Because Song Quotes & Sayings

I cut my teeth playing rock songs on the accordion when I was a teenager and my friends always thought that was extremely amusing. I think that was the genesis of my polka medleys, because every rock song I played on the accordion just sounded like a polka and my friends thought it was funny. So that was a joke that I continue up to this very day. — Al Yankovic

I get an audience personally involved in a song - because I'm involved myself. It's not something I do deliberately: I can't help myself. If the song is a lament at the loss of love, I get an ache in my gut. I feel the loss myself and I cry out the loneliness, the hurt and the pain that I feel. — Frank Sinatra

My favourite thing about live shows is you can make up new songs on the spot. Never played before, never again. And that's wonderful for me, because it frees me up to not have to worry about lyrics and stuff. — Victoria Williams

She always played his song because whenever she saw him, it was like moving into a warm pocket of air. — Elizabeth Strout

The song 'Baby Baby,' I so love that song because I wrote it about my first daughter. — Amy Grant

Another song for Harry Potter is my time is know by John Cena. It relates to Harry because it is his time to be the best wizard at Hogwarts his school. — J.K. Rowling

I am not dogging on non-melodic pop music because I love it, but I am saying that is why the timeless songs are still here. It's because of the melody. As far as what shouldn't be brought back, the high-waisted bikini bottoms. — Julianne Hough

You can go crazy and play solos in the right place, and that's great because it can intensify and bring an emotional lift. But the thing is you don't want to get in the way of the song. — Benmont Tench

What happened during the previews of Taboo [ musical] was that it was the first time I'd ever been written about as a great song-writer - I cried. I absolutely wept, because it wasn't the usual stuff like, "Oh, he was a drug addict and he did this and that ... " It was really looking at the music and it was really complimentary. It was a huge thing. — Boy George

It's hard to listen to your own record or your own songs and not pass judgment in a critical way just because it's your own thing. It's weird to sit down to listen to it to enjoy it. — Alex Gaskarth

I really tried to push every genre that I could into this record. I wanted every song to have this feel, where as soon as the listener tunes in, they say "That's CoJo, that's Cody right there." That being said, it is a little different. There's Americana, there's Bluegrass, there's some rock, there's some really George Jones-style stuff on it, slow-style Ray Price country elements, there's some modern country, a little of this and a little of that. We tried to push a lot for show versatility, because I grew up with a lot of versatility in my music. — Cody Johnson

I try not to say exactly what songs are about sometimes, because I feel like it ruins it for people. — Lauren Mayberry

You don't love someone for their looks, or their clothes, or for their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear. — Oscar Wilde

I'm writing songs that connect to millions of people. And that happens for a reason. I don't really worry too much about people who aren't into it because that's the beauty of music. It's subjective. If every single person in the world loved our music, then that'd be weird. — Matthew Healy

Everything is super personal. Basically all of the songs are 'this is my life and what I feel about it.' That's how my brain works and thinks about things. It's really strange because I never really think about what I want to write about - it sort of just comes out. I literally say whatever is in my brain. — Elena Tonra

I like The Smiths - I would love to do a song with The Smiths, because they are so sonically different. — Angel Haze

I don't love playing new songs in a festival environment. Because when it comes to a festival a lot of people probably won't know your band really well at all so playing more familiar songs is a little more conducive in having a better show. — Jack Barakat

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,
Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
But is there because he's a victim of the times.
I wear the black for those who never read — Johnny Cash

'Trilogy' was more of a claustrophobic body of work. Before it was released, I hadn't left my city for 21 years, and I had never been on a plane, not once. I spent my entire life on one setting; that's probably why pieces of the album feel like one long track, because that's what my life felt like. It felt like one long song. — The Weeknd

I think 'All Out of Love' is my favorite song because it's been the most successful. It's been in about 30 movies, it's been a number one record, and it keeps getting played on the radio, it's always somewhere. — Graham Russell

A long time ago, I made the commitment to dedicate at least one song per album to God. He has been very good to me, and never for one minute do I want Him to think I've forgotten, because I haven't. — MC Hammer

