Songwriting Quotes

'Love Story' I wrote on my bedroom floor in about 20 minutes.

If I'm gonna write songs about my exes, they can write songs about me. That's how it works.

I feel fortunate that I've had a lot of songs recorded by other people, because I take my songwriting very seriously. It's only those people that have followed me over the years and really know my work that know how serious I am about all of it - including the way I look. You can't take my high heels from me, you can't have my long fingernails, you can't take all this hair from me, because it's part of this thing that I've become. I wouldn't want to give any of it up. Do I have to be ugly to be a songwriter? This is the way I am, and it's what I choose to be.

Not every song I write is ecstasy. And it can happen only one time. After that, when you sing the same melody and words, it's pleasure, but you don't get wiped out.

'Mean' is a song I wrote about somebody who wrote things that were so mean so many times that it would ruin my day. Then it would ruin the next day. And it would level me so many times, I just felt like I was being hit in the face every time this person would take to their computer.

I like to write about love and love lost because I feel like there are so many different subcategories of emotions that you can possibly delve into.

I wanted to be a singer, of course, but there was something about the songwriting, then and now, that is the most important thing. It's how I express myself, how I express how I see things. When I see people struggling with emotions and feelings and don't know how to put it down, I'm able to do that. It's really like a therapy, and it's like a buddy and a friend. It's a way out of a lot of things.

When I'm writing a record, I kind of don't listen to much music. Just because I want to be inspired solely on the emotion; just based on how it feels.

I let people fill in the blanks on their own. If they want to think about their ex, that's fine. If they want to think about maybe who one of my exes is, then that's fine. And it might not be right, because I'm the only one who knows what these songs are really about. It's the one shred of privacy I have in the matter.

I really don't know what exactly all the songs mean. Sometimes other people have meanings and when I hear them I think, 'That's really a better meaning than I thought, and perfectly valid, given the words that exist.' So part of what makes a song really good is that people take in different meanings, and they apply them, and they might be more powerful than the ones I'm thinking.

Listening to my songs is like reading my diary.

As a songwriter, you respect and appreciate the writings of other people, and I often get asked, are there songs out there I wish I'd written? Yes. There's many of them!

For some reason, I'm really comfortable talking about my personal life in songs.

I write anywhere. I'm always banging around on the dashboard. Whatever I'm doing. I can make music out of anything. Whenever a song hits me, I'll pick some sort of melody or rhythm out on it, and kind of enhance the song.

I don't really know why an idea comes to me. But all of a sudden, an idea comes and from experience I can intuit what something means when an interesting line pops up. Or I can intuit what an interesting choice might be. And I can try a couple of different choices, and see which one feels right, and then continue the song to see where it goes.

I get so excited when a song I wrote that's very personal to me goes No. 1 and I look down and see people singing the words back to me.

Music is my personal addiction. So much of everything I've done has only been to open more doors for the music itself. It all gets back to the fact that I am, first of all, a songwriter and a singer.

I think when people make a record with a goal in mind - like taking it to the next level or making them seem more mature - that gets in the way of writing great songs.

I don't need to edit names out of songs and I don't need to edit details out of my songs because I've always been able to be honest with my music. That's the one place where I'm never ever going to change how I do things.

The first line (of I Am The Walrus) was written on one acid trip one weekend. The second line was written on the next acid trip the next weekend, and it was filled in after I met Yoko.

All of my songs are autobiographical.

My songs are like my children - I expect them to support me when I'm old.

Poetry and lyrics are very similar. Making words bounce off a page.

The little I am exposed to hurts my feelings. The only things I can really control are my songs and my behavior. The rest? If I focused on it, that would lead to insanity.

That little Miley Cyrus... she's like a little Elvis. The kids love her because she's Hannah Montana, but what people don't realize about her is she is such a fantastic singer and songwriter. She writes songs like she's 40 years old!

As a songwriter, you're allowed to write anything, and as a person, I am all colors in the rainbow. I've been through everything, you know, so I can write a positive song like 'Better Get to Livin'' because that's my attitude. But that doesn't mean I'm happy all the time. You can't be a deep and serious songwriter without feelings. You kinda have to live with your feelings out on your sleeve and get hurt more than most people. The fear I might get hurt means I might not be able to write another song.

[Polythene Pam] was me, remembering a little event with a woman in Jersey, and a man who was England's answer to Allen Ginsberg, who gave us our first exposure - this is so long - you can't deal with all this. You see, everything triggers amazing memories. I met him when we were on tour and he took me back to his apartment and I had a girl and he had one he wanted me to meet. He said she dressed up in polythene, which she did. She didn't wear jackboots and kilts, I just sort of elaborated. Perverted sex in a polythene bag. Just looking for something to write about.

