Songwriting Quotes

Songwriting is an art unto itself, not to be confused with performing.

Canadian Railroad Trilogy is an extremely fine piece of songwriting.

Not to dismiss Gershwin, but Gershwin is the chip; Ellington was the block.

My friends and I took songwriting very, very seriously. My hero was and still is Bob Dylan, but also people like Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell and that whole generation.

Songwriting's a weird game.

I suffer from the curse of being multi-talented. There's no doubt about it. Politics and literature have gotten in the way of songwriting.

A lot of people pretty much only listen to the chorus.

A lot of the great songwriters in history have been collaborators, with a separate lyricist.

Songwriting is best. It's the hardest ... finest ... tightest. It also requires the most discipline.

I don't enjoy songwriting.

I think songwriting is the ultimate form of being able to make anything that happens in your life productive.

Songwriting is as much a craft as a talent.

Most of us have the residue of thousands of songs in our ears, that if you end up songwriting, I think you're mostly smoking the residue of all that material you absorbed over time.

My head translates emotions into song. Songwriting is cathartic for me.

I'm more critical of my songwriting than anybody, but I've worked really hard in the last five to 10 years to improve.

You can do anything you want to do, if you know what to do.

After becoming famous once again - a 1976 song, "Hurricane," even marked a return to protest songwriting - [Bob] Dylan got addicted to drugs, found Jesus, left Jesus, and put out a lot of swill.

I'm a fairly tormented artist, and I'm less willing to indulge myself in self-pity, outside of songwriting.

I think most of the work of songwriting is thinking of great phrases - I'm addicted, always on the hunt for a really great phrase.

I enjoy songwriting. It's slow-motion improvising.

Songwriting is my true passion and that's what the BMI awards are all about.

A lot of people don't listen to the lyrics, really.

I think the zenith of popular songwriting to the United States of America was that period that started in the '20s and went into the '50s. It was the period of the great American standard song.

When a lot of musicians change styles, their songwriting suffers because they want to be different.

I knew I could make money from songwriting, so how much and when was not really the question.

I get some flak for and some resistance from colleagues for because I'm interested in storytelling. I mean what I like about songwriting is songs used to tell a story.

I've never thought about songwriting as a weapon. I've only thought about it as a way to help me get through love and loss and sadness and loneliness and growing up.

I love music, so if I wasn't singing, I would probably still be working in the music industry. I love songwriting, so I'd probably be a songwriter.

You know, I would say that songwriting is something about the expression of the heart, the intellect and the soul.

Experience is definitely the high road once driven. It actually enhances the songwriting and song sourcing process.

Even when I stop performing or stop making records I won't stop being creative. Songwriting is a good outlet.

Anyone involved with songwriting will testify to the fact that each song, no matter how pure or from the heart, has its own story, its own peculiar way of getting written.

I don't think you can ever regain your ignorance.

Songwriting as an art is a bit archaic now. Just writing a song is not good enough.

I can't tell one from the other:I find you or you find me?There was a time before we were born If someone asks, this is where I'll be.

At first it was my brother's songwriting and I was just doing what everyone told me.

Songwriting is like going to church. I'm connecting to something, and it's rewarding in really important ways. I don't need to share it with anyone to feel good about it.

You can't ask me to explain the lyrics because I won't do it.

Songwriting is a mysterious art. When I sit down to write a song, the end result should be mysterious and have this dark quality.

I love the pursuit of songwriting, and I've seen what songs can do in people's lives. Some of the stories that come back from songs flying around the globe are so encouraging.

I really wanted to focus on my songwriting, or songwriting with other people. I wanted to go learn from other people who were really good at the classic, more traditional idea of songwriting.

[Songwriting is] something that I own - it's my property, it's my music, it's my voice.

Annie Lalley is one of the funniest and most likable personalities you'll ever see on stage --which makes the depth of her songwriting all the more striking

Great songs aren't written, they're rewritten

To me, the guitar is a tool for songwriting, and it's fun, too. The day that it's not fun, that's when I'm not gonna play guitar anymore.

I am really heavy into songwriting.

Closed in a room, my imagination becomes the universe, and the rest of the world is missing out.

I enjoy melancholic music and art. They take me to places I don't normally get to go.

Because there are hundreds of different ways to say one thing, I, being a writer, songwriter, and poet, speak childishly and incoherently. In speech there is so much to decide in so little time.

When there's music in your soul, there's soul in your music.