Last Updated December 11th, 2017
Today, I would like to share with you some interesting famous Songwriters quotations to inspire you to come up with your next super hit.
Personally I bought both books: “Songwriting For DUMMIES” and “The Complete Idiot’s Guide To Songwriting“, but I have yet to write a hit song.
I heard they say there are no hard and fast rules in songwriting.
Although there are some songwriting techniques or guidelines that one should follow.
But then again, you can still break the guidelines and you could probably still come up with a hit song.
Famous Songwriters Quotations To Inspire You
Here are some of my favorite songwriting tips, ideas and inspirations from well-established and very successful songwriters and composers, which I have gathered from various songwriting websites, books and magazines.
I have also included useful advice on song publishing.
Now, let’s get rocking and be inspired by the words of these renowned songwriters.
“If I knew where the good songs came from, I’d go there more often. It’s a mysterious condition. It’s much like the life of a Catholic nun. You’re married to a mystery.” – Leonard Cohen
(Leonard Cohen On Leonard Cohen, London: Omnibus Press, 2014, Leonard Cohen: Inside The Tower Of Song Interviewed By Paul Zollo, February 1992 | April 1993, SongTalk (US)) source
(The quote is also found in: Songwriters On Songwriting By Paul Zollo, New York: Perseus Books Group, 2003, Leonard Cohen, P. 335) source
Note: Another version of the quote is:
“Being a songwriter is like being a nun: You’re married to a mystery. It’s not a particularly generous mystery, but other people have that experience with matrimony anyway.” – Lenard Cohen
(Leonard Cohen Offers Rare Peek Into His Process at ‘Popular Problems’ Preview By Steve Appleford, rollingstone.com, Sept. 11, 2014) source
“Songs don’t dignify human activity. Human activity dignifies the song.” – Leonard Cohen
(Leonard Cohen On Leonard Cohen, London: Omnibus Press, 2014, Leonard Cohen: Inside The Tower Of Song Interviewed By Paul Zollo, February 1992 | April 1993, SongTalk (US)) source
“They’re (melody and lyrics) born together, they struggle together, and they influence one another.” – Leonard Cohen
(Leonard Cohen On Leonard Cohen, London: Omnibus Press, 2014, Leonard Cohen: Inside The Tower Of Song Interviewed By Paul Zollo, February 1992 | April 1993, SongTalk (US)) source
“The only way to know if a melody is good is to actually play it for somebody.” – Brian Wilson
(Songwriter U: On the Mystery and Majesty of Melody By Paul Zollo, American Songwriter, March 2020) source
“…don’t be so all-fired concerned about being original. You hear an old song you like but you want to change it a little, there’s no crime in that.” – Pete Seeger
(More Songwriters On Songwriting By Paul Zollo, Hachette UK, 2016, Marjorie On Guthrie Woody Guthrie, New York, New York 1981)
“I’d either sit down with a guitar or at the piano and just look for melodies, chord shapes, musical phrases, some words, a thought just to get started with. And then I just sit with it to work it out, like I’m writing an essay or doing a crossword puzzle.” – Paul McCartney
(All Songs +1: A Conversation With Paul McCartney By Robin Hilton & Bob Boilen, npr Music, On His Songwriting Process, June 10, 2016) source
“…There’s a sort of fascination to it. Like “Wow, two seconds ago there wasn’t a song, and now we’ve got something.” It’s kind of a magical thing. I love doing it.” – Paul McCartney
(Paul McCartney On Songwriting, The Beatles And Revisiting Old Material By Kyle Meredith, January 9, 2015)
“I think when you’re a songwriter — songs are airborne, ideas are airborne, and I feel like it’s a blessing.” – Smokie Robinson
(Smokey Robinson: Songwriting Is A Gift From God By Carl Kozlowski, LifeZette, 15 October 2016)
“I’m not a songwriter who needs a pattern. Like, I don’t have to go away to the mountains for two weeks to get inspired. I could be on a plane and an idea comes to me — melody or words, and I write all the time.” – Smokie Robinson
(Smokey Robinson: Songwriting Is A Gift From God By Carl Kozlowski, LifeZette, 15 October 2016)
“I guess you’d call it inspiration. It’s a connection with these source of all ideas. Some people call it God. Whatever you call it, it’s the source.” – Carole King
(Happy Birthday, Carole King! By Lydia Hutchinson, performingsongwriter.com, February 9, 2015 – Taken From ‘Carole King New Threads In The Tapestry‘ By Bill DeMain, Performing Songwriter Issue 79, July/August 2004)