In the early days, Porter Wagoner would not exactly scold me, but he's say, 'You're writing too many damn verses. You're makin' these songs too damn long.' And I'd say, 'Yeah, but I'm tellin' a story. I have a story to tell.' And he'd say, 'Well, you're not going to get it on the radio.' If I start writing a song, I'm writing it for a reason. People would say that I had to have two verses, and a chorus, and a bridge. I tried to learn that formula.

I watched their reactions and emotions, especially to understand what was what I was doing wrong. But then I realized that if I could see these people and take note of everything I saw, I could write a good song.

I felt an obligation even then to write a song that people would sing in the pub or on a demonstration. That is why I would like to compose songs for the revolution.

I keep going back to love when I write songs because I can't figure it out.

I ain't never far away from a pencil and paper or a tape recorder.

I have suffered most of the things I write about - or my friends have.

I write a lot of songs about love and I think that’s because to me love seems like this huge complicated thing. But it seems like every once in a while, two people get it figured out, two people get it right. And so I think the rest of us, we walk around daydreaming about what that might be like. To find that one great love, where all of a sudden everything that seemed to be so complicated, became simple. And everything that used to seem so wrong all of a sudden seemed right because you were with the person who made you feel fearless.

I'm so lucky that my songs are basically my diary put to music.

My favorite thing in life is writing about life, specifically the parts of life concerning love. Because as far as I’m concerned, love is absolutely everything.

I can write a song in about an hour if it's a simple country song.

I'm not afraid to write my feelings in songs.

I really don’t want a compilation of sounds. I just need them to be songs.

I was probably 7 years old when I started playing the guitar and writing some serious songs.

A song is a favorite song, not because the singer can hit and hold a high note, but because of the words, their meaning.

I'm so lucky that I get to write my own music and write my own stories, so every single time I look down in the audience and I see somebody singing the words back to me, it makes it all worth it.

We've learned over the years that if we wanted we could write anything that just felt good or sounded good and it didn't necessarily have to have any particular meaning to us. As odd as it seemed to us, reviewers would take it upon themselves to interject their own meanings on our lyrics. Sometimes we sit and read other people's interpretations of our lyrics and think, 'Hey, that's pretty good.' If we liked it, we would keep our mouths shut and just accept the credit as if it was what we meant all along.

Sometimes I write about my own life. And sometimes I write about situations I see my friends going through. Sometimes I write about a scene I saw in a movie. I take inspiration from all different places.

If I had to give up performing, it wouldn't bother me too much. But I couldn't live without my writing. I put all my feelings, my very soul, into my writing. I tell the world in my songs things I wouldn't even tell my husband.

Songwriting is my way of channeling my feelings and my thoughts. Not just mine, but the things I see, the people I care about. My head would explode if I didn't get some of that stuff out.

One of my big goals as a human being is to continue to write what's really happening to me, even if it's a tough pill to swallow for people around me.... I do fear that if I ever were to have someone in my life who mattered, I would second-guess every one of my lyrics.

When we're falling in love or out of it, that's when we most need a song that says how we feel. Yeah, I write a lot of songs about boys. And I'm very happy to do that.

I've never gotten thick skin. If you close yourself off and you get this protective armor, there is a price you pay with that - of not feeling. And feeling is important when you are a songwriter.

Sometimes I start with a great title or idea, sometimes a great melody will run through my mind; but the higher percentage of the time, the words and music pretty much come at the same time.

I used to try to write a song a day. I've been so busy lately.

Getting a great idea with song writing is a lot like love. You don't know why this one is different, but it is. You don't know why this one is better, but it is. It sticks in your head, and you can't stop thinking about it.

If guys don't want me to write bad songs about them, they shouldn't do bad things.

I'm so thankful I can write songs. I can capture all those memories in my songs and keep those memories alive.

For me, 'risky' is revealing what really happened in my life through music. Risky is writing confessional songs and telling the true story about a person with enough details so everyone knows who that person is.

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.

Your feelings so are important to write down, to capture, and to remember because today you're heartbroken, but tomorrow you'll be in love again.

By the time I was 12 or 13, I felt that I was special, because I could play the guitar and write songs.

I love to write honest songs that name real people, then get up onstage and live out those emotions in front of 15,000 people.

I can say I'd honestly rather be happy than have 30 to 40 songs that I've written about these thrilling, exciting, horrible, unhappy times.