Rivers Cuomo Quotes

After that, I specifically started writing lyrics. I would like sweat and think and get it all together.

When I sit down and try to write lyrics first - I've definitely done that in the past - but most of the time, they come off as a put-on, or less genuine than you would think. I'm the kind of guy that if I overthink a sentiment or I overthink a statement, it's weird.

I fell into lyric writing because of music. I backed into it.

I find it harder to write the lyrics afterwards because then you're just trying to fit them into something that's already there.

It must have been when I was 14 or 15 that I started tentatively writing songs and was able to convey an emotion and a lyric with what I wanted to say.

I was never a 'sit down with a notepad and write lyrics' kind of person.

I can clear my mind, and lyrics just come out; it's very easy for me.

If there's a track that's rhyme friendly, the verse will basically write itself. If the track is less rhyme friendly, you have to put forth a little more effort to get the song out.

I remember when I started writing lyrics, I was very grand. I tried to use a lot of symbols, because I thought that's how songwriting should be - with imagery and metaphor. I figured, after a while, maybe I should just write it as I would say in real life.

Sometimes when I'm writing lyrics, it's a very loose train of thought, and wherever that takes me, I let it flow.

I never stopped writing music, I just stopped writing songs. I've been writing music continually ever since the last album of original tunes, "River Of Dreams" in '93.

I write lyrics everyday as I go. I'm always taking notes in my phone whenever I am inspired by something. Most of my writing starts out as poetry before I put it into songs.

I think, there are a couple of songs. I'm really proud of How far I'll Go. I literally locked myself up in my childhood bedroom at my parents' house to write those lyrics. I wanted to get to my angstiest possible place. So I went method on that.

I think the first song I ever wrote ... was called "Can't Help Thinking About Me." That's an illuminating little piece, isn't it?

Some things lend themselves well to songs, some things don't, and I'm learning that a lot at the moment. It's still a relatively new way of writing. It's only really the last five to 10 years that I've taken my writing seriously in this way, as something I can keep working toward. I think I feel myself much more before as simply a songwriter.

I don't like the word "happy." I wouldn't want to use it that context. I enjoy writing songs, it's a really good challenge, it tickles me. It's a wonderful way to engage with your surroundings, through poetry and songs.

I would write poems and think up melodies to them later.

I've always thought of music as something which gives the words their flight and their wings and the music often comes first, although sometimes I'll have a concept, a title idea, a lyric idea that I want to write and the lyric will come first.

I think a lot of the Mothers stuff that we recorded was written while we were on the road.

Once we start hitting lyrical themes that can whack you from all these different perspectives, we know we're onto something special.

I don't write down my experiences, but I have a very decent memory. I have tons of books in which I write down phrases as they occur to me. That's how I write songs. I'll need a line and I'll go through the books and find it, the right rhyme and everything.

I'm always writing something. There's always some structure sitting around someplace. There's always things on the computer, things scratched on score paper, legal tablets full of lyrics. It's never not buzzing around me all the time. I'm always doing it.

I never edit the songs that come out. And they tend to come out as a whole. The closest thing I have ever done to editing them is just cutting out a verse, but never rewriting lyrics.

When you're in the middle of writing a song, you can come up with this whole web of stuff only you know how to get through. That's very entertaining for me to do that.

I sit down and draw from my lyric book. I sit down and start looking through it and see if there is anything that strikes me that I've written.