Alice Merton Quotes

Sometimes I'll come up with a lick that I really love, and I'll try to put the right words to it for years. Suddenly something comes to me that works just right.

No, no, the songs write themselves, almost.

It seems to me that those songs that have been any good, I have nothing much to do with the writing of them. The words have just crawled down my sleeve and come out on the page.

Music is a very powerful thing. If I'm angry, I can write a song about it, and it seems to make everything okay.

When a song gets its legs and begins to come to me, this is the euphoric hook that keeps me wanting to continue.

I think about it as not so much 'I need to get it out of me,' it's not that my thoughts are poison, I just want to write good music.

I don’t have a problem baring my emotions in music. That’s one of the reasons I’m glad to have music in my life. I’m pretty resilient as far as being a human being. A lot of songs write themselves.

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 find myself improvising a lot. But, sometimes I'll come us with a chorus or just one line and it will sort of hang out for a long time before it get's flushed out into a real living song.

Writing songs has always been hard and easy. It's not always easy when you want it to be, and then sometimes it's just like turning on the faucet. That's just the nature of it.

I can't legislate a song into being; it just will not happen for me.

I don't sit down to write a song, per se.

If I'm not crying while writing a song, I'm not doing it right.

I tend to write at the piano, but usually the melody and lyrics come first. Like, I'll be in the shower, and I'll start singing, and the melody and the lyric will just come out. Then I'll quickly try to finish the shower, try to remember it, record it on my phone and save it for the studio.

Sometimes I can't sleep 'cause I can't get a melody or a beat out my head, so I just have to wake up and, like, record it on a voice note.

I usually sit around with the guitar in reach and grab it when I get an idea. Sometimes it lasts five minutes, and sometimes it lasts all day.

I know already the music I will write. But the words? I have not yet decided.

Every day you can write a song but some days there is just some magic in the air and something special about the catch; other days you write all day on a song line or idea.

Every time I get up in the morning, melodies occur to me and I start trying to shape lyrics to melodies.

Even if I'm writing music, it's with a lyric in mind, to communicate some kind of feeling.

I only ever really take out my guitar when I'm miserable, which isn't necessarily a very good time to do it.

I am a songwriter. I do get to put my personal experiences in song.

I really have to be in a specific headspace to even begin to illuminate an idea that would create another Bon Iver record, and I'm just not there.

I was always writing music anyway. I just sort of fell into it. Writing for me is a therapeutic process.

Everything I do is very visual and very aural, so I don't read music, and I draw as much as I write out lyrics.