Songs Lyrics Quotes & Sayings

If you listen to most of my songs, the lyrics are pretty kind of dark, but I like to put it behind happy music because then it evens it out ... I'm really happy, actually. Obviously I have my bad moments, but I always challenge myself to not put negativity out there because there's already enough. — Shamir

My task is set before me, girl
My mission clear and true
There'll be black knights and dragons, girl
But I will always come for you ... — Emme Rollins

I've always been a fan of country music. It's America's music - I love the songs, love the lyrics. — Charles Koppelman

We're going to sing about things that matter to us. The balancing act is to present these ideas but also make the music exciting and sort of fun enough that even if you're not paying attention to the lyrics, you might still like the songs anyway. That's the idea. — Conor Oberst

A lot of Woody Guthrie's songs were taken from other songs. He would rework the melody and lyrics, and all of a sudden it was a Woody Guthrie song. — John Mellencamp

I've always written poetry and lyrics. My first husband, who was a musician, we wrote a bunch of songs together. — P. J. Soles

I like songs that have like a little bit of quirkiness to them. What I like to do with songs, is kind of throw a little curveball in the lyrics or in the arrangement, to kind of give it a little twist to it. — John Legend

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

Instead of singing in the shower, I would write out the lyrics of my favourite songs, the ink would turn the water blue or red or green, and the music would run down my legs. — Jonathan Safran Foer

It's just like an idea, like a chorus, and then we just jam on it - it happens in loads of different ways. The best songs I find always come from the subconscious, like when you don't think. Not to be pretentious about it, but usually songs just blurt out rather than thinking about it. I never write lyrics and then do a song, I find that really hard - that's like a real skill. — Luke Pritchard

I like to write music. And I think exploring with lyrics and figuring out how to make complete songs is fun. I think I have a take on it. I don't know if it's great, but it's an interesting take. It's original. — Stone Gossard

We recorded Star Climbing over a three-year period between our studios, working on songs and lyrics until we felt like we had found the albums direction. It is our most distinctive album to date, combining all our different tastes and styles into one. — Stuart Price

Singing the songs, writing the lyrics, emotioning the words; that is all I can do for love. — M.F. Moonzajer

You obviously don't really forget how to play the old songs; you just don't have to spend so much time convincing yourself that you remember them. Way less mental energy is spent swimming around in lyrics you've already written and chords you've already played. — Jeff Tweedy

'Appetite for Destruction' was the only thing written with lyrics and melody fitting the guitar parts at the same time. After that, I got a barrage of guitar songs that I was supposed to put words to, and I don't know if that was the best thing for Guns. — Axl Rose

Sometimes I need to reject the music proposed for my songs because the musicians misunderstand that the Fanny Crosby who once wrote for the people in the saloons has merely changed the lyrics. Oh my no. The church must never sing it's songs to the melodies of the world. — Fanny Crosby

I don't have any favourite lyrics. Honestly, all of them I love 'em to death - it's the same with songs. I don't have just one favourite lyric, I love them all. — ASAP Rocky

The nights were mainly made for saying things you can't say tomorrow day. — Arctic Monkeys

No matter what I do, my songs come out in a certain style, and if that sounds like Dead Kennedys, then there's probably a reason for it. Don't forget, I wrote most of those songs, music and lyrics. — Jello Biafra

I have a folder that's labeled "The Folder of 24." Inside it are letters from twenty-four people who were actively in the process of planning their suicide, but who stopped and got help - not because of what I wrote on my blog, but because of the amazing response from the community of people who read it and said, "Me too." They were saved by the people who wrote about losing their mother or father or child to suicide and how they'd do anything to go back and convince them not to believe the lies mental illness tells you. They were saved by the people who offered up encouragement and songs and lyrics and poems and talismans and mantras that worked for them and that might work for a stranger in need. There are twenty-four people alive today who are still here because people were brave enough to talk about their struggles, or compassionate enough to convince others of their worth, or who simply said, "I don't understand your illness, but I know that the world is better with you in it. — Jenny Lawson

