Songs With Quotes

“But the real and actual 'riggedness' of the Eurovision lies in the vision it presents to us as to what 'Culture' is supposed to be: a monotone, cheap, cloned industrialized song with some glamour attached. The formula is always the same: 24 cloned songs, like computer automated, and 2 'crazy' ones so it seems that all this clonedness is actually supported by creativity. But in this image of 'craziness' there is the same formula: cloned, boring songs with some carnavalesque stuff attached. The factual dynamics of the event are in fact fascist: its almost purely Riefenstahl, but the Chinese mass production version of it. It shows us one thing and one thing only: Countries are an illusion, they are all the same. There are no countries.”

— Martijn Benders

“Being a full-time feminist means that every day I make a choice to make equality a part of my life, mind, and behavior. I set out purposefully to support women, to create a dialogue with men, and to interject when I see ignorance and misunderstanding. For me this has meant that in my work I often choose to share my financial gains with women (although I do also employ men regularly, to film my music videos or produce my songs with my band Girlboy), and when I see a woman working, or reaching for her ambitions, I like to show my support. In my romantic relationships with men, this has meant when there is misunderstanding, I take the time to think about why that could be, and to discuss whatever problems we face. Thinking about the influence of the gender concept on our behavior and decisions is now ingrained in my subconscious.”

— Abigail Tarttelin

“And the thing about me is, I have a lot of mellow songs, because they're the easiest for me to write. I wanted to try to make some more upbeat songs, so, I ended up gravitating toward writing songs with friends, which was a great learning process, and also we came up with great songs. Those are the songs that came out the most naturally.”

— Priscilla Ahn

“I've been saying for almost 20 years that I need to do a jazz project and it ought to be either big band or I should do some jazz songs with a trio or quartet.”

— Al Jarreau

“Irony is the recourse of the weak-minded wimp, I think. I hate bands that deliver their songs with knowing smiles on their faces, so that if those songs fall flat they can say 'Ah well, we never really meant it anyway.' It's so dishonest.”

— Robert Smith

“I did a couple songs with this hip-hop guy named Tim Dark. He was working in the same studio I've been working in, he heard my music and he said, aw man, I've got to do something with you.”

— Alan Vega

“I compose my own stuff. I've been writing songs with words. I've been playing more on the keyboard because I can transpose it to sheet music on the computer.”

— Alicia Witt

“But in my imagination this whole thing developed and I started mixing up old folk songs with the Beatles beat and taking them down to Greenwich Village and playing them for the people there.”

— Roger McGuinn

“I wanted to have more songs with religious backgrounds. The Christmas record has strong, traditional hymns, but it also has a song called 'Christmas in Heaven' about missing someone that you love that's passed on, and wondering what's going on up there on Christmas.”

— Scotty McCreery

“Even though there are some great keyboard players on the album, there are a number of songs with no keyboard on them and the backing is all guitar oriented. This is first time I've ever done this actually.”

— Lee Ritenour

“I'd written songs with lots of people, from one spectrum to the other.”

— Billy Sherwood

“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

“All the time I was writing hit songs with my partner David Porter, I always had the yen to perform. Sure did. And when the opportunity came, I took it. The first album, 'Presenting Isaac Hayes,' didn't do so hot, but it was like a prelude for what was to come.”

— Isaac Hayes

“If you're putting that energy into performance," he said, "you're also getting it back out again, right? You're giving so you can receive." He spread his arms wide. "If you were writing songs with it, you'd be holed up in your room in the middle of the night, scribbling them in a notebook and feeling self-important. You'd think you were getting it out, but really you'd be keeping it inside and quiet. You'd take what upset you and turn it into art, and now it would fester, because you think other people ought to share your outrage at what happened to you.”

— Jennifer Echols

“Dave and I had been song writers in Nashville, trying to get around, out hustling, trying to meet people. We randomly met Hillary out in town one night. She said she was a singer. I asked her if she would like to write some songs with Dave and me, and a week later she came over. Instantaneously we had this chemistry.”

— Charles Kelley

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

— Teddy Thompson

“The movie business is very difficult but the music business is just impossible. So I'll play in bands and record and play songs with other people, but for me it's a form of expression that all I need is me. I don't need cameras or agents, I can just have a piano and sing and feel totally verified.”

— Jeremy Renner

“To me, racism is so played out and corny and stupid, especially in music, where you now have Nelly doing songs with Tim McGraw, on the hit single 'Over and Over.' Anyone who thinks about that just needs to get a life.”

— Clinton Sparks

“I really had a great time working with 'Modest Mouse,' just because of the people. I loved writing songs with Isaac Brock, and Jeremiah Green is probably my favorite musician that I've worked with.”

— Johnny Marr

“When I lived in a little flat in Pimlico in 1981, I'd write in the hallway. As you walked in, there was a tiny little recess type thing, hardly a hallway, really, and I'd sit there writing songs with my guitar.”

— Paul Weller

“But I always loved songs with great lyrics.”

