I would say I'd rather dig a ditch, you know, do hard, manual labor than write lyrics.
My lyrics say I have morals, I have confidence, I have weaknesses, I have strong points, that I am a human being.
All I want to do, is write rock and roll that you could listen to as you got older, and it wouldn't lose anything; it would be timeless, in the subject matter and the literacy of the lyrics.
Many of my lyrics are about having sex with prostitutes.
I'm a Gemini, so I'm very dual. I love something and I hate it at the same time, so that probably comes out in the lyrics.
I wrote poetry, which got me into lyrics. Stevie Wonder, Carole King, Elton John pulled me into pop. I started singing with a band - just for fun - when I was 17. And pretty soon, I was thinking I could sing pop in English as well as Spanish.
What a gulf between impression and expression! That’s our ironic fate—to have Shakespearean feelings and (unless by some billion-to-one chance we happen to be Shakespeare) to talk about them like automobile salesmen or teen-agers or college professors. We practice alchemy in reverse—touch gold and it turns into lead; touch the pure lyrics of experience, and they turn into the verbal equivalents of tripe and hogwash.
Lyrics are always misleading because they make people think that that's what the music is about.
I work in bits and pieces. When I'm touring it's difficult. After touring, when I have space and time, it's a process, something I've been doing since I was 10 or 11 years old. I collect lyrics, melodies, bits and pieces, and finally it all comes together. It's hard to say - I've been trying to figure out how the process works.
I'm totally into Taylor Swift. I think she has super-clever lyrics, and I love that she writes her own music. Some of the themes she writes about are stuff I wish was there for me when I was in high school, and I'm so happy she really cares about her female fans. She's not catering to a male audience and is writing music for other girls.
If you really want me to be safe, maybe it's time. " "I'd just feel safer if you'd start sleeping in a coffin. " Just then my door creaked open. Billy's expression turned to surprise. "Get out!" I said, hopping off the bed. "Uh. . . we are making up lyrics to a song. " But that didn't keep Billy out. Instead he was totally interested. "You're writing a song? That's so cool. I want to hear it. " "It goes, 'Safer in a coffin, and if your brother doesn't leave, he'll be in one too.
In rap, as in most popular lyrics, a very low standard is set for rhyme; but this was not always the case with popular music.
I'm obsessed with the science of music. I'm obsessed with the way you can string notes together and they can do something, and you play the same notes in another way and they do nothing. How the essence within songs - within words, within lyrics - finds its place.
When I'm in Los Angeles, it's hard to be creative. For me, New Orleans is one of those places that's like a muse. You can hear music on the streets. There's a certain character the city has that inspires you when you're needing to write lyrics and come up with melodies and come up with rhythm and blues. The city has a pulse and it's an inspiration for me.
I hope that one or two immortal lyrics will come out of all this tumbling around.
Quite often, lyrics get misunderstood - and I never mind that. I guess what all artists want is for their work to touch someone or for it to bethought provoking.
I'm not a big fan of Robert Plant's lyrics or his singing.
I let the music set the tone of the lyrics. I allowed myself to write more about relationships and emotions, in a girly way almost.
If my lyrics mean something special to someone. . . that's the most important thing to me.
But I always loved songs with great lyrics.