When I was younger, I was terrified to express anger because it would often kick-start a horrible reaction in the men in my life. So I bit my tongue. I was left to painstakingly deal with the aftermath of my avoidance later in life, in therapy or through the lyrics of my songs. — Alanis Morissette

I write all my own songs and they are just simple melodies with a lot of lyrics. They usually have to do with current events and what is going on in the news. You can call them topical songs, songs about the news, and then developing into more philosophical songs later. — Phil Ochs

A song is a song. But there are some songs, ah, some songs are the greatest. The Beatles song 'Yesterday.' Listen to the lyrics. — Chuck Berry

I used to listen to music from the frosting down. As a word nerd, lyrics are really important to me, and then the melody. Playing in the Rock*A*Teens was the first time I ever heard music from the bottom up. I was hearing songs I'd heard a million times on oldies radio, and I'd be like, "Wow, listen to what the bass is doing!" When I was first singing in bands, I'd just get out there with my machete, wildly whacking away at the foliage. But you learn how to listen. When I feel I'm doing it right, it's 90% listening and 10% output. It's not "look what I can do!" — Kelly Hogan

Why can't music be magic? Aren't spells just words you repeat? And what are songs? Lyrics that play over and over again. The words are like a formula." All — Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The words we construct, the poems we write and the songs we sing, become the love story of a stranger we have never seen. — M.F. Moonzajer

The music and lyrics of Rodgers & Hammerstein connect seamlessly. Singing those beautiful songs was a joyous experience for me, and one that I will never forget. — Julie Andrews

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 don't know about the time those songs were written. But he was jamming with someone in Colorado or San Francisco, and I'm sure he was working on the lyrics right up to the show because they were really relevant for the situation. — Krist Novoselic

If I knew what to do
I'd do more than write a song for you — Criss Jami

I feel like I want to write some songs and I don't know how to go about doing it. Usually it's the lyrics that are a problem, and I think I am not really cut out to be a lyricist. — Mike Gordon

I started writing lyrics out of desperation. I was broke and wondering where my next job, my next meal was coming from, although I had had several successful revue songs on Broadway. — Sheldon Harnick

Whenever I sing 'Total Eclipse of the Heart,' the way people sing along with me still excites me. It's one of the songs that audiences know all the lyrics to, and they sing along with me, and it makes me so happy. People also know my songs 'Holding out for a Hero' and 'Lost in France,' and this gives me so much joy on stage. — Bonnie Tyler

Some of the fanmail is interesting! Some of it's the lyrics to the songs and stuff, and they'll like, send me their favourite lines, which is cool to ... know what people are liking. Most of them are really cool to read. — Miley Cyrus

I don't let nobody see me wishin' he was mine — Taylor Swift

My earliest attempts at writing were when I was seven. I would sit at the piano and transcribe the songs I heard on the radio. I'd change little things in the music and write different lyrics. — Esperanza Spalding

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

Opportunities may come along for you to convert something -something that exists into something that didn't yet. That might be the beginning of it. Sometimes you just want to do things your way, want to see for yourself what lies behind the misty curtain. It's not like you see songs approaching and invite them in. It's not that easy. You want to write songs that are bigger than life. You want to say something about strange things that have happened to you, strange things you have seen. You have to know and understand something and then go past the vernacular. — Bob Dylan

I think there is a song out there to describe just about any situation. — Criss Jami

I never edit the songs that come out. And they tend to come out as a whole. The closest thing I have ever done to editing them is just cutting out a verse, but never rewriting lyrics. — Laura Marling

So you write to our congressmen
With bleeding pens
Of the sorrow within
And in return they just send
Tickets to the latest Tom Hanks show — Jewel

This was where she belonged with Nur, right here, here in his songs. Here within the lyrics they were intimate, caught in the rythm of his words, proppelled by the substance of his dreams.
These songs would be their story and these lyrics their home. — Leila Aboulela