— Johnny Rivers

“I toured with Skrillex, did an HBO commercial with Diplo. In the hip hop movement, I was the first artist Travis Scott ever featured with before he blew up. I had the songs with Chris Brown and Tyga. I've worked with some of the biggest artists in the world.”

— Wynter Gordon

“I think I write very good songs. But I don't know if anybody could record my songs with as much fervor. They sound good sung by me, and they especially sound good with my band.”

— Art Alexakis

“I do write songs with a political dimension to them sometimes, but I'm always slightly appalled by it when I do.”

— Jarvis Cocker

“Physiological confirmation of such "filling in" by involuntary musical imagery has recently been obtained by William Kelley and his colleagues at Dartmouth, who used functional MRI to scan the auditory cortex while their subjects listened to familiar and unfamiliar songs in which short segments had been replaced by gaps of silence. The silent gaps embedded in familiar songs were not consciously noticed by their subjects, but the researchers observed that these gaps "induced greater activation in the auditory association areas than did silent gaps embedded in unknown songs; this was true for gaps in songs with lyrics and without lyrics.”

— Oliver Sacks

“I've always littered my songs with jokes. You might need to dig a little deeper to find the humor, but I would totally object to being some kind of distraught personality. I've never tried to attach myself to that.”

— Cass McCombs

“Just because people play songs with great technique doesn't mean the records are better.”

— Kenny G

“I'll always have songs with a farm connotation on my albums. It's in the fabric of my music, and I plan to keep it that way.”

— Luke Bryan

“I was always into pop music, Destiny's Child, songs with catchy music. Even when I was writing when I was younger, it wasn't all about expressing myself; it was just about making fun music.”

— Eliza Doolittle

“I don't wanna get into that space where a lot of guys now, their solo album is like eight or 10 songs with other people, you don't get an idea of who this guy is. I just wasn't interested in that.”

— Mos Def

“I've written almost 200 songs with Bad Religion. No matter where you look in our history, the focus has been trying to instill some of these disturbing realities about the world, some of the implications of evolution into an artistic format that can be interpreted by people who may never study evolution.”

— Greg Graffin

“A few songs with Him might change the way you sing. Forever.”

— Max Lucado

“The only thing better than one of my songs is one of my songs with a glass of scotch.”

— Jackie Gleason

“To me, there are 3 parts of the album process: writing, recording, and my favorite part: getting to sing the songs with the fans every night.”

— Eric Hutchinson

“It was a great thrill just to know Roy Orbison, so to play, sing, write hit songs with him and have him in The Traveling Wilburys was beyond my wildest dreams!”

— Jeff Lynne

“Musicians always want to sacrifice our creativity to get involved in environmental issues or political activism of some sort - to reduce it to something more populist in terms of sing-alongs or guitar songs with a message.”

— Eyvind Kang

“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

“I watch movies and hang with my family, go shopping, love to cuddle with my dog, Happy, & write songs with my guitar!”

— Megan Lee

“If you're writing songs by yourself, who's going to tell you if it's good or not? But if you're writing songs with somebody else, you get that immediate feedback.”

— Glenn Frey

“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

“I really got into psych because everything has a really good groove to it and it's nicely spaced out, but ultimately they are just cool pop songs with a little something else that makes them special and unique. They are interesting and have another dimension to them besides a three chord change.”

— Mike Romano

“The boarders have changed. My vocals explore different elements and you know it was really important for me to transfer the atmosphere of the songs with my voice.”

— Heather Nova

“The best tunes are songs with a face. You recognize them. You know them. It's like a person. They have a face that's outstanding. Other songs don't have a face. You just hear them, that's all. The really good ones are few and far between.”

— Cindy Walker

“I've always written songs with a visual counterpart in my mind that no one else can see.”

— Phil Elvrum

“I like the fact that I can rep New York, but my style does not - I'm not trapped in a New York thing. I can do art songs with other artists and it's seamless.”

— Talib Kweli

“When I was a teenager, I dreamed of being an opera singer like Maria Callas or a jazz singer like June Christy or Chris Connor, or approaching songs with the kind of mystical lethargy of Billie Holiday, or championing the downtrodden like Lotte Lenya. But I never dreamed of singing in a rock-and-roll band.”

— Patti Smith

“I who once wrote songs with keen delight am now by sorrow driven to take up melancholy measures. Wounded Muses tell me what I must write, and elegiac verses bathe my face with real tears. Not even terror could drive from me these faithful companions of my long journey. Poetry, which was once the glory of my happy and flourishing youth, is still my comfort in this misery of my old age.”

— Boethius

“I want to write songs with meaning. I have high standards for my work.”

— Brett Dennen

“I'm really not into the idea of just faking songs with a synthesizer. That just isn't the music I'm making at all.”

— Hamilton Leithauser

“Jonas' music is inspiring, energizing, and spiritually uplifting. A brilliant songwriter, he writes music that reaches deep into the soul and awakens the best and highest in all of us. And Jonas delivers his songs with a power, joy, and grace that last long after the last note is played. The world needs this music!”

— Marci Shimoff