Song Quotes

I love the art form of songwriting. I get to carry a lot of vibes to a lot of people. My songs are all about the human condition, and people will be able to find themselves in my songs.

My vocal ability is very limited, but I'm fortunate in that I can write the songs around my vocal limitations.

Yeah, but on the U.S Tour we threw a new song into the set almost every night. Of course, you can't do too many new songs every night as they've never heard it.

When I write a song it's always from the point of view: makes the song the best it can be.

When you are happy it is harder to write [songs].

I've written about one song on several different albums.

I've written a lot of songs but I haven't had the opportunity to record a lot of them.

I've been very lucky to work with many amazing animators and directors who can interpret and extend the music I make. When it's done well, it can create extra meaning and new context for the song.

I do get a bit of a sense, just from e-mails some people send me, just a little sense of how people in different countries seem to respond differently to certain lines in a song.

Some songs come from my head, some from my throat, but there will always be moments when it is an injection of the soul.

All the signs were right. And when I mean all the sings were right, the only signs that we care about when we start a project of making a record is, do we have the songs - it's that simple.

After six or seven performances of any song, you begin to perform it rather than feel it.

In the early days, I had very little idea about arrangements, and I wrote songs a little flat, as it were, just on an acoustic guitar. They didn't really have quite enough nuance.

I do not wanna write a song like 'Coathanger' so Andrew Breitbart can rage against me on his web site. It's not my idea of fun.

I went to Morocco, joined a band called Pegasus, ran out of money, went to Gibraltar and worked on the docks, writing songs about the sun and the morning and the birds.

I started to work up in my old bedroom, playing, writing songs, and it somehow came to me that I could introduce soul music. Nobody seemed to be doing that.

I think with any songwriter the first 1,000 songs are always terrible.

I'm a big fan of simplicity, especially with songs and I try not to make them complicated. I just make them simple and let people absorb that message themselves. That's my theory.

I listen to old songs and remember exactly where I was living and where I recorded it and how I wrote it, the girl I was dating at the time or whatever.

I don't know how other bands play the same songs every night.

My job as a songwriter is to write good songs.

I don't think that good politics ever excuse a bad song.

I'm a soul maker. I write songs. I'm making cartoon shows. I'm planning on putting stuff out myself on my own, on a TV station online. I'm not limiting myself. I'm doing it all at once.

It is a fact that each song an artist creates is unique and although fans tend to be loyal, ultimately the quality of the record will decide how it sells.

I didn't have a lot of overtly political songs. I think it was more the actions of the group that were threatening to the authorities, and also our political philosophies apart from the music.

....the songs are universal enough that in ten years time they should still hold up quite well.

Songwriting is never one thing. I've spent as long as three months writing a song. Other times I've done it in twenty minutes.

It's weird to me to even say, "I wrote this song." I never feel like I wrote it; I feel like I heard it.

That's one of the things that always grabbed me about rock music: There's a song, and you know how it goes, and you can sort of predict it, but a lot is left up to chance and interaction.

When it's time to write a new song, anything that you thought you understood last time is pretty much pulverized.

You couldnt get a job playing in a club unless you played so much Top 40 and so many Beatles songs. I just went into a sort of revolt.

None of us lie or guard our secrets when we sing, and India is a nation of singers whose first love is the kind of song we turn to when crying just isn't enough.

Honestly, when I got to Hollywood I was trying to sell my songs.

I had tremendous fun fooling around with the way people talked about songs, just the way that became another way of understanding the world.

I wrote a song at age five about algae on the pond by our house, then the next 'real' song was in fifth grade about an unrequited crush.

A good song is like a mannequin - its form makes sense, but there's no life. There should be memorable melody, thoughtful lyric, appropriate arrangement.

This is my dream and I'm living it. I've never wanted to do anything else except write songs and perform them

People screw me over with words, so I screw them over with songs.

I'm a big fan of new production techniques and new sounds. That's kind of what has been my focus out here; making sure that the songs can stand away from the production, however it's produced.

I've recorded myself for four or five years and have been doing lots of experiments. I'm not that good an engineer - so it always becomes a different song - but I have ideas.

When I played my own songs, I had to do everything myself to get it the right way, but now I think it's interesting to see how it becomes music.

If I hear a song that I love - how is the groove and how is the beat and what is the feeling of this? - I can make it my own.

I remember so vividly the first song I ever wrote. It was called 'Different People.'

Out of all the artistic things I do, music is the most rewarding because it's so hard to write songs.

What playing solo has reminded me is how much I love electronic music and how much I love dance music. I'd like to move towards something more hypnotic and rhythmic rather than song-based.

I instinctively want to create pop songs and I think it's really good to challenge that, otherwise it becomes a habit.

I moved to New York from California when I was 11, so initially I was seen as the California person for a while. I didn't feel like I was popular, but I did feel confident.

I seldom speak on songs, as in when people ask me for fave songs. I really have only fave parts.

I often think it's unfair to the listener and "too easy" to just choose one tempo while I make and decide the songs.

I write songs now I look at my strengths and I start there. In The Walkmen, we'd start with the live stuff.