In Their Own Words
Todd Rundgren
The style of music may change, but the role of the songwriter is always to encapsulate an idea in either intellectual or emotional terms or both. Essentially what a songwriter is doing is packaging. They’re taking the things that people are talking about and the musical wallpaper, if you will, to life and integrating them […]
NIkki Sixx
I’ll never know how heroin addiction affected my songwriting. I know I write better music when I’m sober. A lot of my friends have told me they don’t know how to write when sober. For me, the addiction had to do with running from my past and not living in the present. When you’re writing […]
John Prine
I used to think you needed a strong image or something different in there, or something humorous, you know? I never thought about hooks or anything in my songs. But the longer I do it, the more I think you can say the simplest thing that’s been said many times before, and it’s the time […]
Sara Bareilles
“I know when a tune is done because it’s that same feeling as knowing you’re on to something when you’re starting a song. There’s that little period of time after a song is done when you want to make tweaks and adjustments. But I’m not very precious about those things, choosing one word over another. […]
Van Morrison
“There’s no difference between lyrics and poetry. Words are words. The only difference is the people who are in academic positions and call themselves poets and have an academic stance. They’ve got something to lose if they say it’s all poetry; if there’s not music to it, and you have to wear a certain kind […]
Rickie Lee Jones
“Songs are architectural, living, changing aural environments. It’s difficult to disassemble them. Some lines are just a part of your life—you sing them over and over again. But for the most part, the songs that I don’t use don’t get found anywhere. They are rather developers, things that lead to other, better songs, hopefully. But […]
Ben Harper
“It’s one thing to be a songwriter, but I’m about to go online and have some discussion about artwork. It’s okay that it takes more than songwriting [to be an artist]. That’s a funny thing about living in L.A. and Hollywood. Hollywood loves its accomplished, but it loathes its ambitious. Which I find an odd […]
Pink
I remember watching Star Search when I was 9 and saying, “God, if I don’t make it this year, I’m done.” They were only cute up until they were 9! I thought, “If I hit 10 next year and I haven’t done any of this shit, my life is over.” At the same time, I […]
Phil Collins
I remember people saying that was the Peter Gabriel drum sound, but I was the guy who played that stuff on the third album, “Intruder” and all that. It was as much mine, because with that kind of drum sound, you’re composing [sings drum beat from “Intruder”]. That was me, you know? I came up […]
Bruce Cockburn
When I went to Baghdad I ended up being introduced to this young oud player—an Iraqi guy who’d studied in Egypt. He sang in Arabic, and played really quite beautifully. And then it was my turn, so I pulled out the dobro and just started screwing around thinking that I would sort of work my […]