I occasionally run across interesting tips and comments on songwriting. Generally, I just try to absorb the best of them for my own benefit. But, it occurred to me that others may be interested as well, so from time to time, I’ll share some here:

“As soon as you try and take a song from your mind into piano and voice and into the real world, something gets lost and it’s like a moment where, in that moment you forget how it was and it’s this new way. And then when you make a record, even those ideas that you had, then those get all turned and changed. So in the end, I think, it just becomes it’s own thing and really I think a song could be recorded a million different ways and so what my records are, it just happened like that, but it’s not like, this is how I planned it from the very beginning because I have no idea, I can’t remember.”
― Regina Spektor

“…as a songwriter, I require a healthy balance between social interaction and alone time, you know? I need to be out in the world, seeing the world and being around people and observing because that’s where so much of my material comes from. When that is removed from the equation, it’s very difficult for me to just sit at home and write songs all day. Because there’s nothing coming in, there’s little experience happening that is anything other than this particular brand of isolation.”
― Ben Gibbard

“A critic can call any poem ‘doggerel.’ That is no more than a slur. ‘Doggerel’ or ‘maudlin’ or ‘sappy’ or ‘sentimental’ is in the ear of the listener. By the by, ‘sentimental’ is okay as it is defined as ‘marked or governed by feeling, sensibility, or emotional idealism.’ It is ‘sentimentality’ that is to be avoided, like the fiddleback spider, being as it is ‘the quality or state of being sentimental to excess or in affectation.’ Again we are faced with a judgement call and must keep a sharp eye on our outpourings to insure they are not overly gooey. The intellectual elite probably believe that most of the lyrics songwriters create are ‘doggerel’ of one kind or another–that is to say ‘trivial”……the young songwriter has now been warned about the implacable nature of the enemy. Under a rather large umbrella, preferred twentieth-century taste in art of all kinds has been characterized by a kind of detachment, or sangfroid. It is simply not chic to be carried away in one’s emotional reaction to a subject. All serious communication or complaint must be carefully wrapped in a protective coating of irony and/or satire.”
― Jimmy Webb

“After writing a song, there’s first a feeling of elation followed by the sinking feeling that it will never happen again, and you go back to thinking that you can’t do it. It creates an ongoing feeling of inadequacy.”
― Chrissie Hynde

“At the very least, in a world where we walk around numb as lepers so much of the time, a song can make you actually feel something, a tingle in a place you thought long dead. That’s what the best songs—the best works of art — do for me.”
― Andrew Peterson

“By combining certain elements of technique which ignite each other I could shift the levels of perception, time-frame structures and systems of rhythm which would give my songs a brighter countenance, call them up from the grave […] It was like parts of my psyche were being communicated to by angels. There was a big fire in the fireplace and the wind was making it roar.”
― Bob Dylan

“For a songwriter, you don’t really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes. And you try to understand them and take them apart and see what they’re made of, and wonder if you can make one, too.”
– Tom Waits

“For me, songwriting is something I have to do ritually. I don’t just wait for inspiration; I try to write a little bit every day.”
– Sean Lennon

“God channels this through me at night. […] if I’m not there to receive these ideas, God might give them to Prince.”
― Michael Jackson

“I can’t discard a verse before it is written because it is the writing of the verse that produces whatever delights or interests or facets that are going to catch the light. The cutting of the gem has to be finished before you can see whether it shines. You can’t discover that in the raw.”
– Leonard Cohen

“I don’t force it. If you don’t have an idea and you don’t hear anything going over and over in your head, don’t sit down and try to write a song. You know, go mow the lawn… My songs speak for themselves.”
– Neil Young

“I don’t think about commercial concerns when I first come up with something. When I sit down at the piano, I try to come up with something that moves me.”
– Lamont Dozier

“I have a structured songwriting process. I start with the music and try to come up with musical ideas, then the melody, then the hook, and the lyrics come last.”
– John Legend

“I start with the title first. From this title I work out the psychology of the tune. Next I write the lyric backward, and in this way build it up to a climax. In the lyric I work first for the climax, and if I can’t find a good climactic line I throw out the tune . . . I consult rhyme dictionaries. I swear by them. For long, easy rhymes I use Andrew Loring’s Lexicon. Other books I have in constant use are Roget’s ‘Thesaurus,’ and atlas, Fowler’s ‘Modern English Usage’ and a dictionary”
― Cole Porter

“I think I’ve done the best I can do at the time and been as honest with myself as I can be and I can sleep good at night knowing that.”
― Trent Reznor

“I wish I were one of those people who wrote songs quickly. But I’m not. So it takes me a great deal of time to find out what the song is.”
– Leonard Cohen

“I would say quality is far more important than quantity. I often tell people…let’s guess I’ve written…whether it’s 800 or 1000 songs in my life. I always tell people that if we eliminated the best 15 songs I’ve ever written, I would absolutely be a nobody. So, I could play you hundreds of songs I’ve written that I think have attributes and that are very good songs…but if you take out the best 10 or 15…I’d have to have a different job. I think if you name your musical heroes…you know, certainly with Bob Dylan or The Beatles, there’s more than 10 or 15 songs…probably true also with maybe the Rolling Stones or something, but…most any other artist, no matter how big they are, if you look in a book that sort of shows what are their hits…and you scratch out the 5 or 10 best…there’s not much left. So, I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t know how one writes those songs…and what makes them a cut above the other ones…but, that’s what one has to aspire to and aim for…is writing a song that endures and that lasts. Cuz there’s an awful lot of people that can write very good or good songs…but to write that really special song, that’s where the alchemy and the magic sort of happens…and that’s what you have to try for.”
– Billy Steinberg

