“If you want to write a love song, you need to not try to write it for a particular person in a particular situation. It needs to be vague, otherwise you're going to fall into trap after trap of trying to rhyme with somebody's name. Keep it vague.” WritingTryingSongFallSituationRhyme Author:Stephin Merritt
“I write songs by sitting around in bars, so drinking songs are a little obvious. It's surprising that I don't write entirely drinking songs, since I am, in fact, drinking while writing the song. Drinking and love are the two principal sources of pleasure outside of music. There's only so many sources of pleasure, really. That's about it. Well, there are other arts as well. But none of them are as pleasurable as music, on a physical level.” WritingArtSongPleasureDrinkingObvious Author:Stephin Merritt
“Yeah, except that when I write pop songs I have pretty strict constraints that I impose on myself. 69 Love Songs is a constraint. That the titles have to begin with "I'"s is a relatively strict constraint. Charm of the Highway Strip is all travel songs. And I am free to change the plot slightly to accommodate something that happens to rhyme conveniently.” WritingSongRhymePop Song Author:Stephin Merritt
“There's already a great deal to do writing the songs. And if I were completely in control of it, nobody would be able to say "this song doesn't work."” WritingSong Author:Stephin Merritt
