Song quotes
10.7K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside song — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"I think it's fine for a singer to sing someone else's song. But the thing I don't like is when a singer that can write songs starts getting someone else to do it for them."
"As a consumer, if I heard someone who said, "I've written this song," and then I found out it wasn't by them, it's a bit disappointing. A lot of the guys that do that are really talented and they've made some incredible music, but they get addicted to having success and feel too much pressure, so they get other people to make sure that their next song makes money."
"There are a lot of producers and people in the music industry who take credit for the work of others when it's not actually their work. Especially big producers - they have a song that's written by one guy with a produced mix by someone else and then it's sung by someone else."
"Of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe, Sadder than owl-songs or the midnight blast; Is that portentous phrase, "I told you so."
"Grace Kelly writes great songs, sings beautifully, is a world class saxophonist, and is going to be a big big star"
"New York was the inspiration for The Heart of Rock and Roll and Workin for a Livin. There are a lot of songs in the streets of New York."
"I have to play really loose versions of songs I've made on the computer."
"I wanted to be an actor. That was my real goal. But I wasn't any good at it, so I wrote my own material and acted through that. That's my idea of fun. I get to be all these things in the songs."
"I wanna hear some Diana Ross, I wanna hear some Marvin Gaye. I wanna hear a song that reminds me of a better day."
"Music is an amazing thing. I don't know if we really think about it the same way we consider a painting an amazing thing. I mean, a painting is, in quotes, imaginary. There is nothing on the canvas when you start; and writing a song, there is nothing there when you start."
"People didn't know certain things about me, which... I was out of creative writing class in school, Syracuse University; had a B.A. in English and wanted to write the great American novel but I also loved rock and roll. I was in bar bands all through college, playing fraternities and have to know all the songs in the top 10. That kind of thing."
"For a while, I felt a little self-impelled to write Lou Reed Kind of songs. I should have understood that a Lou Reed song was anything I wanted to write about."
"When I was in college, I had a jazz radio show. I called it 'Excursion on a Wobbly Rail,' after a Cecil Taylor song. I used to run around the Village following Ornette Coleman wherever he played."
"I usually have an idea of how I want a song to sound, but I don't always know how to get there"
"I can speak for most songwriters - those breakup love songs are so easy to write, as far as the inspiration and all that."
"I started writing songs, I guess, when I was about 13 or 14, but I didn't know if they were good enough yet or anything."
"I love Emmylou Harris's version of my song, 'Sweet Old World.' Her intonation is great."
"It's easier to write songs when you're single."
"Above all, the listener should be able to understand the poem or the song, not be forced to unravel a complicated, self-indulgent puzzle. Offer your art up to the whole world, not just an elite few."
"I write the songs, go in and record them, then I listen to everything and decide how it all fits together."
