Great Songwriters Quotes & Sayings

I'm always looking for great songs, and not being much of a songwriter, I depend on great songwriters to send them to me. I go through tons of stuff, and sometimes you just find material that kind of fits and becomes something special. — George Strait

I keep reading about people who want to be famous - it's not that they want to be great songwriters or great actors, they want to be celebrities. That is scary because you can be famous doing some really stupid things. — Barry Manilow

No matter how many people try, no matter how many fancy songwriters in Los Angeles try to break it down to a formula ... to an extent, there isn't a science to writing great songs, I suppose. — Lauren Mayberry

Nashville is one of the greatest places for the best songwriters in the world. It's been fantastic to live there and to raise our family there. It's a great town. — Faith Hill

Bruce is still my friend. We don't talk much. We don't have to. He is great and in his own league. I'm not him and he is not me. But we are on similar paths, writing and singing out own kind of songs around the world, along with Bob and a few other singer/songwriters. It is a a silent fraternity of sorts, occupying this space in people's souls with our music. Last year, I lost my right-hand man, the pedal steel guitarist Ben Keith. This year Bruce lost his right-hand man, the saxophonist Clarence Clemons. It's time for another talk; friends can help each other just by being there. Now both of us will look to our right and see a giant hole, a memory, the past and the future. I won't play with another steel player trying to recreate Ben's parts, and I know Bruce won't play with another sax man trying to play Clarence's. Those parts are not going to happen again. They already did. That takes a lot out of our repertoires. — Neil Young

I like this town, it's really great. They've put me in The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. This town is about music. It's about the kind of music I like. — Otis Blackwell

I grew up with singers. My father's mother sang opera. My dad was a big band singer. I can't remember a time there wasn't music in the house, so I grew up listening to great songwriters - George Gershwin, Cole Porter - and my grandma was playing opera for me before I was 3. — J. D. Souther

Maia Sharp is one of America's great singer-songwriters. Her storytelling runs profound and
deep while honoring a pop tradition that urges you to sing along and feel good. Maia sings with
an angelic voice that's shrouded in stark realism and a healthy dose of cynicism ... it's an exotic
cocktail! — Don Was

I think our storytellers - our songwriters should be great storytellers, and they should be mountain climbers and explorers, because music is something that can cross all different borders. — Jason Mraz

There are so many great songwriters that I love and respect, it's an honor to get the opportunity to sing any of their songs. — Sonny Burgess

You know, there's still a lot of great songwriters out there who hand in songs. And there's a lot of brilliant singers and performers out there who sing other people's words. I enjoy doing both. — Jason Mraz

Anyone who knows the history of the Pete Best Band or the Combo, we were on the verge of breaking in in America. In the mid-'60s, I had great songwriters; we wrote some great stuff. — Pete Best

The interesting thing is that, well, here's what I think about songwriters and songs. Sometimes people sit down and say, "I gotta write a song today, I have a title" and all of that, and sometimes inspiration just happens, almost like "Sugar, Sugar" and a couple of the other songs. But basically, I just started playing the piano, and I'm not a great piano player. — Andy Kim

The music industry is not what it used to be. Being in a good band is great, and I've been lucky to be in great bands. I've done solo stuff, and that's been great. I also produce rock bands and I do co-writes, where I write with different singers in bands and songwriters. — James Iha

There are people who are great technical players like Eric Clapton, and there are people who are great intuitive songwriters like Daniel Johnston. There are sometimes people who are great at both the technique and the creativity, the two sides of the coin, maybe Jimi Hendrix. — Jeffrey Lewis

Randy Newman and I grew up together in Los Angeles. We are both products of the film studio era. Randy is one of the great songwriters of our time and one of the fun people to be with. — Leonard Slatkin

Poets and songwriters speak highly of spring as one of the great joys of life in the temperate zone, but in the real world most of spring is disappointing. We looked forward to it too long, and the spring we had in mind in February was warmer and dryer than the actual spring when it finally arrives. We'd expected it to be a whole season, like winter, instead of a handful of separate moments and single afternoons. — Barbara Holland

I think people who are artists, actors, singers, great songwriters, they tend to have a hyper state of emotion where they feel things very, very deeply, probably more deeply than the average person walking down the street where it may affect them, but not to the same extent. — Willie Aames

I know great songwriters. Fred Neil would come up when he was in L.A., we all used to hang out. He would sit there and sing, and we would just melt. I mean, we would go to his recording sessions. — Barry McGuire

I can only say thank you and thanks also to all of the great songwriters who wrote those wonderful songs that became number ones. — George Strait

Having listened to great songwriters like James Taylor and Carole King, I felt there was nothing new that was coming out that really represented me and the way I felt. So I started writing my own stuff. — Amy Winehouse

I do remember actually learning chords to Beatles songs. I thought they were great songwriters. — Mick Taylor

I'm wearing out this new Coal Men record. I think it's masterful start-to-finish. Dave Coleman is one of Americana music's great songwriters, and I hope this record gets the attention it deserves. — Todd Snider

A lot of the great songwriters in history have been collaborators, with a separate lyricist. — Mike Gordon

My mother had a great vinyl collection, and she was constantly playing female singer-songwriters. I first learned about classic song structures by listening to them, and Laura Nyro particularly stood out. Her voice was outside what you'd usually hear on the radio; that really appealed to me. — Jenny Lewis

I've just always been around great songwriters. To me, they were the standard. — Leon Bridges

I will always really work hard to write as much as I can, but I also love sitting back and waiting on those big Nashville songwriters to send me some great songs, too. — Luke Bryan

She did get put through the system with a lot of the hit songwriters, who were great songwriters, but it was more like 'This is how it's done here. It turned her off - not specific people, but the whole system turned her off. And she wanted to do something, I think, that she could play for her friends in Texas and they would say, Okay, well you're still Miranda. — Frank Liddell

The '60s was a magical time in the music business. So much creativity and talent. I think a lot of it came from the fact that we had grown up before rock n' roll. We listened to all the great songwriters and big bands, songs with great lyrics and melodies. I think that really influenced everybody. — Frankie Valli

They're great instrumentalists, singers and songwriters and they have this unique way of blending contemporary with traditional. The result is this beautiful mix of timeless music. — Cindy Cashdollar

It's amazing how a truly great songwriter can touch anyone in the world with their words. — Christina Aguilera

In the beginning I had a lot of self-imposed limitations as far as production and instrumentation. It was really inspiring for us at the time, because those limitations allowed us to push ourselves as songwriters and gave us a strong sound that people could recognize as ours, like wearing a leather jacket every day. A uniform. They know it's you - and that's great - but my original intention wasn't to be a shoegaze band or to be derivative of one sound. — Tamaryn

We teach young kids from 8 to 14 or 15 about their musical heritage through great songs written by American songwriters. We don't do too many modern composers, although we include songs from Billy Joel and other writers like him. — Margaret Whiting

Like I say, I'm always writing and if something sticks, it sticks. I get to write with great songwriters in town. Lori McKenna is one of my all-time favorite singer-songwriters who's ever walked the planet. I get to write with her. The Warren Brothers are friends of mine and I write with them all the time. Lance Miller is a great songwriter. Tom Douglas - you can't get any better than that. I write a lot of stuff but it's got to stick. — Tim McGraw

It's funny, I think after you are a star like Sting and you no longer think you need any guidance or aid - it would be great to see those stars work with other songwriters. — Meshell Ndegeocello