Patti Scialfa Quotes

The reason you write [songs] is because there's something you want to say that is important to you - enough to go through all the torture of writing.

I think one of the reasons that I love the fans that have stuck around, because I really enjoy writing different kinds of songs. I don't know if I write them well or not, but I can write them.

I don't really care about how good a song is, I only want them to reflect what I felt when I was writing them

I started being me about the songs, not writing objectively, but subjectively. I think it was Dylan who helped me realize that - not by any discussion or anything, but by hearing his work.

My job is to write songs that have emotional meaning to me.

I am not an evangelist. I am not a preacher. I am a musician. That is what I know how to do. I know how to write songs. I know how to write things that relate to my heart. I feel that I talk about God in every song, in everything I do - all of it! I really do not know how to respond. I do not relate to that.

I'm probably the most proud of "Mrs. Potato Head," because I had that idea in my head for so long, and I tried writing that song one time and I just couldn't tell the story the way I wanted to, and I couldn't figure it out.

I'll always be making music. I'd like to do it my whole life - although I also love words and want to write short stories. But right now, my songs are kind of my short stories.

Everything was a song. Every conversation, every personal hurt, every observance of people in stress, happiness and love... if you could feel it, I could feel it. And I could write a song about it.

It's true, there's a lot of melancholy in my music. I don't know why, I'm not a melancholy person. I've always been drawn to it. Ever since I was a kid, if I had an album I would play the ballads on repeat.

I always go in very emotionally when I'm doing music. Sad or happy, I'm always into it. I have a hard time writing for other people, writing with someone else in mind.

My identity started developing through the songs I was writing.

I think some songs on the EP, especially one called 'Blu', I've allowed myself to become vulnerable and express more of my sadder emotions.

I watch films, so I know what it is to be there in a theatre as the audience. So I always want to communicate with them when I make films, but that is not the only thing. I also want to say something which I feel deeply, and which I feel I can connect with the rest of the audience.

Ever since I can remember, I've always wanted to tell stories, but I never had the patience to sit down at a typewriter and write short stories or anything like that. I started writing songs as a way of communicating ideas the best way I could.

If something happens to me, you're going to hear about it. I only know how to write songs about my life.

I love to write honest songs that name real people, then get up onstage and live out those emotions in front of 15,000 people.

I think all of my songs are either based on personal experience or will be based on personal experience, because I do write a lot of songs prophetically.

There's no way to learn how to write a hit song. There's no formula for it. You just have to have it inside of you.

I write songs about things that I'm simultaneously trying not to think about.

I know my fans look up to me and that's why I make my songs so personal; it's all about things I've experienced and things I like or hate. I write for myself and hope that my fans like what I have to say.

I'm not done writing songs about you yet.

I'm so lucky that my songs are basically my diary put to music.

Writing songs is no different than explaining to somebody what you dreamed last night: No one ever gives you crap for what you dreamed last night. "I was laying in my bed, and all of a sudden a stallion jumped on my bed and the next thing I know I was in Mars but it looked like my kitchen"... That's kind of what I do with my songs, write them in a dream-like manner. It's up to people to swallow it however they want.

If you're a song writer, it's a bit different because you are expressing your own words, feelings, perspective. As an actor, you are doing your best to interpret and express the root of the character's perspective which have been established by the writer. There are parallels of performing. Tapping into your own emotional piggy bank. The biggest commonality is if you are successful in either industry, you get free snacks all the time.