“…you’re sitting at the piano or your keyboard or your computer or your canvas or your camera or whatever, and things just click. They’re coming through you. They’re not necessarily coming from you. And you feel it when that happens. You’re connected to the source of all ideas.” – Carole King
(Happy Birthday, Carole King! By Lydia Hutchinson, performingsongwriter.com, February 9, 2015 – Taken From ‘Carole King New Threads In The Tapestry’ By Bill DeMain, Performing Songwriter Issue 79, July/August 2004)
“But once I start to make a song, to create a song, even if commerce is the motivation, I’m still going to put my whole heart and soul in it and try to write the best song and move people in a way that touches them…” – Carole King
(Happy Birthday, Carole King! By Lydia Hutchinson, performingsongwriter.com, February 9, 2015 – Taken From ‘Carole King New Threads In The Tapestry’ By Bill DeMain, Performing Songwriter Issue 79, July/August 2004)
“To create a something where nothing existed before. No song existed before. Suddenly it exists. It’s an amazing process.” – Carole King
(Happy Birthday, Carole King! By Lydia Hutchinson, performingsongwriter.com, February 9, 2015 – Taken From ‘Carole King New Threads In The Tapestry’ By Bill DeMain, Performing Songwriter Issue 79, July/August 2004)
“…there’s a lot of hard work involved in songwriting. The inspiration part is where it comes through you, but once it comes through you, the shaping of it, the craft of it, is something that I pride myself in knowing how to do.” – Carole King
(Songwriters On Songwriting By Paul Zollo, New York: Perseus Books Group, 2003, Carole King; P. 144)
“If you are sitting down and you feel that you want to write and nothing is coming, you get up and do something else. Then you come back again and try it again. But you do it in a relaxed manner. Trust that it will be there. If it ever was once and you’ve ever done it once, it will be back.” – Carole King
(Songwriters on Songwriting By Paul Zollo, New York: Perseus Books Group, 2003, Carole King; p.143)
“The first step is to listen to the music very closely, not so much to learn what the notes are, but to see what the music was saying to you.” – Hal David
(Hal David By Lydia Hutchinson, peformingsongwriter.com, May 25, 2013 – Taken From Performing Songwriter Issue 10, January/February 1995) source
“…There’s an awful lot of rejection that takes place, particularly early in your career, and that you want it enough to live with rejection and get past that rejection.” – Hal David
(Hal David By Lydia Hutchinson, peformingsongwriter.com, May 25, 2013 – Taken From Performing Songwriter Issue 10, January/February 1995) source
“I’d often write dummy lyrics, and I still do that. It helps me retain the melody, and particularly if the melody is a little complex.” – Hal David
(Hal David By Lydia Hutchinson, peformingsongwriter.com, May 25, 2013 – Taken From Performing Songwriter Issue 10, January/February 1995) source
“If it (creativity) doesn’t come to me, I don’t want to have anything to do with it. I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to look for it. I really hate things that people work on. There’s nothing about music that should be ‘working on it.” – Neil Young
(Neil Young Explains Songwriting: Never Chase the Rabbit By Chad Childers, Ultimate Classicrock, June 12, 2012) source
“The challenge of writing a wonderful song is still enough to take up my mind, imagination and ambitions. It is a wonderful challenge to start with nothing and come out with something beautiful, relatable or just plain entertaining.” – Neil Diamond
(Happy Birthday, Neil Diamond! By Lydia Hutchinson, performingsongwriter.com, January 24, 2012) source
“When I write a song, it starts with a feeling. I can hear something in my head or feel it in my heart. It may be that I just picked up the guitar and mindlessly started playing. That’s the way a lot of songs begin.” – Neil Young
(Waging Heavy Peace Deluxe: A Hippie Dream By Neil Young, Penguin UK, 2012, ch. Twenty-One) source
(The quote is also found in: ‘Comes A Time: Neil Young Riffs On His Music And His Muse’ By Will Fifield, The Costco Connection, P. 51)
“My favorite composer is Beethoven, because he would change his mood in the middle of a piece. He’d be going along, and it’d be nice, and then all of a sudden there’d be the sturm und drang, drama and tragedy. It was exciting. I always subscribed to that kind of writing. Wherever your mood takes you, that’s what you should be writing.” – Billy Joel
(Billy Joel Restarts The Fire By Alan Light, American Songwriter, May 27, 2014) source
“I spend more time writing music than writing words. The music always precedes the words. The words often come from the sound of the music and eventually evolve into coherent thoughts.” – Paul Simon
