Popular quotes about Song! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 5
There 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 NyroEveryone has their own experiences with song. It means one thing to me and it means something entirely different to somebody else. I have a song called 'Apple Cherry' which is a song about unrequited love and to this couple in London, they fell in love to this song. The girl in the relationship called me and said she wanted to propose to her girlfriend could you sing 'Apple Cherry' while I do it? I was like 'Really? That's not a love song about getting together'.
NAOSometimes you're writing a song and you have an image whilst writing a song. I don't think you ever base a songwriting process around a video, but when you're writing a song sometimes it'll be a very visual song.
Luke HemmingsI like my name. My mom named me after a song by the 1970s group Bread. So, it's meaningful, and I like the song. It's a love song - kind of - but it's kind of depressing and dark.
Aubrey PlazaI grew up in the time just when cassettes were waning and CDs were growing. And so mix tapes - and not mix CDs - mix tapes were an important part of the friendship and mating rituals of New York adolescents. If you were a girl and I wanted you - to show you I like you, I would make you a 90-minute cassette wherein I would show off my tastes. I would play you a musical theater song next to a hip-hop song next to an oldie next to some pop song you maybe never heard, also subliminally telling you how much I like you with all these songs.
Lin-Manuel MirandaIf 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 LiebertThere are times when I want to be plainspoken about my feelings in a song. But there are other times when it's really good to try and get my head around different kinds of song structures, or maybe I might get turned on by trying to write a song that would fit in this one scene in a movie. And by the end of all this, you just end up with a bunch of different ideas. And songs are really just ideas.
Ryan AdamsIf somebody sings a song that I wrote, I feel like its a nice point of validation for the song, because it shows that the song is able to stand on its own. I like that.
Jesse HarrisEvery song falls short of the glory of what a song could be. That's why the urge is there to start again and yet again. Often it's the fault of rhyme. I've discovered a hundred times that there just aren't enough rhymes to say what I wanted to say, so I said something else instead. Sometimes it was a better thing, but the thing I meant to say went unsaid. So there's an opening for another song.
Robert HunterThe big problem with songwriting for me is starting a new song. It's the thing where all the anguish exists, not in the writing of the song, but the starting of the new song.
Nick CaveEvery song I ever wrote, I wrote to be heard. So, if I was given a choice that 50 years from now I could either have a dollar or knowing that some kid was listening to my song, I'd go with the kid listening to my song.
Ian MacKayeIt is the haunted premises of longing that the true love song inhabits. It is a howl in the void, for love and for comfort and it lives on the lips of the child crying for his mother. It is the song of the lover in need of her loved one, the raving of the lunatic supplicant petitioning his God...The love song is the sound of our endeavors to become God-like, to rise up and above the earthbound and the mediocre.
Nick CaveFor music, unlike a $500 software program, people are paying a buck or two a song, and it's those dollars and pennies that have to add up to pay for not just the cost of that song, but the investment in the next song.
Hilary RosenIt'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 GodinThat is the difference between a good song and a bad song lyrically - if you can listen to it and put yourself in that place, or see that person in that place, normally it is a pretty good song.
Ne-YoI 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 StudI don't think about, "How does this song that has more of an electronic mix prefix to a song that has a full orchestra next to a song that has other things?" I just work on it as-needed.
Regina SpektorEvery song that I record, I love, it's like my new favorite. But one that really stands out to me is a song I debuted on tour with Trey Songz called "Angel". It's a really acoustic sounding and it's a really big song.
LloydI think that I have come at it backwards in a way because a lot of what I'm doing as a songwriter is not incredibly intentional. There's a moment that happens which creates the song or the actual idea for a song, and then I'm like, "Oh, it's this kind of song."
Mirah[Best original song nomination in 2016] should be Wiz Khalifa for "See You Again," but this is an amazing song and it's easily the biggest song out of any of the songs nominated. It was a huge hit. And really, I'm just happy for Weeknd as a person.
Bun BYou 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 have a very eclectic iPod. So I've got my cardio people - so it's anything from Beyonce to some Jay-Z to Janelle Monae, her song 'Tightrope,' that's a good cardio song. And then I've got Sting. I've got Mary J. Blige. I've got The Beatles. I've got Michael Jackson. I try to pick the songs that I personally love.