This morning when I looked out the roof window
before dawn and a few stars were still caught
in the fragile weft of ebony night
I was overwhelmed. I sang the song Louis taught me:
a song to call the deer in Creek, when hunting,
and I am certainly hunting something as magic as deer
in this city far from the hammock of my mother's belly.
It works, of course, and deer came into this room
and wondered at finding themselves
in a house near downtown Denver.
Now the deer and I are trying to figure out a song
to get them back, to get all of us back,
because if it works I'm going with them.
And it's too early to call Louis
and nearly too late to go home.
[from poem, "Song for the Deer and Myself to Return On"] — Joy Harjo

Just because I said lyrics are a sign of the inability to sing doesn't mean ... A) I believe that, or B) I don't think they're cool. They are cool. Words are great. I sing along with my favorite songs, but when I am drumming and singing, the words become a note that for me. In the process of playing they have more emotional impact as notes then an actual word. — Brian Chippendale

I'm a huge Joe Nichols fan, and he put this song out an album called 'Real Things.' I was excited for Joe when I heard it, thinking 'that will easily be Joe Nichols' career song.' I was even more excited when they got out of that album and they never released it as a single, because then I was like, 'Now that's gonna be my career single.' — Blake Shelton

You meet not so much to sing as to pray, or, better yet, to pray in and through your song. Gregorian chant is for you a privileged form of prayer. You are drawn to it because you perceive the link between music and the sacred, between beauty and truth. — Jacques Hourlier

I write a song because I want to. I think the moment you start writing it to make money, you're starting to kill yourself artistically. — Pete Seeger

Because my musical training has been limited, I've never been restricted by what technical musicians might call a song. — Neil Diamond

It's a marvelous feeling when someone says 'I want to do this song of yours' because they've connected to it. That's what I'm after. — Mary Chapin Carpenter

They're selling razor blades and mirrors in the street
Pray that when I'm coming down you'll be alseep
If I ever hurt you your revenge will be so sweet
Because I'm scum
And I'm your son
I come undone — Robbie Williams

Now I am going to speak a word and this is the word and here's the word. When the clock strikes 2.08. There are eight songs in the Bible. Noah started the world over with eight people. On the eighth day the Bible says Jesus appeared. Thomas because was not a believer but on the eighth day he showed up and Thomas was a believer. Actually Jesus was resurrected on the eighth day ... — Steve Munsey

It's so funny because if you tweet your lyrics and then you hear it in a song next week, you're like, 'Hey I had that same idea.' I'm very secretive with my music. We have to send emails password protected. Because once that song gets out, you aren't selling that thing. — Ester Dean

I think the difference between a good song and a great song is ... honestly, I think the lyrics, because if you have a really solid melody and solid track and everything is there but then the lyric is just okay, then you've got a good song. — Bonnie McKee

Basically, any time you have a real life experience, that can be a song. Because no matter how crazy or weird you are, somebody's had an experience just like you, somewhere. — Benny Blanco

Sometimes, the Lord just takes blessed people because they've filled their purpose early. Everyone plays their own song. They sing their story to the world and leave behind a melody of memories. Sometimes ... their song is cut short and ends too early. But that doesn't mean their music was any less sweet or that they left any less of an impression. — Linda Kage

I don't ever have the pressure of making a hit, because I've never had a hit song, per se. The closest thing to a hit song was 'Shiraz,' and it's not your prototypical hit song, with a catchy hook and all this other stuff. — Action Bronson

Pop music has greater power to change people and to affect people because it's a universal language. You don't have to understand music to understand the power of a pop song. — Paul Epworth

Licensing is how indie rock people make a living these days, so whatever about that. But I want good films and good placement for the songs because I want to be exclusive. I don't want to just sign it away because I don't want songs to lose meaning, but I'm also ... I don't care [that] Wilco sold songs to Volkswagen. That's great. They probably drive Volkswagens. — Justin Vernon

