personal songwriting Quotes

A lot of the songs on '2' are pretty personal, but even if I'm writing about something like that, I still tend to keep it pretty simple and open-ended. I like the idea of people listening to my album and it meaning something to me but maybe meaning something else to them.

I always loved writing songs - writing for myself and demo-ing songs, really with no intention of ever letting anyone else hear them.

I wouldn't be able to write a song like 'Someone Like You' and get someone else to sing it because it's so personal. It's like giving away your heart.

Throughout my career as a songwriter, I've had a knack for writing songs that were about me and my life experiences and observations.

Whether it be current or past, every single song that I recorded is about me. It's a peek into my life, past and present. Maybe it's coming from my theater and performance background, but nothing felt right unless I could relate to it.

Sometimes my boyfriend would write the lyrics and I would write the melody, and other times I would start from scratch. Or sometimes I would take a local poem and put that to music...I always sang standards because the songs I wrote for myself weren't as easy to sing.

I was separated from my wife at the time. A lot of people think I wrote it about prison.

The Rilo Kiley song 'A Better Son/Daughter' is my most requested song - especially for people who are at the age I was when I wrote it. It's sort of a mid-twenties lament.

My philosophy on writing a song for myself is that I always, always, always want to write a song. I always want to write a song. I realize that as a record producer or a singer or whatever I might not, if I recorded on myself or someone else, the first time out I might not give it the right treatment, so that the world or many people will accept it and it'll be a public hit, or anything like that.

I used to write songs that were deeply personal, but since I am becoming so passionate about the world around me, that passion and drive is starting to come into my work.

Sometimes I would write something that was so private, people would say, 'Make it more universal.' I never liked that idea. I always thought the more personal a song was, the more people would want to hear it.

The songs that I sing and the songs that I write have always just been what I feel my voice does well, and what my inspirations have been and a kind of culmination of everything.

I've always written songs, even when I wasn't doing anything with my personal life in music.

My songwriting is very personal. The music that influenced me was so impactful that had I grown up somewhere else, I know I would still write the same way I do because of those influences.

When you hear me sit at the piano by myself and do one of those super-personal, confessional songs, that's where my true voice is.

Not that there is anything wrong with confessional songwriting, there are plenty of people that do that I admire. I think it is great, it just isn't how I do things.

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.

Having not really written any generational songs - I think maybe two or three of the songs that I've ever written have any bearing on the age of the listener. My stuff tends to be far more concerned with the spiritual and with subjects like isolation and being miserable.