The visual side of being a performer or in a band is, to me, as important as the music. I know not everyone shares that same opinion, but when I'm writing songs or working on lyrics or coming up with an idea, I think about videos as I'm in the studio. If I had all the money in the world, I would have the most amazing videos ever, you know? You're saying grandiose, and big; if the song warrants it, I try to push the visuals as far as I can. — Tamaryn

Feeling my way through the darkness
Guided by a beating heart
I can't tell where the journey will end
But I know where to start

They tell me I'm too young to understand
They say I'm caught up in a dream
Well life will pass me by if I don't open up my eyes
Well that's fine by me — Avicii

In most of my films I write the music into the script. I'm listening to songs and lyrics that empower the themes of the film. There's a lot of Indigenous music that has not been heard widely and I love the idea of giving that music to the rest of the world. — Warwick Thornton

It's difficult for me to describe my own music; every song is an experience that I set to music. There's no lyrics, no singer, just instruments, but I'm sure you can feel what the song is talking about just by listen to it. I can't describe a feeling, my songs are feelings. — Marilou

My songs are all about celebrating poignant music. While some of them focus on fun and revelry, they are fortunately backed by powerful lyrics. Put together, the lyrics, tune and my voice strive to take the songs to the next level. — Kailash Kher

I write most of my own lyrics for my album and I am helping to produce some of the songs as well. — Lindsay Lohan

If they substituted the word 'Lust' for 'Love' in the popular songs it would come nearer the truth. — Sylvia Plath

I started writing my own songs from the time I was a little kid. I would write my own lyrics to other people's songs that I heard on the radio and take whatever song and make it about fairies and angels - whatever little girls sing about. — Bonnie McKee

Most Radiohead songs are actually REM songs, I just have a mentally ill child read the lyrics aloud and then I change the melodies a bit. — Thom Yorke

Can't fight the moment of truth in your lies. — Goo Goo Dolls

I love the sad songs with their maudlin, self-deprecating, almost funny lyrics. As an Englishman, they make a lot of sense. — Teddy Thompson

There are beautiful sounds in rock. Very lazy, dreamlike noises. You can forget about the lyrics in most songs. Just dig the noise, and you've got your sound ... We're musical primitives. — Andy Warhol

Mimesis has longevity on its side. But Oasis wrote two of the greatest pop songs of all time, each with lyrics that mean less and less the more you think about them. So I'm going to have to go with the Gallagher brothers. — Matthew Zapruder

I used to know all the lyrics to all the songs from 'The Phantom of the Opera.' — Mallory Jansen

I am a big fan of the Gallagher brothers. At Liverpool, they came a few times; they are friends of Steven Gerrard. It was nice to meet them. When I was in Spain, I couldn't speak English, so I couldn't understand the lyrics. When I came to England, I started studying music and trying to understand what my favourite songs said. — Fernando Torres

Probably some of the songs I never even really listened to the lyrics. Half of them I'd hear off the radio and was probably singing the wrong words and didn't even know it. — Alan Jackson

But I always loved songs with great lyrics. — Johnny Rivers

I never thought that you would be the one to hold my heart — Christina Perri

The songwriting style, to me, is superior ... there was a certain amount of joy in it, no matter how sad the song is. You get joy in listening to these Buddy Holly or Roy Orbison sad lyrics. I'm attracted to songs that have balance between the darks and the lights and giving them all equal opportunity. — M. Ward

Yeah. My singing and my songs were very influenced by all of that. People would come up to me and ask, Is that a Billie Holiday song? I'd say, No, it's my song. The lyrics would be in my style, but the songs would be very jazzy. — Regina Spektor

I have way too many songs that have music but don't have lyrics. — Jonny Lang

The Smiths hasn't been equaled. That goes for the composition of the songs, the lyrics, and the performance. — Jeff Buckley

I have a voice that's obviously untrained - and I think untrainable - so I kind of secreted it away for a long time. Actually, I would write songs with lyrics when I was younger, but I would just sing in my head. — Joanna Newsom