I had a good time that night, too," Michael said, "but I kept thinking, This is forever. This is forever. You will have this good time again and again, a million times over, until it will be like a play in which you and Laura and a few fugitive lives sit around an imaginary fire and talk and sing songs and love each other and sometimes throw imaginary brands at the eyes blinking beyond the circle of imaginary firelight. And then I thought - and this is where I sounded just like a real philosopher - And even when you admit that you know every line in the play and every song that will be sung, even when you know that this evening spent with friends is pleasant and joyful because you remember it as pleasant and joyful and wouldn't change it for the world, even when you know that anything you feel for these good friends has no more reality than a dream faithfully remembered every night for a thousand years - even then it goes on. Even then it has just begun. — Peter S. Beagle

Whenever I've chosen a song because it's clever, it's always turned out to be a mistake. — Alison Krauss

I envy the music lovers hear. I see them walking hand in hand, standing close to each other in a queue at a theater or subway station, heads touching while they sit on a park bench, and I ache to hear the song that plays between them: The stirring chords of romance's first bloom, the stately airs that whisper between a couple long in love. You can see it in the way they look at each other ... you can almost hear it. Almost, but not quite, because the music belongs to them and all you can have of it is a vague echo that rises up from the bittersweet murmur and shuffle of your own memories. — Charles De Lint

Without an audience, all your dreams will not come true at all, because you need an audience to write new songs and continue to do music. — Rokia Traore

JAMIE'S SONG 'HEAVEN':

You hold me so tight that I can't breathe,
You make me feel light that I can't sleep.
Float from our bed, fly away,
Soaring like angels through the heavens and seas.

I wish that we hadn't taken so long,
To realise this is where we belong.
This is the life, that you and I
Have been dying for.

If heaven is this,
This place in your arms,
I'm not afraid of dying,
I want to die tonight.
If heaven is this,
Your lips when we kiss,
I'm not afraid of dying,
Let them kill me tonight.

And I know I'll go to heaven,
Because I made you smile.
Yes, I know I'll go to heaven,
Because you loved our life.
But if they banish me to hell,
You will pull me out again.
You belong in heaven,
And I belong with you. — Neha Yazmin

Because life is a symphony it must have its C Minor. Days there be when we hear only a discord of sharps and flats, and we wonder whether harmony will ever be restored. On other days we hear only an ominous, deep strain which seems to say that hope is fled. But why this chill despair? Symphonies are a blending of many tones, high and low, over and under, major and minor. One day cannot make a life a whole any more than shadows can make a picture or minor notes a symphony. We need to hear life's song, not as the discord of a single day, but as the completed harmony of all the years. Then will today's sorrow and tomorrow's disappointment ring forth in major key as glorious melody. — W. Waldemar W. Argow

Songs are not better just because they're emotionally honest. To write a song well, you have to put some work into it and grind it out. — Jakob Dylan

In the United States, many people said you can't have folk music in the United States because you don't have any peasant class. But the funny thing was, there were literally thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people who loved old time fiddling, ballads, banjo tunes, blues played on the guitar, spirituals and gospel hymns. These songs and music didn't fit into any neat category of art music nor popular music nor jazz. So gradually they said well let's call it folk music. — Pete Seeger

That folk music led to learning to play, and making things up led to what turns out to be the most lucrative part of the music business - writing, because you get paid every time that song gets played. — Jackson Browne

With any cover, I like to choose songs that affected me strongly already. So it's tough sometimes to take a song that you love so much and put your own spin on it because you get such a strong feeling from the original. — Mayer Hawthorne

I'm remixing an R.E.M. track called 'I've Been High' from their last album, 'Reveal.' It's a beautiful song, but record execs didn't put it out as a single because it didn't sound like the R.E.M. we're used to. So I asked Michael Stipe if I could have the tapes to do a remix, and he agreed. — Lukas Haas

What I like to do with music is make people feel better. Make people realize that all humans have the same problems, more or less. A lot of people deal with the same thing. A lot of times people think problems are specific to them and they if they hear a song about a problem common to them, they feel good because they know that someone else has gone through it. — Jack Johnson

