Washed Out Quotes

I never write from concept. The beat is the beginning, and then I fill in the rest of the song into what it should be.

As a songwriter, I've always loved to tell stories. But in my band, it was always about what would make sense for a band to put out.

I always try to write a song, I never just want to write a record.

Songwriting is something that's very daunting until you have your first successful song, I think.

Sometimes the song title comes with the songs, other times you just sorta make something up afterwards.

The goal is always just to write the best song that you can write. I mean, the process for writing a song is the process for writing a song. It's not something I look at it as something I need to do something different.

I do always the music before the lyrics. The story or an idea for the lyrics appears during the composing process normally, but some other times I already have a strong idea of the story I would like to sing before any music comes to my mind.

I was writing poetry, and the Mountain Goats was an outgrowth of that.

I just do what I do. I like to make music.

As a songwriter, you try your best to write a good song, and you like nothing better than hearing a good song. It's easy to admire a great song, and you want to share out of enthusiasm.

For a songwriter, you don't really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes. And you try to understand them and take them apart and see what they're made of, and wonder if you can make one, too.

I'd always wanted to do an R&B and soul record; a friend with a studio asked to come by and record a couple of songs, maybe just make a 45. Then the songs started to pour out, and pretty soon we had eight or 10 songs down.

I get very deep into the writing and recording process.

I usually write my music on a piano, and I really enjoy performing that way, because that actually shows how the music was in my mind before it actually became an electronic song.

I've already got notebooks full of ideas for new music, so I'm gonna kind of nurture that just like I do all of my ideas and perfect it until it's ready and then I'll just let it go.

For me to create an album of 12 songs, I've got to write about 80 songs. Half of those are totally weird and rubbish. But I get to some really good stuff after a while.

I have yet to have a successful outcome of sitting in a room with someone and trying to write a song. The way that I generally co-write is that someone else writes the music or part of the music.

They're mostly done before we went into the studio, although I do like writing in the studio.

Usually when I write a song, I'll write the music and then kind of fit some words to it.

The songs sort of come out spontaneously and it'll take me awhile to figure out what exactly is happening lyrically, what kind of story I'm telling. Then I start building little bridges - word bridges - to make everything go from one point to the next point to the next point until it reaches the end.

I just sat down and thought, I'm going to write a song today, I'm going to give it a try. So I just stuck it on a tape like everything else. That was just another song.

I love making music. I love being involved in arranging music. It's very natural to know what I want to hear next and come up with ideas that are variations of what might be good.

You can get too bogged down in technology and you can sort of forget what it is you were trying to do. And with the Pet Shop Boys it's primarily about the songs, it's about song writing.

I have a tape recorder, and I just sing into it. I like to write that way. Sometimes I'll just get melodic ideas, and then I'll go home and sit down and add the lyrics. Or sometimes I'll get a lyric idea that I love. Usually it's pretty combined. Usually I get some kind of a lyrical concept and a melody and work with that.

Either you write songs or you don't. And if you do write songs like I do, I think there's a natural desire to want to make records.