Lyric Writing Quotes

'Black Hole Sun' was written in a car when I was driving home from the studio one night. Pretty much everything that you hear was written in my head.

My songs are somewhere between story and situation. There's also character and mood. I'm an intuitive writer, both with instrumentals and songs with words.

My brother is an excellent songwriter, and I play guitar and drums.

I'm not tryin' to come off as the best lyricist.

The first set of lyrics for the first songs I ever wrote, which are the ones on 'Pretty Hate Machine,' came from private journal entries that I realized I was writing in lyric form.

Songs come to me and I hear them. At least in part, they are very complete; I hear the whole chorus, including the drum pattern, the base, the countermelody, the basic harmonic structure and the main thrust of the lyric.

I knew I wanted to be a rapper when I was, like, 5.

The writing process, the way I go about it is I do whatever the beat feels like, whatever the beat is telling me to do. Usually when the beat comes on, I think of a hook or the subject I want to rap about almost instantly. Within four, eight bars of it playing I'm just like, 'Oh, OK. This is what I wanna do'.

I started rapping when I was about 12 or 13, just playing around with it.

I wanted to write songs which I think is a different thing. I wanted to write music that is informed by folk music. The chord progressions are obvious references.

I deliberate over the lyrics; I really do. I'll come up with one line in a day, and then it might be a couple of days before I come up with the rhyming line. It's never been easy for me.

I'm more of a songwriter. I love writing songs. I love writing my songs. It's always been writing for me, and it makes it different when you're writing for yourself.

Lyrics are really, really hard, I think, or at least they're really hard for me. Some people can channel lyrics faster. I find them very hard to find, so because of it, they take me a long time, and I really think about them.

When I'm stuck for a closing to a lyric, I will drag out my last resort: overwhelming illogic.

I'd love to write a song that someone else sings that can actually sing really well.

If a woman's aim is to become a singer, I would highly advise her to first develop her craft in songwriting. It's such a powerful tool to have when you're a singer.

I have always wanted to sing at some point in my life. In fact, when I was shooting for 'Oohalu Gusagusalaade,' I would randomly start singing on the sets, and I even earned a nickname 'Radio' on that film.

I have been taking voice and singing lessons since age 10 and originally got into it because I was really interested in musical theater. After writing my first couple of songs and performing at age 14, I knew that I really wanted to be a singer.

I've been a list maker for years, even before I was a musician. I was always writing things down and kept long lists of things that would make good album titles and things like that. I'm constantly thinking in terms of songwriting.

I am not, at heart, a playwright.

I was writing lyrics since I was nine years old, so by age 15, I was feeling pretty confident about my talent.

I always find that, when it comes to writing songs, if the melody and the chords are working, we're 90 per cent there.

I wrote my first song, 'Conversion', to this little hip-hop instrumental. I went to an open-mic, plugged my iPod into the P.A., and sang over the beat.

First and foremost, I consider myself a songwriter.

R. Kelly is different - music is always going through his brain. I remember we'd be having a conversation, and he'd choose a word I said and write a whole song to it.