The longer I stay clean, the better my beats are getting and the easier it is to zero in on one idea. Because I really want to, often, try to get an idea across. I can really get to the essence of a song better if I'm clean and I'm not waking up with a hangover. — Larry Tee

I think all of my songs are either based on personal experience or will be based on personal experience, because I do write a lot of songs prophetically. — Jens Lekman

The whole Beatle thing was just beyond comprehension. When 'Help' came out, I was actually crying out for help. Most people think it's just a fast rock 'n roll song. I didn't realize it at the time; I just wrote the song because I was commissioned to write it for the movie. But later, I knew I really was crying out for help. — John Lennon

I thought, there is nowhere else in the universe I would rather be at this moment ... There is nowhere else I could imagine wanting to be besides here in this car, with this girl, on this road, listening to this song. If she breaks my heart, no matter what hell she puts me through, I can say it was worth it, just because of right now. Out the window is a blur and all I can really hear is this girl's hair flapping in the wind, and maybe if we drive fast enough the universe will lose track of us and forget to stick us somewhere else. — Rob Sheffield

Then with Lucy [Hale], her little thing that I kind of learned from her is her country music because she's obsessed with country and at the beginning, I wasn't a huge fan of it, but I was listening to some songs that she plays in the hair and makeup room and she's also so funny, too. She does these character impersonations and they're just so funny. Made up characters of course, but she can switch into someone else so fast. I'm always laughing at Lucy and she's like a little Polly Pocket, you know? The tiny one. — Shay Mitchell

It's not just women in film, 18-year-old girls feel pressure to do preventative injecting. I see someone's face, someone's body who has had children and I think, they're the song lines of your experience, and why would you want to eradicate that? I look at people sort of entombing themselves and all you see is their little pin holes of terror ... and you think, just live your life, death is not going to be any easier just because your face can't move. — Cate Blanchett

Shall I tell you the secret of true love? her father once asked her. A friend of mine liked to tell me that women love flowers. He had many flirtations, but he never found a wife. Do you know why? Because women may love flowers, but only one woman loves the scent of gardenias in late summer that remind her of her grandmother's porch. Only one woman loves apple blossoms in a blue cup. Only one woman loves wild geraniums. That's Mama! Inej had cried. Yes, Mama loves wild geraniums because no other flower has quite the same color, and she claims that when she snaps the stem and puts a sprig behind her ear, the whole world smells like summer. Many boys will bring you flowers. But someday you'll meet a boy who will learn your favorite flower, your favorite song, your favorite sweet. And even if he is too poor to give you any of them, it won't matter because he will have taken the time to know you as no one else does. Only that boy earns your heart. That — Leigh Bardugo

When I was asked to do a song from 'In the Heights' at the White House in 2009, I chose instead to do 'Alexander Hamilton' because I felt like I was meeting a moment. — Lin-Manuel Miranda

Sometimes I'll sing the same verse through the entire song, because the other verses aren't clicking. And when they do come to me, I'm in the middle of that same verse! — Tom Araya

Many boys will bring you flowers. But someday you'll meet a boy who will learn your favorite flower, your favorite song, your favorite sweet. And even if he is too poor to give you any of them, it won't matter because he will have taken the time to know you as no one else does. Only that boy earns your heart. — Leigh Bardugo

I usually write my music on a piano, and I really enjoy performing that way, because that actually shows how the music was in my mind before it actually became an electronic song. — Zedd

One girl, actually, in the UK - it was a really small show in Wales - a girl came up to me and said that because of one of my songs she was still alive. She'd decided not to commit suicide. It was a really emotional moment. — Lights

Even if you can sing or even if you can write a song, it takes a lot of determination, it takes some kind of thick skin, because you got to persevere despite the fact that people tell you you shouldn't do this or you shouldn't do that or you're not good enough or your style's too different. I've heard all of that stuff. — John Legend

Write great songs that sound amazing if sung and played on the piano or acoustic guitar. Always encourage sing-alongs! Be prolific! Say "Yes" to new collaborations because you never know where it could lead. — Wendy Starland