There's a certain power in vague language, but I started to get more into the idea of really trying to have a discrete thought in the lyrics and to have songs that were about stuff - to try to make things more coherent. — David Longstreth

I only know the lyrics to songs that I listened to between the ages of 11 and 15. — Elizabeth Banks

I didn't really want to write just lyrics, but I wanted to meet Leonard Bernstein. Music was always the first reason I was writing songs. — Stephen Sondheim

I love 'Sunday in the Park with George.' I saw that when I was just, just starting theater school, and I remember singing 'Finishing the Hat' or at least reading the lyrics to 'Finishing the Hat' and other songs from 'Sunday in the Park with George' to my mom to try to explain why I wanted to be an artist. — Stephen Colbert

Composers now just don't have the depth of inspiration for melody. Most of the lyrics of the pop songs you hear today are repetitious. They're almost nursery rhymes, as if written by children - which they are. — Rudy Vallee

Everyone's got crazy fans! But honestly, the crazy fans are where it's at, because they know all the lyrics to the songs that you're singing, and they're dancing and having a great time. You can really enjoy performing for them, even more than you can enjoy performing for someone that's not crazy. — Ross Lynch

There's lots of bands where somebody will write lyrics and somebody else will sing them. It works for a lot of people, but that feels weird to me. I don't mean this in a bad way at all but it just feels fake.. I guess in my heart of hearts, whether the person has a good voice or not I want [the songs] to come from them. I don't know why. — Frank Iero

Most of the time, the lyrics are kind of like my secret messages to my friends or my boyfriend or my mom or my dad. I would never tell them that these songs are about them or which specific lyric is about somebody. Often, when I sit down to write a lyric, it is in the heat of the moment, and something has just happened. — Imogen Heap

I'm terrible remembering lyrics. Before a tour, I have to remind myself. I have to go through the songs. — Ian McLagan

The quality of the writing, really. Simple as that. Beautiful words. It's very nice as a singer to do great songs, which have wonderful lyrics and strong feelings underneath the song. — Bryan Ferry

Been a long road to follow
Been there and one tomorrow
Without saying goodbye to yesterday
Are the memories I hold
Still valid?
Or have the tears deluded them..
Something somewhere out there
Is calling ...
Zero Gravity,
What's it like?
Is somebody there
Beyond these heavy aching feet?
Am I going home?
Will I hear someone?
Singin solace to the silent moon
Still the road keeps on telling me
To go on ...
Something is pulling me,
I feel the gravity
Of it all. — Maaya Sakamoto

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

There's a whole bunch of unfinished stuff. Then I've got books of lyrics. I find it frustrating to finish a song and not be able to record it ... so I don't write a million songs. — Christine McVie

There is a great temptation with songs, melodies and lyrics to overcomplicate them but in fact, you find that the most enduring melodies are often the simplest. — Ken Hensley

Although I have guitars all around and I pick themm up occasionally and write a tune and make a record, I don't really see myself as a musician. It may seem a funny thing to say. It's just like, I write lyrics amd I make up songs, but I'm not a great lyricist or songwriter or producer. It's when you put all these things together - that makes me. — George Harrison

Two people, two hands, and two songs, in this case "Big Shot" and "Bette Davis Eyes." The lyrics of the two songs provided no commentary, honest or ironic, on the proceedings. They were merely there and always underfoot, the insistent gray muck that was pop culture. It stuck to our shoes and we tracked it through our lives. — Colson Whitehead

The only thing that made the music different was that we were taking lyrics to places they had never been before. The thing that makes art interesting is when an artist has incredible pain or incredible rage. The New York bands were much more into their pain, while the English bands were much more into their rage. The Sex Pistols' songs were written out of anger, wheras Johnny was writing songs because he was brokenhearted over Sable... — Legs McNeil

