Lyrics Quotes - page 5

One of the hardest things about writing lyrics is to make the lyrics sit on the music in such a way that you're not aware there was a writer there. (Stephen Sondheim)
I firmly believe lyrics have to breathe and give the audience's ear a chance to understand what's going on. Particularly in the theater, where you have costume, story, acting, orchestra. View quote
Stephen Sondheim
Making lyrics feel natural, sit on music in such a way that you dont feel the effort of the author, so that they shine and bubble and rise and fall, is very, very hard to do. Whereas you can sit at the piano and just play and feel youre making art. View quote
Stephen Sondheim
I first listen to someone who speaks the language and who reads the lyrics to me. I pay great attention to pronunciation. Once I hear the words spoken, I write the song lines phonetically in Hindi and then sing. By the grace of god, my songs in other languages – including Bengali – have been appreciated. People say they are good and the words have been correctly pronounced. View quote
Lata Mangeshkar
I think my melodies are superior to my lyrics. View quote
Freddie Mercury
It is absolutely beautiful, isn't it? And its a sort of over two years before any of the other recordings she did. That is her singing at the age of 16, and having written those extraordinary lyrics - about whatever they're about. View quote
David Gilmour
I'm not a huge practicing Christian myself, but it just staggers me that people who claim to be can stand up and spout – like your president George Bush – can stand up and spout this bullshit about God supporting one side over another in war, which is why I wrote the lyrics of the song "What God Wants": "God wants crusade/God wants Jihad.” Well it may well be that God doesn't want either of those things. They're manifestations of the insecurities of the Muslim and Christian communities. I hate when someone uses religion to bolster war in the world: it's extremely disgusting and offensive for me, and for all christians, because that was not what Christ was trying to teach. View quote
Roger Waters
On the club scene we rate about two out of ten and 'Must try harder.' "We've had problems with our equipment and we can't get the P. A. to work because we play extremely loudly. It's a pity because Syd (singer Syd Barrett) writes great lyrics and nobody ever hears them. View quote
Roger Waters
When I published my first novel, Slammed, I included lyrics at the beginning of each chapter from one of my favorite bands, The Avett Brothers. The overwhelmingly positive response from readers to those lyrics really surprised me. View quote
Colleen Hoover
Well, fortunately, I am bilingual and I have really two cultures. So when you have that to draw on, you are able to write from one extreme to the other, or anywhere in-between. If you look at my discography, you will notice that one of my favorite albums is "Gloria!", which is totally dance-oriented, with very sensual lyrics; and then there's "Mi Tierra which is totoally roots-oriented and really promoted our culture worldwide through music, and that's important for me and also for people of Cuba to know that even though we were in exile and I grew up in the States, our culture and our music are very much a part of my life. View quote
Gloria Estefan
Well, if you compare my album even as late as two years ago, I think as a writer I am much more at the forefront. I wrote all the lyrics and lots of the music on that album. It shows humor of the writer side of me. But I have evolved since then. (Gloria Estefan)
Some things remain fragments, just the lyrics and melodies or a line or two or a verse. View quote
Tracy Chapman
I think maybe since there isn't a great deal of access to the mainstream media and people don't understand the language of mainstream media, if you put music out there with lyrics that are loosely political, people absorb some of it and spit it back out. View quote
Thom Yorke
You can't ask me to explain the lyrics because I won't do it. View quote
Lou Reed
We decided that my character had a pre-show tradition, like a ritual, which was to sing the lyrics to "I Want You To Want Me" by Cheap Trick into the mirror. Because, more than anything else, as much as he says he's bringing the truth, he just wants to be liked. View quote
Stephen Colbert
It was so frightening at the time to be seventeen and have heart monitors hooked up to you. That was the moment the songwriter in me was born. I discovered a whole other side of me. I came home that night and started writing lyrics. I discovered it all at once: It was like opening up a lockbox, and inside was a depth that I didn't even know I had as a person, or a writer - incredible creativity and vision and neurosis, complete neurosis. They all go together in a package. View quote
John Mayer
You're Still You (lyrics by Linda Thompson) View quote
Josh Groban
Per Te (lyrics by Josh Groban) View quote
Josh Groban
I just have to feel it first. It can't be cerebral at all. I'm big on lyrics, a big lyric person, especially the kind of singing I do. It's hard to sound not cheesy sometimes with the voice I have with English songs. View quote
Josh Groban
If conversation was the lyrics, laughter was the music, making time spent together a melody that could be replayed over and over without getting stale. View quote
Nicholas Sparks
I am not a good enough writer to have an agenda or come up with a message and try to put it into a song, [...] 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)
I might lie a lot but never in my lyrics. View quote
Courtney Love
Music is very nebulous, and you can conjure up a lot of moods with music. But lyrics - they're a lot more tangible. They're much more specific. And you want to say something meaningful and creative and artistic and that tells a story and that takes people someplace else. View quote
Sarah McLachlan
I write music all the time. When I talk about having writer's block, it's more to do with lyrics than anything else. View quote
Sarah McLachlan
To not sing with an orchestra, to not be able to communicate through my voice, which I've done all my life, and not to be able to phrase lyrics and give people that kind of joy, I think I would be totally devastated. View quote
Barbara Walters