It's a double-headed coin, because technology is a convenience but it's stifled our attention spans. At one time, albums had songs that were like ten minutes long, with different variations and chord progressions and changes. — Cee Lo Green

I was one of those guys, you know, playing and singing, and there was no reason for me to write a song, because there were so many beautiful songs out. And Bob Dylan was always the ultimate songwriter, and nobody could ever write a song as good as him, and nobody ever has written a song as good as him. — John Mellencamp

What about a teakettle? What if the spout opened and closed when the steam came out, so it would become a mouth, and it could whistle pretty melodies, or do Shakespeare, or just crack up with me? I could invent a teakettle that reads in Dad's voice, so I could fall asleep, or maybe a set of kettles that sings the chorus of "Yellow Submarine," which is a song by the Beatles, who I love, because entomology is one of my raisons d'etre, which is a French expression that I know. — Jonathan Safran Foer

It's about that applause I want to speak to you. I want you to remember that when you've done a little dance or a song or sketch, the applause which you get is not only because you yourself have done your best, but because each of those men is seeing in you someone he loves at home, and because of you is able to forget for a little while the unhappiness of not being in his home, and in some cases the great tragedy of not knowing what has happened to the children in his family. — Noel Streatfeild

The nice thing about doing a pop opera - in the way that doing, say, 'Miss Saigon' or 'Les Miz' would be - is that, because the convention is set from the beginning that this is an opera and everything is sung, there is never that feeling of 'Why is this person bursting out into song?' because the whole thing is sung. — Lea Salonga

I wrote a song called 'Green Day' because I was smoking a lot of dope. — Billie Joe Armstrong

I must say the more interesting songs to me were the black ones because they were more simple. — John Lennon

The world is a song, but we do not know whether it is a good song because we have nothing to compare it with. — Halldor Laxness

A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song. — Maya Angelou

When I wrote this song I felt pretty unoriginal because everybody writes love songs, and everybody feels like their love is the most important and when their love ends and they get their heart broken, that nobody understands. And ... that's ridiculous, but so am I. — Tegan Quin

At first, I thought the ring might be a fake, a lie. But it was real to me. When I was always waiting for you, while my heart was breaking, and as I was happy, the ring became real to me because of you. — Ji-Eun Song

As a songwriter, I try not to be sloppy; same with the music. You can be very lean, very efficient, so you're not wasting a lot of time getting' to the point. You're saying it with as pure a word or phrase as you can. That's the part that was craft. You refine and refine and refine. Maybe that's why the songs still hang on, because they're very pure. For one thing, they're very short. "Bad Moon Rising" is like 2 minutes and 12 seconds. I would try to do everything as quickly and with as little extra as possible. It was a challenge. — John Fogerty

I realise I'll have to acquire the ability to speak to my audience in between numbers. I've never had to do that. On the street I only focus on the keyboard settings for my next song, which takes a bit of time and a lot of concentration. So I'll have to develop that new skill, which gives me pause, because I'm afraid I'll say something stupid and disillusion people when they realise I'm an ordinary earthling - in fact, as ordinary as anyone else on this planet. — Susan Schneider

It's about a love song to myself, and a love song to the universe, kind of like the way that Song of Solomon consists of love songs to God or like the way Sufi poems are erotic love songs to God, I kind of wanted something like that. Because I was getting to know myself more deeply at this point. I've always been on this track where I wanted to be enlightened. — Larkin Grimm

Melody is the single most important thing to any song, period. I don't care what anybody says, it trumps everything. Not because that's my opinion but because I think it's actually indisputable fact. The human brain retains melody easier than it retains words. It's that simple. — Ryan Tedder

Hairspray is the only movie I made that's subversive, because they're doing it in every high school in America. A man's playing a woman, and two men sing a love song to each other. — John Waters

I'm blessed, because I enjoy every part of my life. I enjoy writing songs. I've been trying to write songs since I was five years old. — Smokey Robinson

