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Songwriting Quotes

Browse 934 quotes about Songwriting.

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Songwriting Quotes

“Don’t try to present your art by making other people read or hear or see or touch it; make them feel it. Wear your art like your heart on your sleeve and keep it alive by making people feel a little better. Feel a little lighter. Create art in order for yourself to become yourself and let your very existence be your song, your poem, your story. Let your very identity be your book. Let the way people say your name sound like the sweetest melody.”

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Author:Charlotte Eriksson
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“I won't be stuck in traffic 'til I see how rugged my path is And right now I'm loving how fast my troubles are fasting No they don't bother me oh realizing I'm psychopathic A wild beast, baby I'm gladly running after Yes a thing called peace outlasting any madness The devil fears me oh he's feeling Like a fragment of a fraction No he won't come near me 'Cause his hat trick's out of practice”

LovePainHappinessJoyPoetrySufferingFearPeaceFreedomVictoryPoemEmotionsDevilMadnessWittyCleverSatanSongwritingTrafficFastingLyricsIntimidationCrazinessPsychopathTroublesTrickery
Book:Venus in Arms
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“Writing a good song is not mimicry, replication, or pastiche; it is the opposite. It is an act of self-murder that destroys all one has strived to produce in the past. It is those dangerous, heart-stopping departures that catapult the artist beyond the limits of what they recognize as their known self. This is part of the authentic creative struggle that precedes the invention of a unique lyric of actual value; it is the breathless confrontation with one’s vulnerability, peril, and smallness, pitted against a sense of sudden, shocking discovery. It is the redemptive artistic act that stirs the heart of the listener, where the listener recognizes their own blood, struggle, and suffering in the inner workings of the song.”

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Book:More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI
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“A steampunk nation Baby pollution rises up then the loving comes arraigning 'cause Our art's official and only partially artificial And our heart's in the middle of sharp hardened shards of metal but There's not where it settles Because it's beating to the steaming of God's hottest pot or kettle And now we face it, this creation we made to To save our craving for a synthetic rebelnation it's Our safeway they make into a pathetic revelation In our steampunk nation Our steampunk nation”

HeartArtGodPoetryArtistImaginationFictionFantasyCreationSongwritingArtificialUrbanLyricsSteampunk
Book:Diotima, Battery, Electric Personality
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“... because one day, maybe one day, if I learned how to write clear enough, sing loud enough, be strong enough, I could explain myself in a way that made sense and then maybe one day, one day, someone out there would hear and recognise her or himself and I could let them know that they are not alone. Just like that song I had on repeat for several nights as I walked lonely on empty streets, let me know that I was not alone and that’s how it starts.”

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Author:Charlotte Eriksson
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“By combining certain elements of technique which ignite each other I could shit the levels of perception, time-frame structures and systems of rythm which would give my songs a brighter countenance, call them up from the grave [...] It was like parts of my psyche were being communicated to by angels. There was a big fire in the fireplace and the wind was making it roar.”

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Book:Chronicles, Volume One
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“A tawdry realm of shifting, insecure employment and fleeting glimpses of high reward for little effort. A world where strings are pulled by complete cretins while those who work hard at the creative coalface are at the bottom of a steaming dunghill of vacuity, broken dreams, and empty promises.”

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Book:Absolute Beginner: Memoirs of the world's best least-known guitarist
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“My lyrics are a big pile of contradictions. They split down the middle between very sincere opinions and feelings that I have and sarcastic and hopefully humorous rebuttals towards cliché' bohemian ideals that have been exhausted for years. I mean it seems like there are only two options for songwriters - either they are sad, tragic visionaries like Morrisey or Michael Stipe or Robert Smith or there's the goofy, nutty white boy - hey let's party and forget about everything people like Van Halen or all that other heavy metal crap. I mean I like to be passionate and sincere, but I also like to have fun and act like a dork.”

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Book:Journals
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“I'd chased this life with all of my heart. I wanted so badly to express myself and be heard and bring solace to other people with my own words. But it became a hell I'd created, a cage I'd built and locked myself in. I came to hate that I'd put my heart and my pain into my music because it meant that I couldn't ever leave it behind. And I had to keep singing it to him, night after night after night, and I could no longer hide how I felt or what being next to him was doing to me. It made for a great show. But it was my life.”

