Songwriters Quotes

1. "It's unfortunate we've never been just songwriters."
Author: Adolph Green

2. "The songwriters whom we think of being the greatest songwriters usually write one hit and six or seven flops. That includes the Irving Berlins and the Hoagy Carmichaels, the Harold Arlens, Cole Porter."
Author: Ahmet Ertegun

3. "I had no idea when I moved to Nashville people just were songwriters. I had no idea. So I guess I was selling myself as a singer when I first moved here. But then right after I first moved, I started writing a lot."
Author: Ashley Monroe

4. "One other thing, if it's possible, as songwriters, you should also develop yourself as record producers."
Author: Barry Mann

5. "Probably most successful songwriters have an innate songwriting ability."
Author: Barry Mann

6. "There's so much fear involved in trying to do something you don't know how to do that drugs and alcohol can become a big part of your life if you have an addictive personality or are very unsure, which most songwriters are."
Author: Barry Mann

7. "Communion was born out of shared frustration in 2006. We felt that although the likes of MySpace and YouTube opened up the playing field for songwriters online, people's discovery of these new artists was only skin deep."
Author: Ben Lovett

8. "Some of my closest friends are songwriters. I'm in love with the way they can create music and magic."
Author: Danielle Barone

9. "When I listen to my favorite songwriters, they have such simple melodies and chords. I occasionally manage to stop at the right time, but all too often I keep on going until I have way too many notes and words. But that's just what I do."
Author: Dave Matthews

10. "Sometimes songwriters and singers forget that. They get a melody in their head and the notes will take precedence, so that they wind up forcing a word onto a melody. It doesn't ring true."
Author: Don Henley

11. "There aren't more lady songwriters for the same reason that there aren't more lady doctors or lady accountants or lady lawyers; not enough women have the time for careers."
Author: Dorothy Fields

12. "The focus is on singer/songwriters now rather than huge shows. I mean, of course there's always a place for that too."
Author: Emeli Sande

13. "I see what other people do and what songwriters don't. They don't get out and take care of themselves. Producers turn themselves into a massive brand. Songwriters tend to be under someone else's umbrella. If you're building your own legacy, it can't be under an umbrella."
Author: Ester Dean

14. "Nashville is one of the greatest places for the best songwriters in the world. It's been fantastic to live there and to raise our family there. It's a great town."
Author: Faith Hill

15. "I can only say thank you and thanks also to all of the great songwriters who wrote those wonderful songs that became number ones."
Author: George Strait

16. "It may not be the most popular but there is a place for it. I think about the kind of music I love, acoustic, melodic, and I guess it kind of took a bit of courage on my part to think I could be one of those songwriters."
Author: Helen Slater

17. "When people who are songwriters say 'That's my property and if you give it away for free then I'll lose my incentive,' then, well, good riddance."
Author: Ian Mackaye

18. "You know, poets and songwriters have long known that people like repetition. You know, poets and songwriters have long known that people like repetition. I guess when I say people, I mean everyone but my Grandfather. He hated anything that was so monotonous as repetition. That's why he loathed walking so much. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, and on and on."
Author: Jarod Kintz

19. "If you're somebody who writes songs or writes fiction, a writer that people pay for your opinion in any way, you shouldn't be the least bit uncomfortable giving it to them. People want songwriters to tell them how they think and how they feel. That's what a song is. That's what I want to hear in a song."
Author: Jason Isbell

20. "Songwriters write songs, but they really belong to the listener."
Author: Jimmy Buffett

21. "Dorsey played the upright bass and steel guitar, as well as acoustic guitar. Johnny played acoustic guitar and together they were fabulous songwriters and singers."
Author: Jimmy Griffin

22. "Traditionally, songwriters can't sing. And that holds true in my case, also."
Author: John Phillips

23. "Alan's publishing company was in the Brill Building, and of course, the Brill Building was where all the songwriters hung out because that's where all the publishers were."
Author: Johnny Rivers

24. "Carole King is one of my all-time favorite songwriters."
Author: Judith Hill

25. "I've never in my life bought a big piece of jewelry - like, 'I'm gonna get myself a big piece of jewelry!' Songwriters' lives are unstable and up and down. Even though mine has sort of has followed more of a going toward the sky trajectory."
Author: Kara DioGuardi

26. "You need to understand that a skilled professional songwriter can accelerate your success as an already talented musician. These people are writing every single day, so their craft is really sharp, and it's the best songwriters who consistently get on the radio."
Author: Kara DioGuardi