I hate how all the hip hop bands of today will put crazy sound effects into their songs. You know what I mean, like a police or ambulance siren in a tune? Because I could own the CD, I could listen to it 50 gamillion times in my car - I still fall for it every time. — Doug Benson

When you write songs, you have to like them yourself first, but then you have to make everyone else like them, because you can force them to play it, but you can't force them to like it. — Mick Jagger

Rabindranath Tagore writes that the song he wanted to sing has never happened because he spent his days "stringing and unstringing" his instrument. Whenever I read these lines a certain sadness enters my soul. I get so preoccupied with the details and pressure of my schedule, with the hurry and worry of life, that I miss the song of goodness which is waiting to be sung through me. — Joyce Rupp

I didn't make the same song twice, but I definitely made the sequel to it, because everyone would come up to me in the streets saying, Yo Khaled, make another 'I'm So Hood.' We love that record so much. — DJ Khaled

A good song stays in your head because it's catchy, a great song stays because it means something to you. — Tove Lo

The songs that I've written about Africa, and AIDS and HIV and about the power of humanitarian love, those songs, I'm gonna sing them because I know that it's real. — India.Arie

See, the thing is I didn't think that that song would get much attention because it's such a personal song to me. I just wrote it about my childhood, and I didn't know how that would read on an album. But it's been everybody's favorite song. I didn't tell my mom. It was a total secret. So I wrote it in secret and then decided to record it secretly, so she had no idea that the song was recorded. My producers sent me the track and I synched it up to all my baby videos and I played it for her one Christmas Eve, and she bawled her eyes out. She didn't even think that it was my song. She didn't think there was any way for me to record a song without her knowing. — Taylor Swift

My parents called me the WB frog. Because when I was onstage, I would do this whole song and dance, but if my parents had a family friend over, I would just go hide in the bedroom. — Brie Larson

When I'm writing obviously I have all the nostalgia in the world, I have all the emotion in the world, but then when I actually perform, I need to just perform it, and that's it. I do retain like a little bit of it because I have to, I sing and perform the songs so I have to - it's a performance of the songs - but I just have to get the right balance. — Ellie Goulding

Well, this is shortly after the idea was put to me because it wasn't my idea to do a Christmas record. We can talk about that a little bit, if you like, later on. But I wrote that song actually about two days after the idea was put to me. — Nick Lowe

Self-consciousness is a stoppage because it is like interrupting a song after every note so as to listen to the echo, and then feeling irritated because of the loss of rhythm. — Alan W. Watts

The only reason to write a new song is because you're tired of the old ones. — Miles Davis

Just because you've written a song doesn't mean that you have pulled through. There are definitely songs where I embodied someone else's pain and that was purely to serve the listener because I knew they needed to hear something. But most of the good stuff comes from my life. — Mat Kearney

I'm really interested in starting to write my own songs. I never really did, but hopefully I will because I'm so interested in writing my own songs. — Danielle Bradbery

I'm not afraid to go out on a limb, style-wise or with lyrics. I don't ever want to be afraid to cut those types of songs because radio might not play it. — Lee Ann Womack

I say, as a singer grows older, his conception grows a little deeper, because he lives life and he understands what he is trying to say a little more. And I think this gives. If a singer tries to find out what's happening in life, it gives him a better insight on telling the story of the song he is trying to sing. — Sam Cooke

When I start working on a batch of tunes - like roughly 10 solid tunes - I always know there'll be another 10 to follow, because for every song I invest a lot of time in, there's another song waiting behind it. — Ryan Adams

I'd say the key thing is to remain true to what originally got you into music. When I wrote 'Hallelujah,' it ignited me to do music because of the love and joy that I got from writing that song. Down the road, you get all of these opinions from people; just remember what got you started in the first place. — Gin Wigmore

I just never really thought of not being involved, because when I write the songs I take them to a certain place and by that point I kinda know what I want them to sound like. — Tom Odell

I'm not able to tell you what the best song is yet, because there's more to come. I feel that in me. I can still feel the burning energy and the desire to create and create and create. — John Lydon