI love writing every song I can like a little mini movie. I like to have a character, or some characters, and really paint a picture with the song.
Dolly Parton