“I’ve always thought the best songs come though us not from us…. They gave me life, they gave me an identity and I gave them my tears, my heart, and my truth.”
– Carole Bayer Sager

“It is only natural to pattern yourself after someone… But you can’t just copy someone. If you like someone’s work, the important thing is to be exposed to everything that person has been exposed to.”
– Bob Dylan

“It’s very helpful to start with something that’s true. If you start with something that’s false, you’re always covering your tracks. Something simple and true, that has a lot of possibilities, is a nice way to begin.”
– Paul Simon

“Look, I had trouble getting a record deal because people kept telling me my songs were too dark. You know, the darkness is–that’s what makes things interesting.”
― Lucinda Williams

“My theory is the best songs have never really been recorded. We’re listening to things that made it through but there’s so many songs that have never made it because they were scared of the machine and wouldn’t allow themselves to be recorded. The trick is to get it in there, don’t hurt the song when you record it. I don’t know, music is a living thing, and so it can be . . . you can hurt it, you can bruise it . . . songs are strange, they’re very simple, they come quickly. If you don’t take them, they’ll move on. They’ll go to somebody else. Someone else will write it down. Don’t worry about it.”
– Tom Waits

“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

“Songs are like women or cats — fascinating, elusive, seductive, irresistible, infuriating, moody, demanding and contradictory creatures. The writer pursues them like some phantom fantasy — fascinated, intrigued and desperate to find out what they’re really like. They should be approached with caution and respect — especially at night. The more promising and beautiful they appear, the harder they may be to catch.”
― Leslie Bricusse

“Songs are strange things. Little notes like that. If they stick, they stick. With most of the songs I’ve ever written, quite honestly, I’ve felt there’s an enormous gap here, waiting to be filled; this song should have been written hundred of years ago. How did nobody pick up on that little space? Half the time you’re looking for gaps that other people haven’t done.”
― Keith Richards

“The most sacred ritual a songwriter must honour is this daily offering to creativity. It can be five hours in a dedicated space or five minutes in a window seat on a plane, but it must be done. Write your heart and do it every day, first thing in the morning if you can. Everything else is icing on the proverbial cake.”
― Charlie Worsham

“The spark of the idea was hope; the work that led to the song was faith; the completion of the song leads to worship, because in that startling moment of clarity when the song exists in time and history and takes up the narrative space in the story of the world—a space that had been empty, unwritten, unknown by all who are subject to time — then it is obvious (and humbling) that a great mystery is at play. I hope it’s clear that I’m not talking about the quality (or lack thereof) of the song itself. That’s irrelevant. The point is, time is unfolding like a scroll, and we’re letters on the parchment, helping to make up the words that tell the story. Each of us is a character, in both senses of the word. At times, characters become aware that they’re part of a story, and that brings the realization, first, there is an author, and second, they are not him. This realization is good and proper, and leads into the courts of praise, if not the throne room itself.”
― Andrew Peterson

“When you’re at odds with yourself, it’s hard to create. Sometimes the writing process is as easy as opening up the window and letting in the breeze. And sometimes it’s like chiseling away at a block of granite with a pencil.”
― Anthony Kiedis

“You could write a song about some kind of emotional problem you are having, but it would not be a good song, in my eyes, until it went through a period of sensitivity to a moment of clarity. Without that moment of clarity to contribute to the song, it’s just complaining.”
― Joni Mitchell

“You don’t always know when a song is finished and I’m not sure if a song is ever finished, to be honest with you. You know, they’re constantly evolving. It’s like jump-rope songs, you know. When are they done? They are never done, you know, people are always changing them, changing the tempo, adding new verses, getting rid of old verses. So when you are ready to record, there is a certain finality to it. It’s time to… cut the head off the fish. That’s not really the right analogy for that. It’s more like a lot of people say, You really captured something on that. There’s something alive in a song, and the trick to recording them is to capture something and have it taken alive.”
– Tom Waits

“You know, in my early days, I was just studying the whole thing, trying to find out what I could bring to it that hadn’t been brought to it before. Which is really hard to do. Most American culture — we just bury things so we can dig them up again. There’s nothing new under the sun, certainly not in popular music. By its very nature, popular music is repetitive and it’s constantly masquerading and then exposing itself again. If you just keep stirring it, different things come to the surface. So it’s sort of interesting to watch what’s bubbling up. What you recognized from before that you thought had gotten hidden at the bottom is now up at the top again. In those days, people didn’t give money to an artist and say “go produce your own record. They gave it to a producer. If they gave it to an artist, it’d be like throwing the money away. They thought you’d spend it all on drugs or women, or you’d go to Mexico or who knows what. So they wanted you to get in there with a guy with a better haircut. Not necessarily better ideas, but a better haircut and cleaner clothes.”
– Tom Waits

“You’re going to have people who are going to say ‘Oh, you know like, she just writes songs about her ex-boyfriends’ and I think frankly that’s a very sexist angle to take. No one says that about Ed Sheeran. No one says it about Bruno Mars. They’re all writing songs about their exes, their current girlfriends, their love-life, and no one raises a red flag there.”
― Taylor Swift