(Interview: Paul Simon Discusses Songwriter And Songwriting By Tom Moon, American Songwriter, October 7, 2011) source
“The first line of a song is crucial. Listener attention is probably highest at the first line. I try to make those words interesting enough to keep the listener interested.” – Paul Simon
(Interview: Paul Simon Discusses Songwriter And Songwriting By Tom Moon, American Songwriter, October 7, 2011) source
“…if you can carry a little bit of yourself off and put it in there, people can feel it, and see it and I think that’s the biggest key to being a good songwriter: not being afraid to put yourself into it. Tell it like it is and don’t try to sugar coat it a lot.” – Willie Nelson
(Happy Birthday, Willie Nelson! By Lydia Hutchinson, peformingsongwriter.com, April 30, 2014 – Taken From Performing Songwriter Issue 60, , March/April 2002)
“One thing that you can never let happen to you is to become more of a critic than you are a writer, where you actually choke yourself off.” – Randy Newman
(Happy Birthday, Randy Newman By Lydia Hutchinson, performingsongwriter.com, November 28, 2016 – Taken From Performing Songwriter Issue 11, March/April 1995) source
“You don’t have to have lived the things you sing about, but you got to believe them.” And I think that’s true. But it’s better if you’ve experienced it.” – Merle Haggard
(Farewell, Merle Haggard By Lydia Hutchinson, performingsongwriter.com, April 7, 2016 – Taken From Issue 107, Sept/Oct. 2007) source
“Inspiration for songs can happen in the middle of a lot of other kinds of activity, but to actually bring it home you have to have a place to go off and wait. That’s the nature of writing lyrics.” – James Taylor
(Happy Birthday, James Taylor! By Lydia Hutchinson, performingsongwriter.com, March 12, 2016 – Taken From Performing Songwriter Vol. 9, Issue 61, May 2002)
“Keep notes and go back and pick up where you left off with a lyrical idea or with a musical passage or something.” – James Taylor
(Happy Birthday, James Taylor! By Lydia Hutchinson, performingsongwriter.com, March 12, 2016 – Taken From Performing Songwriter, Vol. 9, Issue 61, May 2002)
“Everything that has a steady rhythm is a song to me.” – Dolly Parton
(Happy Birthday, Dolly Parton! By Lydia Hutchinson, performingsongwriter.com, January 19, 2016 Taken From Performing Songwriter Issue 20, Sept/Oct 1996) source
“Songwriting is just as natural as breathing to me. Life’s a song to me. That’s how I express myself.” – Dolly Parton
(Dolly Parton Talks About Her New Album Blue Smoke, Her New Duets, And Her Songwriting By Bill Conger, songwritingUniverse.com, June 2, 2014) source
“It’s (songwriting) so fulfilling to think that I could actually leave something in the world today that wasn’t there yesterday.” – Dolly Parton
(Dolly Parton: Songwriting Is Time With God By Alison Bonaguro, CMT News, Music, August 17, 2016) source
“My guitar is like my best friend, and my songs are like my therapy.” – Dolly Parton
(Dolly Parton: Songwriting Is Time With God By Alison Bonaguro, CMT News, Music, August 17, 2016) source
“Sometimes I took an old tune and put new words to it. And sometimes I was merely a matchmaker. I would take one person’s tune and put it to someone else’s words.” – Pete Seeger
(Farewell, Pete Seeger By Lydia Hutchinson, performing songwriter.com, January 28, 2014 – Taken From Performing Songwriter Issue 113, November 2008) source
“You know the old adage that good songwriters borrow, and great songwriters steal? I’ll hear something, then play with it, turn it upside down and make it mine.” – Stephen Stills
(Happy Birthday, Stephen Stills! By Lydia Hutchinson, performing songwriter.com, January 3, 2014 – Taken From Performing Songwriter Issue 106, December 2007) source
“Sometimes I write using recording equipment; I’ll put down a drum machine and bass track, and try to get a chord change from that.” – J. J. Cale
(Remembering J.J. Cale By Lydia Hutchinson, performingsongwriter.com, July 29, 2013 – Taken From Performing Songwriter Issue 116, Mar/Apr 2009) source
“I think it’s pretty standard that when you first start doing something you’re basically trying to emulate things that move you, and that’s basically what I did.” – Bruce Hornsby
(Happy Birthday, Bruce Hornsby! By Lydia Hutchinson, performingsongwriter.com, November 23, 2012 – Taken From Performing Songwriter Issue 13, July/August 1995) source
“It really is either a musical idea or lyrical idea — I write both ways. And I like it that way because I think it gives some variety to the songwriting.” – Bruce Hornsby
