In the end, I get a really good song, and in the end, I get the hits. Yeah, I'm that good.
I got a guitar when I was six and, instead of learning other people's songs, started to try to write my own, even at that young age.
If someone can write great music... Paul McCartney is a genius. He's so prolific. All we should do is bow down to Paul McCartney.
My father was a cocky, long-haired musician, a songwriter.
Adam [Cohen] is a great singer-songwriter in his own right.
The songwriting community in Nashville really is all about your talent. It's not about your image, and you have to be humble. You have to be kind. You have to have zero ego when you walk into that writing room.
The thing that's tricky is sometimes the best voices - just because someone hits the big notes and sounds amazing - it doesn't necessarily mean they make the greatest artists.
I think Barry Gibb would be a wonderful person to work with. Because he just writes good tunes.
I'm able to come and do a new sound and grow even more and make greater songs because my song-making abilities have grown.
There's a big gaping hole in the EDM space for songwriting. It's one thing to learn how to be a great sound designer and become big just on sound design. Especially if you're in the dubstep category, it's like, how much fatter and more interesting can you make those drops.
I've always been insecure about my singing. That's why I've focused so much on my songwriting.
I guess if I'd have more of a producer attitude, maybe I'd sell more records. But I'm basically a songwriter.
Hunter can write a melody and stuff like that, but his forte is lyrics. He can write a serviceable melody to hang his lyrics on, and sometimes he comes up with something really nice.
I'm a great songwriter, but I'm not the most talented musician.
Some people are just gifted with a great voice, other people are gifted with great emotion, other people are gifted with great engagement - when you find all of those things in one package, you have Taylor Swift.
I'm a good collaborative writer. I can usually come in and add a couple lines to something, and add a riff or a B-section, or a bridge that will tie things together. I can do stuff like that. But to write a whole song, I don't have the patience for that, I guess.
Nathan McEuen's light is shining bright. A fine singer, guitarist and an excellent songwriter. There is hope on the horizon.
I worked extremely hard at my craft and at being a good songwriter, being a good guitar player, being a good organist, because I didn't think people would take me seriously.
I've always regretted the fact that I've never formally studied and learned the mechanics of writing music.
I think you can refine what you do, and become more consistent. And you write better songs that have a better shape and a better feeling. You evolve into and out of things, and go through stages, but, ultimately, you do improve.
Where I've arrived now is the product of mixing the very straight with the very exploratory; there's a fine line between the two, although it tends to be getting straighter and straighter because my songwriting is getting better.
It's a rare combination to have someone who can write songs and sing well.
When people think of someone being prolific, it's like, 'He's got a vault with 5,000 songs in it,' or something, but I just kind of pick them out of the air when they float by.
But if you want to be a songwriter-based musician, whether you play punk or rock or country or jazz, whatever, you have to work on your songwriting and you have to work on being able to play in front of people, I think. That performance is how you create the groundwork for a lasting career.
I don't know anyone who sits down to write a song hit except Irving Berlin. He can't help writing hits.
