Sometimes I will click on a random sequence of notes- not to actually use it in a song, but to see if I can find maybe a simple pattern that I can build off of.

Composers, like authors, have a lot in common. Our main goal is to connect with the listener emotionally.

Hooks need to be predictable and not predictable at the same time.

Location is a very important aspect to songwriting.

People don't have fun making music all the time.

I have come up with very creative ideas that really didn't work with the song I was currently composing.

The prime goal of an author is the same as a musician, which is to emotionally connect with the reader in some way or another.

Minds are like flowers. If you let it sit there without soaking anything up, it will dry up.

If our main goal is to connect emotionally, we should want to have as many tools as we possibly can to achieve that goal. The more abilities that we have, the more choices we can make musically.

If you are making music for other people, you will have to be aware of how people relate to it.

Writing a song is much like being an author. Yes, we all have tools to write (everyone has a brain I hope!), but that doesn't all of a sudden make us best selling authors.

Music is about textures as well as melody.

The most important thing is that you like the music.

Sometimes just getting out of the house and doing something you haven't done in a long time (or never done!) can open up the doors to musical inspiration.

The more I do in my life, the more I can write music about new experiences.

Sometime I write a song off a central idea, instead of emotion.

Sometimes I will click on a random sequence of notes- not to actually use it in a song, but to see if I can find maybe a simple pattern that I can build off of.

Mistakes can be good things, because it is an unexpected thing.

Music is an art form too. Sometimes other forms of art can be inspiring to the musician.

Food is your body's fuel. Without fuel, your body wants to shut down.

Music is an art form. It is a way to wordlessly communicate.

Childhood is a promise that is never kept.

The human voice sounds thicker with a chorus and reverb than a dry signal.

I just wrote one song at a time. Kinda like an alcoholic. One day at a time.

Then, in that hour of deliverance, my heart spoke. Does not such a country, and such defenders of their country, deserve a song?

If you give it good concentration, good energy, good heart and good performance, the song will play you.

But in the finished art of the song the use of words has no connection with the use of words in poetry.

I guess a good song is a good song is a good song, ya know.

In the past 3-4 years I've developed a habit of keeping numerous small cassette recorders in my house and in a bag with me so that I'm able to commit to tape memory song ideas on a constant basis.

I don't ask for the meaning of the song of a bird or the rising of the sun on a misty morning. There they are, and they are beautiful.

The band set up in January and just started rehearsing. If there was a song, we'd just rehearse it as a band, and it would get arranged as a band, and it got changed around a lot.

Peace Train is a song I wrote, the message of which continues to breeze thunderously through the hearts of millions of human beings.

I love listening to Radio Head's 'Everything in its Right Place' because it's all major chords, it makes you feel really good. It's soothing, it's got a beautiful voice, crazy textures. When I'm down I listen to that song and it really makes me feel good.

I've always wanted to sing, just as I've always known that one day I would have my own niche in the annals of song. It was a feeling I had.

I have eighteen titles in the German language. I had a number one song in 1965.

Listen kid, take my advice, never hate a song that has sold half a million copies.

There's a lot of rage... you have to express it somehow. If I didn't express it in song, I'd become incredibly violent.

I do not mind having written the song at all. I just wish that I had written it in a different key, as the high d is hard to play. I am glad that I wrote something that brought joy to millions of people.

It's like, it's up to the people to fall in love with the song. The record company can only do so much.

People assume that the meaning of a song is vested in the lyrics. To me, that has never been the case. There are very few songs that I can think of where I remember the words.

I guess you could write a good song if your heart hadn't been broken, but I don't know of anyone whose heart hasn't been broken.

A song has to become as much a part of you as a tailored suit.

A so-called happy marriage corresponds to love as a correct poem to an improvised song.

Most musicians count at the beginning, and never count and talk to their musicians after that. They only talk to them at the end of the song. But I would count with them and talk.

In an age of incompetence, I've been able to last in this crazy business. I actually know how to play my ax and write a song. That's my job.

The only thing that's a little tricky about it is sometimes people assume that if it's a new song, it's a reflection of what you're feeling or going through now.

When I write a song, it's all about the riff - the riff first, then the words come later.

There's not one Tin Pan Alley song on my record.

Song Sung Blue took a lot of compressing and refining, and it has one of my favorite lyrics.