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.
As a lyricist, you love to hear other great lyrics or other great concepts.
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.
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.
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.
I'm certainly not a lyricist first. I prefer doing it intuitively and not really thinking about it so much.
I don't think I'm the best lyricist; it's hard for me to express feelings through words.
I dont want to work on a musical if Im not the lyricist.
I'm not tryin' to come off as the best lyricist.
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 here telling people how they have to take my stuff. We just want to play music, and hope that people like it.
A lot of the great songwriters in history have been collaborators, with a separate lyricist.
