Tom Waits Quotes

I saw I could rhyme words. It came simply to me. But I wrote some pretty horrible songs that I still have on tape.

Everything I see and hear... I will take ideas from anyplace, anywhere, anytime, and life has become a song to me. I'm always looking for a song.

When you write songs, you can't really point out the exact thing you're inspired by. It's more a state or a mood or an atmosphere that you're trying to put into words.

I have been writing songs since I was 9 years old, so writing has and always will be my first love and passion.

For example, after developing a sound similar to an elephant trumpeting, I wrote the song Elephant Talk which gave my elephant sound an appropriate place to live.

There's many, many ways to write a song. But generally, sitting down at a table and writing is not one of them.

A song just doesn't come on. I've always had to tease it out, squeeze it out.

It's hard to know exactly what it sounds like to me. I'm in the studio and I write it. and that's it.

I keep this crazy notebook of song ideas.

The first time I tried to write was when I was 14, after I got an electric guitar. I put a song together, and it wasn't that bad! The writing came natural to me.

I'm always writing; my phone is full of ideas - melodies and lyrics and stuff.

It's never easy to write a song. It's the most difficult thing I do.

I've written many extra verses to songs that I learned to sing - an extra verse about a friend, or just add some verse - and that led to writing my own songs.

I don't get my inspiration from a specific source. It's more like if you listen to a good tune, it gives me inspiration to write a better tune.

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.

With songs I almost see the images, see the action, and then all I have to do is describe it. It's almost like watching a scene from a film, and that's what I go about trying to catch in a song.

I had a really pleasant time composing music for 'Raaga.'

I've always loved both writing and songwriting. The journey is fascinating to me.

The first line of the song is always the hardest thing to write. And then after that, the song should - unless it sucks - it should write itself.

Usually I write on guitar.

The most difficult thing for me as an artist, as a creator of music, is lyrics. But everything else, I just do it.

I first write melodies that will make people shiver, and then, I add the lyrics.

I try to imagine what the greatest song I could ever write would sound like, and then try to do it.

I like to make songs that are based on concepts.

I work every day. I write every day. I walk around in silent conversation with my latest unfinished songs.