Musical Idea Quotes

Most of the time, I write songs with the arrangements all at once, in my head. There's the producer side of me that's always thinking sounds, like, 'Wouldn't this be a great sound if it existed to put in front of a song, to open it up, and then, when it did its thing, something else would happen?

I have thought about some kind of musical involving my music. That would be kind of interesting. I have thought of it in that way, as a creator of something, not so much a performer. So that's in my head.

I remember Tim telling me that he had an idea for a musical and he said to me that he was hoping that ABBA would be writing the music, which I thought was a pretty wild idea because they were obviously known very much as pop writers.

In recording, you're trying to make something work sonically - getting the right inflection on the right guitar sound - and maybe a part that would be musically great doesn't sound as cool. On paper, though, it's all stripped back. The musical idea is the one that wins.

Anything is food for starting a song. A song can start with a lyric idea or a melody or just a sound that inspires.

When I was writing 'Shotgun,' it's one of the first songs that's come to me as an image.

If I come across an issue, or something I feel strongly about, and I happen to think of a song that would go in that direction, then I do it. But that's not what I start out, necessarily, to do. Sometimes I may have an idea for a song - "Well, I'm going to write about a thing.

We've always talked about doing something else and Campbell Scott is always busy and I'm always busy. But when we came up with the idea of doing the potato famine as a hip hop musical, I wanted somebody who was going to bring gravity.

Sometimes I'll come up with a lick that I really love, and I'll try to put the right words to it for years. Suddenly something comes to me that works just right.

One day a whole damn song fell into place in my head.

Very often the music comes first.

Jazz is an idea that is more powerful than the details of its history.

There's a lot of craft in songwriting. The divine inspiration is when the idea comes. It may be a riff. It may be a word. It may be a phrase. It may be a title. Sometimes, in the best of both worlds, that divine inspiration extends through the whole song. I've literally sat down and written a song from beginning to end, almost complete lyrics and everything without ever stopping...in two minutes. The chorus of 'She's Gone' was like that.

Sometimes when you're writing a song and that song comes into your head, it definitely comes from somewhere, like a real experience.

And religious music and the sort of symbolism of it and everything. But I had this idea. Actually, I sort of dreamt it. I woke up - just before waking up one morning, I sort of dreamt this song or the idea of it and the first little bit of it. And I jumped out of bed and I thought, well, you're still asleep. You're going to forget this in a minute - you know, like you do when you've had a dream.

I don't really have time to sit down and write. But when I think of a melody, I call up my answering machine and sing it, so I won't forget it.

I've woken up from dreams and the whole song is there. I'm listening to it in my dreams. I consciously have to wake myself up and get a tape recorder because I hear it like a record.

To see itself through, music must have idea or magic. ... Music with neither dies young though rich.

'Write' is almost the wrong verb for what I do. I think 'compose' is more accurate because you're trying to make the sounds in your mind and in your voice. So I compose while I'm driving or in the shower.

I started EWF because I had a vision, and music was playing in my head that I wanted to bring through. What I had in mind was exactly what Earth, Wind & Fire became.

Sometimes I start just on the piano with a melody or musical idea that kind of leads me to certain lyrics.

For me it's always contingent on getting a sound-the sound always suggests what kind of melody it should be. So it's always sound first and then the line afterwards.

I like people, and I like listening to them because something that'll happen out of that conversation could be the title or the subject of the song.

It wasn't just music in the Ramones: it was an idea. It was bringing back a whole feel that was missing in rock music - it was a whole push outwards to say something new and different.

Yes, when I come up with ideas on my own, it's almost always a melody, just as often an instrument or bassline as it is a vocal. But it is a single, linear, monophonic thing. Something you could hum or whistle.