Lyricists Quotes

I love all kinds of music. Everybody knows that Nas is my favorite lyricist in the universe. I'd love to collaborate with him on something.

Lyricists play with words.

I'm not tryin' to come off as the best lyricist.

I don't sing melodically. Rhyme pattern is how I sing. I also write like a lyricist or an MC because that's what I was before I was a singer. I just took those elements and put them into music.

I love a good lyricist - always have. The thing that inspired me most was the different performers, like Tina Turner, James Brown, Michael Jackson, Madonna, even Janet Jackson.

I dont want to work on a musical if Im not the lyricist.

I don't think I'm the best lyricist; it's hard for me to express feelings through words.

Technically, 'Kukla, Fran and Ollie' was a kids' show, but adults watched almost religiously - and we're talking adult adults, celebrated adults - including James Thurber, Orson Welles, John Steinbeck, Adlai E. Stevenson and lyricist Stephen Sondheim.

I'm certainly not a lyricist first. I prefer doing it intuitively and not really thinking about it so much.

Although I was able to study music with teachers, I never studied lyric writing. I read poetry, and I read other lyricists. But they were never writing in the style or the form that I was interested in.

I write a lot. I used to write a lot of poetry when I was younger, write for my school newspapers. Also reading is very important because you need to be on your word game if you want to be a lyricist.

I feel like I want to write some songs and I don't know how to go about doing it. Usually it's the lyrics that are a problem, and I think I am not really cut out to be a lyricist.

I listened to a lot of Joni Mitchell in high school. She was sort of an inspiration to me. I think she's a great lyricist, and she makes interesting choices.

The fact that I'm a performer helps me enormously as a lyricist.

Don't give to anyone the power to put you down. Haters are losers pretending to be winners.

Some people are the best lyricists, got the most gas, but they don't know have the personality or the people skills to go out there and network and get they recognition and they name out there. Sometimes people can get in the way of they own selves man, real talk.

Although I have guitars all around and I pick themm up occasionally and write a tune and make a record, I don't really see myself as a musician. It may seem a funny thing to say. It's just like, I write lyrics amd I make up songs, but I'm not a great lyricist or songwriter or producer. It's when you put all these things together - that makes me.

I'd have to say that Kenny White has earned a place among my favorite singer/songwritersand particularly, lyricists. As we say in the trade “he goes deep.” A true wordsmith AND musician who reveals a fine sense of humor, as well. Put on your headphones and listen carefully.

One thing a lyricist must learn is not to fall in love with his own lines. Once you learn that, you can walk away from the lyric and look at it with a reasonable degree of objectivity.

As a writer, as a lyricist, you're just trying to make sure that you're not repeating yourself. And that's a danger for a lot of people. So for me, I just try to keep taking corners and trying to find new paths.

We don't need to explain our love. We only need to show it.

My identity is mostly as a songwriter and lyricist and singer. I also have a lot of production ideas but I have my own limitations in terms of what instruments I'm actually proficient at and what I can do myself, so I really love working with people on the production end; just really going for it with orchestration and instrumentation and production. That's where I see myself going: maintaining my integrity and abilities as a songwriter, but applying it to different contexts, to where I can put on a huge feathered costume and roll around in the ocean.

He [Patrick Stump] is been a friend of ours for a long time, and when we were talking about working with different producers and songwriters for the record, Patrick's name came up. We were excited to work with him - he's a very gifted lyricist and songwriter, and a really cool guy and it was a pleasure to work with him in the studio.

I'm not a fast, stream-of-consciousness lyricist at all - I know some guys who are, and if there is one skill I wish I had, it's that.

People always have these debates about who their favourite rapper is. And I think it's based upon what mood that particular person is in. If someone's favourite rapper is a lyricist then they're focused on rhymes or substance. If someone's favourite rapper is a party rapper, you know, someone who makes music about the clubs... "Oh, he's my favourite rapper". No, his subject matter is your favourite.

