Kim Petras Quotes

Never be ashamed to write a melody that people remember.

I love originating shows and originating songs - there is nothing better than being the first one to get to do a song.

When I picked up the guitar for the first time, it opened up a whole new world for me. I became obsessed with writing and playing.

The first time I learned how to play, my guitar was out of tune. I didn't know it; I just started writing songs.

The perfect pop song is a 20th-century creation; it's not a sonnet, it's not an opera, it's something short - three and a half minutes by nature - and has this ability to travel and to defy class and economic structures.

If you listen to most songs, most people will not sing the words of the lead singer. They will sing the hook. The hook is what makes the record sell.

I grew up listening to hits, and if I write something I feel, I think that's pretty mass appeal. I'm not very elitist with music. Love is universal; a great melody is universal; it goes around the world; it's not just American. A great song can touch the world.

With pop, it's pretty much straight up and down. It has to be simple. Everybody has to be able to walk down the street and be able to sing it.

When I was performing the songs on 'Kiss Land,' it was a great singalong. But there were moments where I realized some parts were catchier than the others. There's maybe two choruses on all of 'Kiss Land.'

Success is good, but I have seen the other side. I don't think much about it. I just work towards making a good melody, with catchy yet meaningful lyrics, and as I'm a music producer and arranger myself, I know the sound I need.

A timeless pop song is the hardest thing to do as a songwriter.

I like to always do my best to make music catchy, so I think a very catchy melody is cool.

The focus is on melody: If you get it right, and it connects to the mass audience, it doesn't matter if it's a studio album or played on the dance floor.

I like to write songs that people can identify with and sing along to.

I'm trying to write songs to appeal to everybody.

When I write a song, I want to write something that is really catchy and says something that might actually touch somebody.

'Despacito' was a song that, from the time I started writing it, I felt that its hook was really catchy and powerful but at the same time very simple.

I realized probably when I was, like, 20 years old that the hardest thing to do is to write a pop song - not, like, a candy-pop, throwaway pop song.

I don't know anyone who sits down to write a song hit except Irving Berlin. He can't help writing hits.

Melodies are very important in a song. Having a great melody and a great hook. That's what I would always come up with a great melody and that's important.

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.

What I do as a songwriter is a constant force in my life, that I'm grateful to have.

I was writing tons of music in my spare time. I might be on location somewhere, and I'd go home and I'd have my guitar and my little keyboard or something and write music. Or if I was at home, on my piano. I've always been a late bloomer with a lot of things, just in general, so I think this was something that needed to come to fruition in this particular way.

Gimme the tune. Do I like this tune? Does it sound like another tune that I like? The more familiar it is, the better I like it. Hear those three notes there? Those are the three notes I can sing along with. I like those notes very, very much. Give me a beat. Not a fancy one. Give me a GOOD BEAT -- something I can dance to. It has to go boom-bap, boom-boom-BAP. If it doesn't, I will hate it very, very much. Also, I want it right away -- and then, write me some more songs like that -- over and over and over again, because I'm really into music.

Eventually I had so many little melodies and ideas that, you know, that they were all songs to me and I threw in a few cover songs like Enya's "Watermark," Bach, and my dad's song, "Song for the Whales."