Ani DiFranco quote: "When I first started writing songs and being very explicit, it was hard, but one of the main things people respond to in my writing is that 'just say it' attitude of my songs. There really is nothing personal or private; it's all universal, if you can just find the courage to be open about your life."

It's really hard to write personal songs. I'm not good at writing ditties because as far as ...
EMILY ROBISON

I didn't really know what I was doing when I started. I just started writing songs. After two so...
NEIL YOUNG

I think when you're writing songs, it's impossible to not draw on personal experiences, whet...
HARRY STYLES

I started writing when I was around 6. I say 'writing,' but it was really just making up stu...
HUNTER HAYES

When I was writing 'Shotgun,' it's one of the first songs that's come to me as an im...
VALERIE JUNE

You know, I've sung a lot of emotional songs in my life, but when you're writing it yourself...
DIANA KRALL

When I first started drumming, when I was 14 or 15, I started writing songs. I wrote for a couple of...
PHILIP SELWAY

Being able to say something lyrically, to say something that will do more than just be words, is rea...
NIKKI SIXX

Writing songs about fancying people in dance clubs is all very well but it's not the be-all and ...
SOPHIE ELLIS-BEXTOR

Writing songs has always been hard and easy. It's not always easy when you want it to be, and th...
JEFF TWEEDY

When I think about that first DeBarge album, I remember being so green... just pristine. Nothing mat...
EL DEBARGE

The main focus for me is not trying to find duet partners. It's about just making great songs. I...
JOHN LEGEND

I think most fiction writers naturally start by writing short stories, but some of us don't. Whe...
ANDREA BARRETT

Some of my fans don't really like it when I respond to people who say things that are trying to ...
RICKIE FOWLER

My songs tend to be about love. It drives some of the greatest songs. I'm looking forward to see...
BIRDY

Cover versions, that's my forte, that's all I ever used to do. When you play your own songs,...
ELLIE GOULDING

I'd like to be writing songs for other people - I just like writing songs.
DARREN CRISS

Heartbreak can definitely give you a deeper sensibility for writing songs. I drew on a lot of heartb...
ADELE

Even writing verses from my first album, there were songs that I didn't use because I just felt ...
FLEUR EAST

A Minor is one of my all-time favorite keys to play in. It's a very moody key, and also 'A&#...
ALICIA KEYS

I just always wrote songs as a side hobby. So it was sort of a natural thing to write comedy songs. ...
KYLE DUNNIGAN

For me personally, I'm always writing from what's happening in my emotional life. Even witho...
WASHED OUT

It's hard to be in the limelight and write songs that cater to fans that have expectations of yo...
JOSH DUN

Singing, writing songs, is kind of my biggest fear, but it's the thing I feel I need to conquer.
CARA DELEVINGNE

I started writing an album on flights to Africa and Brazil, but it was crazy because I left the note...
ESTELLE

When I started writing it was kind of hard getting people to do my stuff. They' say they couldn&...
OTIS BLACKWELL

One of the remarkable things about love is that, despite very irritating people writing poems and so...
LEMONY SNICKET

I don't care if it's somebody else's song. Most of the time, you'll find that I'...
TAJ MAHAL

My second album was written while I was on the road promoting the first record. I tried to take my p...
KATE VOEGELE

I think there are people out there writing original bluegrass songs, but it's hard to get them o...
STEVE MARTIN

It's really weird because my house is very ornate, but my writing lair is very, very blank. It&#...
JANE GOLDMAN

Even if my songs are quite sad or quite dark, I don't want my songs to make people sad. It's...
AURORA

When I first started making music, it was learning other people's songs and putting them onto fo...
M. WARD

I kind of miss writing songs the way that I used to write songs, in the sense that I would just sit ...
JUSTIN VERNON

I'm one of those people who has always struggled with emotions and revealing them. When my dog O...
JON KATZ

If you watch home videos, at 4 years old, I was doing nothing but being the entertainer. Singing ...
THOMAS RHETT

Everything is an open book. I don't speak on other people's hardship, but if it happened in ...
KEVIN HART

When I was 13, I started writing songs, and it fell into my lap all of a sudden. I wrote poems and j...
KELSEA BALLERINI

I started writing my own songs from the time I was a little kid. I would write my own lyrics to othe...
BONNIE MCKEE

My attitude to writing is like when you do wallpapering, you remember where all the little bits are ...
HARRISON BIRTWISTLE

Nothing's harder than writing. There's no comparison. With directing, you can bounce a lot o...
SYLVESTER STALLONE

All of the songs my grandparents and parents listened to are called boleros - they're all love s...
CAMILA CABELLO

If I find myself just not feeling like writing songs anymore, I think I'll drop it. There's ...
ISAAC BROCK

There's nothing wrong with the screaming style of singing, and I'll be the first to admit th...
COREY TAYLOR

When I look at my streams on Spotify, and I just see it's hundreds of millions of streams, I thi...
ZARA LARSSON

'Fast Life' is just about going out with your friends and having a good time - I think it...
JOE JONAS

It's hard to believe the life that 'Someone Like You' has taken on. It's proof that ...
DAVID NAIL

I think, when I started writing songs, my voice just became another tool. It wasn't something th...
LAURA MVULA

In Mudcrutch we all wrote songs, and when it got to the focus on Tom and the Heartbreakers, I kept w...
BENMONT TENCH