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Book:Daisy Jones & The Six
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“The pièce de résistance, put into the can on the very first day, owed its inspiration to Little Richard, who would whip audiences to further frenzy between numbers by self-congratulatory cries of “Well...all right!” Buddy turned the phrase into a gentle love song infused with all his special quality of patience and optimism and his developing ability to make personal sentiments into universal ones. “Well, All Right” is a riposte to all the criticism and condescension that teenagers faced from their elders in the rock 'n' roll fifties—and have in every decade since. The setting is as adventurously simple as that of “Everyday”: Buddy plays flamenco-accented acoustic guitar, with only a plashing cymbal for company. The mood is not one of youthful anger and defiance but of maturity before its time: calm, stoical, steadfast in affirming its “dreams and wishes.” The intimacy in the voice could equally be that of lover or elder brother. Girl or boy, you can imagine you and he are alone together, gazing into the fire and imagining a bright future when the young will “live and love with all our might,” which could almost be a prophecy of the sixties' hippie culture.”

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Book:Rave On: The Biography of Buddy Holly
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“Лена очень любила дочь, обожала, как она поет, только если это были чужие песни. А в песнях Веры Лена вместо слов слышала: «Я ничего не читала, даже из школьной программы, я путаю одеть – надеть, я ставлю ударения, как мне удобнее, господи, я слегка переделала “Лавину” Коэна, но никто этого не заметит, потому что у него песня печальная, а у меня слегка в мажоре и гораздо выше, у меня очень маленький словарный запас, но зато я пою с душой и про любовь, а чтобы никто не забыл, что я пою с душой и про любовь, у меня в каждой песне буквально все утыкано словами “душа” и “любовь”».”

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Book:Опосредованно
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“In a city that attracted protesters, organizers, and activists of every variety, debating issues across the political spectrum and with a huge population of black people, the messages in his lyrics were received with enthusiasm. “This was Chocolate City. People in DC were pretty sophisticated and they liked his political wit, and I think he liked speaking truth to power in the heart of the government.”

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Book:Gil Scott-Heron: Pieces of a Man
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“Unless the object of the singer’s affection is a vampire, surely what Hart means is unphotogenic. Only vampires are unphotographable, but affectionate ‘-enic’ rhymes are hard to come by.”

VampireSongwritingVampiresValentineValentine S DayVampirismRhymesValentinesLyricismLorenz HartMy Funny Valentine
Book:Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics, 1954-1981, With Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines, and Anecdotes
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“A critic can call any poem 'doggerel.' That is no more than a slur. 'Doggerel' or 'maudlin' or 'sappy' or 'sentimental' is in the ear of the listener. By the by, 'sentimental' is okay as it is defined as 'marked or governed by feeling, sensibility, or emotional idealism.' It is 'sentimentality' that is to be avoided, like the fiddleback spider, being as it is 'the quality or state of being sentimental to excess or in affectation.' Again we are faced with a judgement call and must keep a sharp eye on our outpourings to insure they are not overly gooey. The intellectual elite probably believe that most of the lyrics songwriters create are 'doggerel' of one kind or another--that is to say 'trivial"......the young songwriter has now been warned about the implacable nature of the enemy. Under a rather large umbrella, preferred twentieth-century taste in art of all kinds has been characterized by a kind of detachment, or sangfroid. It is simply not chic to be carried away in one's emotional reaction to a subject. All serious communication or complaint must be carefully wrapped in a protective coating of irony and/or satire.”

CriticismCriticsSongwritingSentimentalitySongwriterSentimentDoggerelHipsterism
Book:Tunesmith: Inside the Art of Songwriting
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“I've played Romeo for Juliet (But in depth) It's vignettes of silhouettes (And then read) And watched Russian roulette, yeah red Soviet Yet doing it simultaneously While dropping down shed oubliettes Turned around and took truth to the head that Love is the ugliest thing too beautiful for death”

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Book:Killosophy
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“Ethics and Songwriting (The Sonnet) I wish I could write music, For one song is worth ten sonnets. One sonnet is worth ten essays, One essay is worth ten speeches. That's why I have respect for those, Singers who do their own writing. While I pity the empty entertainers, Who do nothing but counterfeiting. It's okay if you sing someone's song, At least make way for equal recognition. Exploiting talent 'cause they're struggling, Is fundamentally a human rights violation. Every industry lacks ethics in its story of origin. It's time we right the wrongs and get humanizing.”

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Book:Amantes Assemble: 100 Sonnets of Servant Sultans
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