Paul McCartney
Musician, Singer-songwriter
"I don't work at being ordinary."
Songwriting quotes
Songwriting
103 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
John Lennon
Musician, Activist
"Songwriting is about getting the demon out of me. It's like being possessed."
David Bowie
Musician, Actor
"Speak in extremes, it'll save you time."
James Taylor
Singer-Songwriter
"I started being a songwriter pretending I could do it, and it turned out I could."
Paul Simon
Musician, Songwriter
"Much of songwriting is simply a mystery."
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside songwriting — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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Songwriting quotes (page 1 of 6)
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"Probably most successful songwriters have an innate songwriting ability."
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"Once I went into songwriting, I figured I had to - I couldn't be a hellfire rock 'n' roller. But I could write hellfire lyrics."
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"Songwriting is too mysterious and uncontrolled a process for me to direct it towards any one thing."
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"You can't ask me to explain the lyrics because I won't do it."
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"I've done so much songwriting and I know how to do it."
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"I usually eat breakfast twice. I'm usually up at 3 a.m. - do my spiritual work, my affirmations, a little bit of songwriting, get my daily work in order, and by that time I've worked up a bigger appetite."
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"It's unfashionable to admit, but playing music makes us happy and makes us smile."
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"I don't really know that there's any real rules for songwriting."
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"Songwriting isn't always something that's directly proportionate to the experience."
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"My experience with songwriting is usually so confessional, it's so drawn from my own life and my own stories."
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"My passion is more in songwriting than ... in being a star."
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"I think I'm more prolific in the songwriting."
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"It doesn't stop. It really doesn't stop. It's the way I live every single day. I don't do anything else. I have no other interest other than music. At all."
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"I always saw songwriting as the top of the heap. No matter what else you were going to do creatively-and there were a lot of choices-writing songs was king."
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"Some people, it [songwriting] comes faster. Some people, it comes slower."
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