You float like a feather," sings Radiohead, "In a beautiful world." I've listened several times to the Radiohead songs, because it was nice of Raymond to say he heard a bit of them in what I sang. I'm not sure I hear it myself, but I am pleased and touched. Sometimes that's what you need, just a quick casual word of knowledgeable encouragement. Radiohead reminds me a little of the songs in Garden State soundtrack. Now, that's a soundtrack. They were all songs that Zach Braff liked, so he put them in his movie. And there's that beautiful moment near the beginning where Natalie Portman hands him the headphones and she watches him listen to the song and she smiles her huge, innocent Natalie Portman smile. — Nicholson Baker

When she awoke there was a melody in her head she could not identify or recall ever hearing before. 'Perhaps I made it up,' she thought. Then it came to her - the name of the song and all its lyrics just as she had heard it many times before. She sat on the edge of the bed thinking, 'There aren't any more new songs and I have sung all the ones there are. I have sung them all. I have sung all the songs there are. — Toni Morrison

It's more like you write what comes to you ... You try to reflect the mood of the songs. Take 'Rearviewmirror', we start off with the music and it kinds of propels the lyrics. It made me feel like I was in a car, leaving something, a bad situation. There's an emotion there. I remembered all the times I wanted to leave ... — Eddie Vedder

While you're singing something romantic, I can't get the lyrics to 'Love and Marriage' out of my head, and that tune always reminds me of the jingle from Jeopardy. — E.A. Bucchianeri

I get tips from Bob Gaudio. And one of my songs somehow caught the attention of one of my idols, Marty Panzer, who wrote big hits for Barry Manilow. So two guys who inspired me to write lyrics are now teaching me to write. — Erich Bergen

I basically try not to waste any lines in any of my songs, and I think the witty phrases and funny lyrics I have bring a smarter sound to college hip-hop. — Mike Stud

It's true - there are only, like, two songs about rainbows, including that one. He should be asking why there are so few songs about rainbows. — Cheryl Cory

I write for myself; I'm trying to keep myself interested in the music. But at the same time, I want to make the songs relatable in a way; I want to keep melodies pretty simple and the lyrics open-ended so that people could maybe relate them to their own life in different ways. Something for everybody to have a piece of. — Mac DeMarco

We should get jerseys, cause we make a good team; but yours would look better than mine, cause you're outta my league. — Relient K

When you listen to the music in this film [Despicable Me], it's working on the level of melody, but the other key element is lyrics. There are a number of songs in the film where the lyrics themselves are very much speaking to the essence of what Ted Geisel was setting out to do. — Christopher Meledandri

My parents have always had a great sense of humor. And I really appreciate good humor in songs, witty lyrics that sneak up on you and then you listen again, and say: 'That's so funny.' John Prine's songs have always had this really witty tone. — Kacey Musgraves

To all companies please stop using Xmas songs and inserting your own lyrics. Write your own music. I am boycotting you until you stop. — Bill Engvall

I made myself famous by writing 'songs' and lyrics about the beauty of the things I did and ugliness, too. — Jack Kerouac

Unfortunately, we are living in an era where plenty of songs with vulgar, objectionable lyrics are also becoming popular. It's a disturbing trend, and I feel really sad when I see small kids dancing to such numbers in television shows. In my career so far, I have refused any song whose lyrics I haven't been comfortable with. — Shreya Ghoshal

Way back in the day, when I first started and had delusions of adequacy as a cartoonist, I would listen to music. When I switched to a career as a writer, I would try to listen to music, but if the songs had lyrics they would get in the way of the words I was trying to write. So I switched to listening to purely instrumental pieces. — Alan Moore

I love lyrics. I've always been averse to the straight lyric idea. I guess a big part of it is, that songs that are literary always turn me off. Because they feel so abstract. Like a song. What is a song? We have to remember what the function of a concert and the function of playing a song for people are. It's all become really abstracted. — Ian Svenonius

Lose your dream, you lose your mind. — Rolling Stones

I want to write songs with complete sentences. I almos have this obsession with short-changing words. I would never be so pretentious to say that my lyrics are poetry ... Poems are poems. Song lyrics are for songs. — Ben Gibbard