We're talking about an extremely prolific poet and songwriter and lyricist. That stuff comes off the top of her head. She [Joni Mitchell] will write exactly what she lives. If she puts some money in the soda machine, she'll write about putting money in the soda machine. "Dry Cleaner from Des Moines," on the Shadows & Light album, was about sitting next to a dry cleaner from Des Moines, playing a slot machine.

Someone should have a record that doesn't have any singing. It's my favorite Miles Davis record. I love hanging out in the summer, in New York, when it's miserably hot. I love electric Miles Davis in the summer. Jack Johnson, the songwriting especially, is a premier example of that. It always makes me feel hot in the city. It's also nice to have something not yelling in your ear. For me, as a lyricist, it's nice to put on something without any words.

If you have a dream , don't waste your energies explaining why.

If my songs are being listened to between any other songs, that is awesome, and I'm glad people are getting something out of them. We go to countries like Germany, where I can't imagine that all of my fans are engaging with the lyrics first and foremost. I think they're catching a vibe, a feeling. I consider myself a lyricist first and foremost, but if you get something else out of what I do, that's fine too. I'm not sitting back and telling people how they have to take my stuff. We just want to play music, and hope that people like it.

I rate Morrissey as one of the best lyricists in Britain. For me, he's up there with Bryan Ferry.

To heal our wounds, we need courage to face them.

Lyrics should not need to stand on their own; many of [Bob] Dylan's do, but in common with other great lyricists, he has written plenty that falters on the page but soars in song.

Usually when I write lyrics I try to read a lot and listen to a lot of other stuff. Some of my favourite lyricists are like Lou Reed, kind of the classics - Bob Dylan and stuff like that.

Drake, I'd like to collaborate with. He's a phenomenal lyricist. Probably the best rapper in the world at the moment. I love Kanye but there's something about Drake; he's more straight up, really clever and really poetic and metaphorical - I love that. He's just clever.

[I have] my own view about [Bob] Dylan's Nobel prize. Which is, I'm firmly in the Nay camp. I do think the award is a category error, but that's not why. Not in itself. What bothers me is the perceived status of the categories. If pop lyricists were routinely considered for the prize as are authors and poets, I'd still think it mistaken, but I wouldn't much care. But I am quite certain that Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen, for example, both at the very least Dylan's equals as writers, have never been in the running and never will be.

The greatest romance in the life of a lyricist is when the right word meets the right note; often, however, a Park Avenue phrase elopes with a Bleecker Street chord, resulting in a shotgun wedding and a quickie divorce.

Life is too short to be wasted in finding answers. Enjoy the questions.

As much as I try to grow as a lyricist, I tend to laugh at even calling myself that, because I think that my actual talents lie more in arrangements than they do words.

Especially on Broadway, composers and lyricists fretted over their creations, obsessed over every rhyme, every critical chord or interval. The stakes were so high. On Broadway, people were watching and judging, especially newspaper critics who knew a thousand ways to slice and dice a songwriter for the entertainment of hundreds of thousands of faithful readers. There was no anonymity for the Broadway songwriter. Even the best could find themselves stripped naked the morning after by the tastemakers and their readers.

Love is just a word until someone comes along and gives it meaning.

Courtney Love's name should be right next to Bob Dylan when they say best lyricist of all time.

So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.

One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.

It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.

Avoiding problems you need to face is avoiding the life you need to live.

Everyone eventually winds up writing about themselves - the problem is finding the best way to go about it. To write about oneself literally, in the first person, presumes a more interesting personal life and philosophy than most rock lyricists possess. John Lennon was good for one great album based on musical direct address, 'Plastic Ono Band.

When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.

Don't be someone that searches, finds and then runs away.

You deserve all the good things that happen to you. Don't feel guilty and accept the blessings.

There's no reason - not yet, anyway - to believe [Bob] Dylan himself endorses such an attitude; or that he would think of himself as a more profound and worthy recipient than, for instance, any of the brilliant Motown or girl-group lyricists who are more likely to be awarded a Nobel prize for chemistry than for literature. Whether there is more truth and humanity in his best lyrics than in Abba's, or less, is unquantifiable, and it would be meretricious to attempt such a calculation in contesting an argument he has been dragged into.