(Happy Birthday, Bruce Hornsby! By Lydia Hutchinson, performingsongwriter.com, November 23, 2012 – Taken From Performing Songwriter Issue 13, July/August 1995) source
“I seem to get a lot of good ideas in the morning, when I’m on that border between sleep and waking. It happens more often if I’ve been thinking about a song just before going to sleep.” – Gordon Lightfoot
(Happy Birthday, Gordon Lightfoot By Lydia Hutchinson, performingsinger.com, November 17, 2012 – Taken From Performing Songwriter Issue 33, November 1998)
“I usually get the melody and chords down first, then try to get a marriage going between the words and music, to discover the story of the song and keep expanding, keep pressing onward.” – Gordon Lightfoot
(Happy Birthday, Gordon Lightfoot By Lydia Hutchinson, performingsinger.com, November 17, 2012 – Taken From Performing Songwriter Issue 33, November 1998)
“I write out the chords and the melody and start looking for a lyric…” – Gordon Lightfoot
(Happy Birthday, Gordon Lightfoot By Lydia Hutchinson, performingsinger.com, November 17, 2012 – Taken From Performing Songwriter Issue 33, November 1998)
“Sometimes, innocent conversations can lead you into good titles (…) Then we would come up with song titles we liked, picking certain ones that sounded good to write about (…) We’d start there and then just freestyle. I’d come up with groove, chord out the rhythms and just start playing. That would inspire Gamble and he would freestyle the lyrics.” – Leon Huff
(Legendary Philly Duo Kenny Gamble & Leon Huff Talk About Their Great Careers, And Their Hit Songs By Jonathan Widran, songwriteruniverse.com, March 12, 2008) source
“Don’t pressure yourself to be a starving songwriter. Before we made a living at this, Huff and I wrote on evenings and weekends and worked other jobs. Get your education, get a good job and then follow your passion. And when those songs start paying you, then you can do it full-time.” – Kenneth Gamble
(Legendary Philly Duo Kenny Gamble & Leon Huff Talk About Their Great Careers, And Their Hit Songs By Jonathan Widran, songwriteruniverse.com, March 12, 2008) source
“I fuse old-fashioned, popular music with early rock & roll, like Elvis Presley and Danny & The Juniors…things that were fun and easy to play, and with folk music.” – Don McLean
(Special Interview With Don McLean, Renowned Singer/Songwriter Of “American Pie” and Other Classic Songs By Dale Kawashima, songwriteruniverse.com, July 3, 2017) source
“What I like to begin with really is if a lyricist has a title, or an idea for a song.” – Marvin Hamlisch
(Farewell, Marvin Hamlisch By Lydia Hutchinson, performingsongwriter.com, August 7, 2012 – Taken From Performing Songwriter Issue 14 Sept/Oct 1995) source
“Don’t give away your publishing! Hang onto it as tight as you can.” – John Prine
(Special Interview: Legendary Singer/Songwriter John Prine Discusses His Songwriting And His New Book, Beyond Words By Dale Kawashima, songuniverse.com, May 18, 2017) source
“I remember discovering I could play by ear. (…)From that point, I always tinkered around writing my own stuff, writing my own melodies.” – Sheryl Crow
(Happy Birthday, Sheryl Crow! By Lydia Hutchinson, performingsongwriter.com, February 11, 2012, Taken From Performing Songwriter Issue 6, May 1994) source
“…if I do have music I will sing syllables or just phonetics and sometimes you get lyrics that way. Certain syllables work really well in melody lines and that can inspire you to write things that you might not have written.” – Sheryl Crow
(Happy Birthday, Sheryl Crow! By Lydia Hutchinson, performingsongwriter.com, February 11, 2012, Taken From Performing Songwriter Issue 6, May 1994) source
“…the most important thing to do is sit down with either a piano or guitar and demo things as simply as possible with a good lyric and a good melody. If it’s honest, people will get it.” – Sheryl Crow
(Happy Birthday, Sheryl Crow! By Lydia Hutchinson, performingsongwriter.com, February 11, 2012, Taken From Performing Songwriter Issue 6, May 1994) source
“I’d often start with a musical idea. [Also] I keep notes of lyric sketches in a separate file. And sometimes, if I had what I thought was a good verse and chorus going, then I would look through the lyric files and maybe I’d see a line or two that might lend itself to expanding upon.” – Robert Lamm
(Special Interview With Robert Lamm, Co-Founder Of Legendary Band Chicago, And Songwriters Hall of Fame Inductee By Dale Kawashima, songwriteruniverse.com, March 6, 2017) source
Here is a write-up about songwriter, author and music journalist, Paul Zollo.
By the way, here is a post for those who like to learn how to write or compose a song.