I don't really think about having had a hard life. It was just my life, and it's all I knew....
GRETCHEN WILSON

A lot of the songs on '2' are pretty personal, but even if I'm writing about something l...
MAC DEMARCO

I'm very lucky that people are able to say, 'Oh, that's that Moody Blues guy!' I'...
JUSTIN HAYWARD

My view is that life is too short. I'm not being melodramatic or anything, but when your mother ...
SAFFRON ALDRIDGE

I think that all of us are 5-year-olds and we don't want to be embarrassed in the schoolyard. I&...
HELEN HUNT

It's what the Pixies always said about music - they were writing songs and just trying not to be...
JONNY GREENWOOD

When I'm writing a song, it's just me and the songwriters. Then when the song is done, there...
LUKE BRYAN

I write almost all my songs on an acoustic guitar, even if they turn into rock songs, hard rock song...
COREY TAYLOR

To me, music shouldn't be ego-driven. When you go out on stage and play songs, it is. But when y...
CHRIS CORNELL

The first person who showed me that I could be a maker of music was one of my best friends. It's...
CAM

I love nothing more than to perform my songs in front of a live audience. And whatever I'm doing...
LUKE BRYAN

You know how it is when you first start out. You have to pay your dues, and he was looking for write...
AJ CASE

My songs are always about overcoming things, whether it's breaking up with a guy or just trying ...
ESTELLE

You can get too bogged down in technology and you can sort of forget what it is you were trying to d...
CHRIS LOWE

People speculate on your personal life all the time anyway. So I just think it's important to ke...
PRINCE

I tend to push whatever is looking over my shoulder away when I am writing. It's once the box of...
DAVID BERGEN

There can be a progression to the dream; there can be steps to it. When you dissect any successful p...
AVA DUVERNAY

My only close-to-game-plan is to follow good writing. If the writing is in TV or if it's in thea...
ADAM DRIVER

While I love to read contemporary fiction, I'm not drawn to writing it. Perhaps it's because...
GERALDINE BROOKS

One of my favorites is one called 'Rory's Radio' that I wrote about my brother Jeff'...
ASHTON SHEPHERD

I do gravitate towards the sad songs because I find them to be more of a challenge for me from a wri...
LUKE COMBS

If I'm not writing songs about things I've actually been through, it ruins the idea of makin...
AUSTIN CARLILE

The spiritual quest was always the predominant aspect of my life. It's always been there. But th...
CAT STEVENS

We're not writing songs to solve a cultural problem. The goal for us is to express what we'r...
BEN HOPKINS

I started writing the one-sentence stories when I was translating 'Swann's Way.' There w...
LYDIA DAVIS

I started classes and it wasn't because I was like, 'I want to be an actor!' - I was rea...
CAITY LOTZ

I love love songs, but sometimes it's okay to just be young and talk about something other than ...
MAREN MORRIS

I love to read. And right now I'm on my last hundred pages of 'The Corrections' by Jonat...
CANDICE ACCOLA

If there's not drama and negativity in my life, all my songs will be really wack and boring or s...
EMINEM

I have a mess in my head sometimes, and there's something very satisfying about putting it into ...
CARRIE FISHER

Actually, that's one of the things I was thinking about writing a story about me, loosely based ...
MATTHEW MCGRORY

I don't know much about creative writing programs. But they're not telling the truth if they...
DORIS LESSING

For queer people, the personal is very political, just to talk about it in a public space. It's ...
BEN HOPKINS

I think there are things in my story that have helped my creativity. Your father being killed, for i...
ROGER WATERS

I wanted to play rock and roll when I started playing. Nobody at that time ever thought about songwr...
BRUCE COCKBURN

I wrote 'Ohio,' and it was really awesome to be able to share that with my fans because a lo...
JACOB WHITESIDES

I like finding that common point between another song and my music. It's like between people; yo...
YAEL NAIM

'Unbreakable Smile' was based off one of the songs I wrote for the album - it was actually t...
TORI KELLY

I can sit and analyze everything and beat myself up and say you don't quite sing as good as you ...
VINCE GILL

There have been periods in my life where I have experienced depression. It has been through some of ...
GERRY RAFFERTY

I just recently joined Twitter. It's very positive - I love all the accolades. If my ego is hurt...
MARK FEUERSTEIN

When you play all that as a body of work there are four great songs, four mediocre songs and four ba...
RANDY BACHMAN

I don't just want to sing about simplistic things all the time. It's good to have a mix of s...
MARINA AND THE DIAMONDS

It's warts and all in my songs, and I think that's why people can relate to them.
ADELE

'Things that Never Cross a Man's Mind' is probably one of my favorite upbeat tempo songs...
KELLIE PICKLER

I remember listening to the radio as a kid and finding that the songs always made me feel more peace...
CHRIS ISAAK

When I first started on television, people, and even my own manager at the time, would tell me I had...
JENNIFER LOPEZ

I feel like you become a songwriter when you claim that it's sort of like a switch flipped, and ...
CHARLIE WORSHAM

It sounds odd, but I was a singer and started writing songs, and I didn't have anything in mind....
BILL MEDLEY

It's just, you gotta pay your dues if you want to sing the blues. Not that I've never paid dues in m...
FRANK BLACK

The way I write my songs is that I have to believe what I'm writing about, and that's why th...
ADELE

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