Great Song Lyrics Quotes

“We human beings are tuned such that we crave great melody and great lyrics. And if somebody writes a great song, it's timeless that we as humans are going to feel something for that and there's going to be a real appreciation.”

— Art Garfunkel

“We worked very hard to make the lyrics suit the music. I can't, like Elton John, for example, compose by lyrics. Elton has a great talent for that. Whatever you give him, including your questions, he composes in half an hour and makes a great song out of it.”

— Rick Wright

“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

“I dabbled a little bit in the whole music thing but I've always thought about Bernie Taupin, who is Elton John's lyricist; Elton John is the great melody and song writer but Bernie Taupin is the one who writes all the lyrics. I don't write lyrics, and I never wanted to be in the music business if I was just going to be a puppet in it.”

— Carmen Ejogo

“Chelsea Morning is a great Joni Mitchell song and I guess I'm partial to her lyrics because they show me a slightly different perspective on life.”

— Neil Diamond

“Lyrics are important, but it's hard, because English isn't my first language - although it feels like it is these days! I grew up with amazing melodies, so getting that right on a song has always been the key thing for me, but there's no reason why a great melody doesn't deserve great lyrics.”

— Avicii

“A good song has to have a great melody, and the lyrics have to touch my heart. Now, if it's just a little toe-tapper, got to make me feel good somehow or another, or when I sing it I can't make you feel good.”

— Reba McEntire

“Words are important to me, but a song can work and function and be a good song with words that are fairly standard. But really great lyrics can't rescue a dog of a song.”

— Jarvis Cocker

“When I'm writing songs, I write visually. When I'm writing the words down and I listen to the melody and the lyrics, I start seeing the video form. And if I can get through a song and from the beginning to the end have the whole video in my mind, I think that's a great song.”

— Christian Kane

“I would say a great song [is where] you like everything in the song. The lyrics move you, the beat makes you want to dance and you feel invincible when you listen to that song. A good song I think you can listen to but you get tired of it really fast.”

— Aino Jawo

“Lennon's was one of the first voices I emulated when I began to sing. When we held tryouts in my pal's dad's living room for the singer in our band, I sang a Beatles song that Lennon sang. There is something about the timbre of his voice, something that it conveys, that still gets to me. The quality and the poetry of his lyrics. The wry sense of humor. And the boyishness, in the beginning. There are a great many things that touch me about him ... Lennon was, to put it in his own words, a 'working-class hero.'”

— Don Henley

“A great song for me is when I hear it and it's contagious. The lyrics and the melody, if grows on you once and you want to hear it over and over again.”

— Easton Corbin

“I'm a songwriter. So I'm OK. But when I wrote "Stand By Me" as a song and to know that the song will probably be here for hundred and hundreds of years to come, it's great, you know. And it was just simple lyrics.”

— Ben E. King

“A good song is a nice set of chords and some good lyrics; a great song is a song that reinvents itself over time. That you can always find something interesting in the more you listen to it - it keeps revealing something to you.”

— Bryce Dessner

“I think that a great song needs the full package. I think that a great song needs everything from lyrics, to melody, to music, and it needs to be interesting and it needs take you in and swallow you and swish you around, and then regurgitate you back in better form.”

— William Beckett

“Looking at the original lyrics [of "A Song For You" ] as I was preparing it, I thought, "Wow! I feel like it was written for me." That's what a great song does. You don't have to do a lot of homework. You can just say the words and it springs to life.”

— Cheyenne Jackson

“Music is also one of the great heart openers. Sometimes, you hear the lyrics of a song and you dance, laugh, smile, or perhaps even cry.”

— Michael Franti

“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

“Walt Disney was a great believer in the use of song to convey story. He was primarily a storyman & story-driven songs were his 'pets.' He always asked what was going on with the song - he hated 'singing heads.' He loved learning about character & motivation thru music & lyrics.”

— Richard Sherman