Lyrical Themes Quotes

I have a notebook of concepts. There are titles everywhere if you are looking for them. I pull from them. There is a secret list that I keep for myself about what I want to sing about, and those are the ones I know I am not going to give up for someone else.

I could do Rust In Peace again, but I don't want to. I could have followed that formula but, God, why? I would have to have done so much heroin and cocaine - and I wasn't going to. Not if I'm paying for it!

All men that date me have to know that their name may end up in a pop song.

Hip-Hop went from selling crack to smoking it

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

I feel like my songs are like diary entries for me. So I usually write about things that have happened to me specifically or sometimes it can be someone who's close to me.

In Sandalwood, each hero has a style and songs are composed accordingly.

I wrote lyrics that were intensely personal to me a few years ago. Maybe people know me better now.

When I wrote the song, I had the sea near Bombay in mind. We stayed at a hotel by the sea, and the fishermen come up at five in the morning and they were all chanting. And we went on the beach and we got chased by a mad dog-big as a donkey. ... I think that songwriting changed when groups started spending more time in the studio. ... I've written so many songs about Englishmen, I have to go elsewhere. ... Our repertoire consisted of rhythm and blues, sort of country rhythm and blues, Sonny Terry things.

Dream Theater music, there's a lot of background and context to the songs, as far as the subject matter and the albums they come from.

I know people are going to be like, 'why do you have so many songs with the word 'you' in it? 'Idea Of You,' 'Into You,' 'Like You,' 'You-Who'... Well, sorry, but it just works out that way.

The whole history of pop music had rested on the first person singular, with occasional intrusions of the second person singular.

Just because I don't sing about the normal country themes doesn't mean my songs aren't country. I'd rather sing about having fun.

I tend to get a little quirkier and crazier with my lyrics and come from a different angle when I'm writing for myself.

Songwriting never gets old. There's always stuff to write about.

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.

I love writing every song I can like a little mini movie. I like to have a character, or some characters, and really paint a picture with the song.

I think I have to work to write a happy song. I write them carefully; they're simple and they're about when it's fun to walk down the street. You know? Because that's the best thing about when you're happy. It's just one little thing that makes you happy, and you're making friends. The kind of thing I can do is capture this moment.

There are five things to write songs about: I'm leaving you. You're leaving me. I want you. You don't want me. I believe in something. Five subjects, and 12 notes. For all that, we musicians do pretty well.

The poetry of country music will survive.

I felt like I related to East Coast lyricism a little more. Because I couldn't be super gangsta.

That music and the lyrical aspects of Razorblade Romance is so personal to me that, now with me being grown up a bit and meeting new people and doing new things, it makes me look at the same things I was writing about back in the day through a different colored lens.

'Trapped in the Closet' is pretty much forever. I've got a leash on this thing now. I'm going to walk it.

A lot of the lyrical ideas do have a lot of meaning in a way, although it is somewhat abstracted.

I think, after 'Let Her Go,' I wanted to show people that I don't just write really sad love songs about my ex-girlfriend: that there's another side to Passenger as well that's a bit more up-tempo and more inclined to social commentary.