27. "Songwriters tell the truth."
Author: Kara DioGuardi

28. "How lucky, I thought, were people who had known from earliest childhood what they wanted to do. All the children in my grammar school, who said they wanted to be doctors, had grown up to become doctors. This was also the case apparently with firemen, veterinarians, songwriters, and race car drivers.I had opted for a kind of pure experience, which, as Doo-Wah had pointed out, is not usually something you get paid for. I did not want to write a book about it. I did not want to write so much as an article. I wanted to be left alone with my experience and go on to the next thing, whatever that was."
Author: Laurie Colwin

29. "Randy Newman and I grew up together in Los Angeles. We are both products of the film studio era. Randy is one of the great songwriters of our time and one of the fun people to be with."
Author: Leonard Slatkin

30. "Try not to sound like those singer-songwriters that go on and on with ten-minute, barely intelligible stories that everyone endures until the next song starts."
Author: Loren Weisman

31. "I can speak for most songwriters - those breakup love songs are so easy to write, as far as the inspiration and all that."
Author: Lucinda Williams

32. "I've had offers to sign a record deal, but the people I've talked to have wanted to package me and have me meet with songwriters who've written stuff for Whitney Houston, that sort of thing. That's not at all my style."
Author: Lukas Haas

33. "I enjoyed hearing people do their own songs. I became attracted to singer-songwriters. I became interested in them as people; was curious about what they wanted to say."
Author: Lyle Lovett

34. "My downfall emotionally is musicians and songwriters."
Author: Marcia Strassman

35. "I love female singer-songwriters!"
Author: Melissa Benoist

36. "I do remember actually learning chords to Beatles songs. I thought they were great songwriters."
Author: Mick Taylor

37. "A lot of the great songwriters in history have been collaborators, with a separate lyricist."
Author: Mike Gordon

38. "As would-be songwriters, our interest was in black music and black music only. We wanted to write songs for black voices."
Author: Mike Stoller

39. "Bruce is still my friend. We don't talk much. We don't have to. He is great and in his own league. I'm not him and he is not me. But we are on similar paths, writing and singing out own kind of songs around the world, along with Bob and a few other singer/songwriters. It is a a silent fraternity of sorts, occupying this space in people's souls with our music. Last year, I lost my right-hand man, the pedal steel guitarist Ben Keith. This year Bruce lost his right-hand man, the saxophonist Clarence Clemons. It's time for another talk; friends can help each other just by being there. Now both of us will look to our right and see a giant hole, a memory, the past and the future. I won't play with another steel player trying to recreate Ben's parts, and I know Bruce won't play with another sax man trying to play Clarence's. Those parts are not going to happen again. They already did. That takes a lot out of our repertoires."
Author: Neil Young

40. "I got behind that pencil and nothing happened for many years, but since they put me in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, I've turned around. I took a good look at myself and said, I think it's time to get back at work."
Author: Otis Blackwell

41. "I'm probably much more influenced by film-makers and painters than I am by other songwriters or poets."
Author: P. J. Harvey

42. "Anyone who knows the history of the Pete Best Band or the Combo, we were on the verge of breaking in in America. In the mid-'60s, I had great songwriters; we wrote some great stuff."
Author: Pete Best

43. "I think songwriters are more related to fiction writers. The Odyssey was a story in song. To me, that's so beautiful, all those painted characters, all those travels and adventures."
Author: Regina Spektor

44. "I don't take off as many days as most other producers and songwriters, so I'm working every single day, and I do songs every day. So it's just about finding time, scheduling, getting in and cutting the records. I make it happen and that's the name of the game. It's no excuses - you gotta figure it out."
Author: Rico Love

45. "You wind up creating from silence, like painting a picture on a blank canvas that could bring tears to somebody's eyes. As songwriters, our blank canvas is silence. Then we write a song from an idea that can change somebody's life. Songwriting is the closest thing to magic that we could ever experience. That's why I love songwriting."
Author: Rodney Atkins

46. "I feel there must be an enormous amount of really talented songwriters out there who can't sing."
Author: Roger Daltrey

47. "I'm a binge writer. I work in the music business fulltime, in artist management and developing songwriters and recording artists, and so juggling my job I carve out as much time as I can on the weekends."
Author: Ruta Sepetys

48. "And I can say this, most of the people who have recorded my songs are songwriters themselves."
Author: Smokey Robinson

49. "All we do as songwriters is rewrite the songs that have impressed us till we find our own voice. It's part of learning the craft."
Author: Steve Earle

50. "Then on to all the terrific american songwriters, from Tin Pan Alley to the Beatles, from Bob Dylan to Paul Simon. Whoever wrote and sang in the song form I have appreciated."
Author: Tom Chapin

Songwriters Quotes Pictures