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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"Most of us have the residue of thousands of songs in our ears, that if you end up songwriting, I think you're mostly smoking the residue of all that material you absorbed over time."
"Well you wave your hand and they scatter like crows They have nothing that will ever capture your heart They're just thorns without the rose Be careful of them in the dark Oh, if I was the one you chose to be your only one Oh baby can't you hear me now, can't you hear me now Will I see you tonight on a downtown train Every night it's just the same, you leave me lonely now"
"I used to imagine that making it in music - really making it in music - is if you're an old man going by a schoolyard and you hear children singing your songs, playing jump-rope, or on the swings. That's the ultimate. You're in the culture."
"Songs really are like a form of time travel because they really have moved forward in a bubble. Everyone who's connected with it, the studio's gone, the musicians are gone, and the only thing that's left is this recording which was only about a three-minute period maybe 70 years ago."
"I like songs that have lots of different parts in them, an intro, an outro and a bridge."
"I wouldn't say the purpose of making art is to enjoy it necessarily. For me, it happens to be the thing I enjoy the most. I don't even know what the purpose of art is really, I just know that is something that makes me feel satisfied in a way that other things don't. That's all I know, that's why I like to write songs and films or draw. I just like to make things and somehow I find it gives me a feeling of satisfaction that I can't find in other areas of my life."
"I like songs that go to different places and then come back."
"You are life, inventing form. No more can you die on sword or years than you can die on doorways through which you walk, one room into another. Every room gives its word for you to speak, every passage its song for you to sing."
"I wanted to do a summary of my life and career. There’s been so many different looks, and so many types of songs that have become iconic, so it was just kind of fun to look back on everything"
"I loved old black and white movies, especially the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals. I loved everything about them - the songs, the music, the romance and the spectacle. They were real class and I knew that I wanted to be in that world."
"I didn't want my last chapter to be the guy who sits at the piano and sings love songs."
"So it was just a case of getting a bunch of songs that I had been writing for years but hadn't recorded together, and the result was My Own Best Enemy."
"I remembered their songs but I had never owned a Beatles album."
"I probably wrote three-quarters of the songs without an instrument in my hands."
"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."
"It's fun to sing sad songs. And it's fun to listen to sad songs. Enjoyable. Satisfying. Something."
"I try to make songs visual and tactile to kind of put you into the action."
"A love song is just a caress set to music."
"Would you have your songs endure? Build on the human heart."
"I think in some ways, it can do a listener a disservice to explain a song. I think I'd rather leave a little room for people to put themselves in it."