Michelle ObamaI 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 try to find little things that you can do to move the song along and things that serve the song.
Benmont TenchIt's that feeling when you hear your favourite song. That feeling, whether you're in a car, at a party or alone at home or in bed and you hear this song and it just hits you so strong - thatโs what we aim for.
Julian CasablancasMy first favorite band that made music important to me was the Beatles. I was a little kid. I didn't know who was singing what song or who wrote what song.
Chris CornellI 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.
Demetri MartinI started with the chorus of that song, kind of like a fun bouncy thing to play, and then one of the lines popped up: 'I got things to do today, people to see, things to say.' I wrote about a dozen verses for it, but no song needs to be that long unless you're Bob Dylan. So when we recorded it I started to tear it down to some of the lines I thought were the funniest.
Jorma KaukonenThe song How do you like me now? By Toby Keith will be my personal theme song when I attend my first high school reunion.
Robert CheekeIn 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 GarciaThe tweets are getting shorter, but the songs are still 4 minutes long. You're coming up with 140-character zingers, and the song is still 4 minutes longโฆI realized about a year ago that I couldn't have a complete thought anymore. And I was a tweetaholic. I had four million twitter followers, and I was always writing on it. And I stopped using twitter as an outlet and I started using twitter as the instrument to riff on, and it started to make my mind smaller and smaller and smaller. And I couldn't write a song.
John MayerWhen 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 EzraEven a song on the radio that completely lacks substance is there for a reason. Sometimes, people need a break from cold reality; the song that you really don't have to put that much thought power into can be just as entertaining as something that might take you on a three- or four-minute cruise through the depth of reality.
Jamey JohnsonI don't want to be somebody who stands still and sings pretty. Each song is a world. Each song is a story. I don't achieve nearly what I want.
Renee FlemingJosh Graves laid down the dobro on that song [The White Trash Song] and he was hot. We went on the road together and we'd get drunker'n hell every night! I haven't had a drink since November, 1979. And I like it.
Steve YoungTry to take your vision and ego as far away from the song as possible. Give as much respect as you can to the song and the initial inspiration.
M. WardI can picture the color of the song, or the shape of it, or who it is that I'm trying to appeal to, in the song, and what I'm trying to, almost, reinforce my feelings for. And I know that sounds sort of vague and abstract, but I've got a handle on it when I'm doing it.
Bob DylanForgetfulness heals everything and song is the most beautiful manner of forgetting, for in song man feels only what he loves.
Ivo AndricThe people at the record company had asked me if I could write a song about my life, my relationship with God, and where I'm from. Well, I can't write a song on purpose, my songs come in a moment of inspiration or desperation.
Billy Ray CyrusWhile 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 SwiftOne of my favorite things as an engineer is watching a band get comfortable in the studio and getting a great take. Like, they're playing the song, warming up, and then suddenly, the communication really happens and everybody's really in the song, and they nail it, and then that's the take.
J. RobbinsMy favorite Elton John song is "Daniel"; my son is named Daniel and he's partly named after my wife's father, but also partly named after that song.
Steven DrozdI love to be in control of everything I do and everything around me. So that means, you give me a romantic lyric and I'll make the atmosphere, I will build on that. And then the song then becomes, it takes me to do the song, it's just a belief, it's just who I am.
Teddy PendergrassThe song could start with a riff that I base the song around. Or a chord progression or a melody I have, I just write a story about it. Lyric-wise, it's cool to have someone else's input too.
OrianthiA great song is a great song, whether it's on vinyl or CD or cassette or reel to reel or mp3. Then again, that might be an overly optimistic view, but I do think that great music will transcend the medium in which it is delivered.
MobySometimes I'll hear some music in my head or I'll go to the piano and mess around and come up with a tune, or be on the guitar and come up with some chords - or I'll come up with lines, or just some words, or just a sentence. It could be the title of a song. I do that all the time. I write titles of songs a lot. And sometimes I'll end up writing a song that I don't have a title for and I'll say, "Oh, this goes with that title".
Shuggie Otis