Songwriting & Performing

Collected wisdom on the art of writing songs and playing music.

[songwriting-and-performing]

"I've got strategies, and one of them is to notice something about myself that's ridiculous. That's pretty easy to find, usually! It works with painting, and it works with songs. Another strategy is to try to make something really sweet and pretty. It ends up being the nastiest shit I can think of. Every time! I don't try to write funny songs. I write normal songs."

- Dan Reeder

[songwriting-and-performing]

Steve Earle on Bob Dylan’s “Just Like a Woman”:

“‘Just Like A Woman' is talking about her, and it's about the end of a relationship, but it also talks about him a little bit, and how he feels. I've heard women argue about which songs of mine are about them, and the truth is they're all about me."

[songwriting-and-performing]

“If something’s good, it’s good forever.”

- Beach Boy Al Jardine on people in America taking a while to appreciate Pet Sounds.

[songwriting-and-performing]

"It's usually lyricists that will tell you that the words are fucking everything. They are not, the words don't mean shit to anybody. It's the melody is what you remember. We all whistle tunes; it's always about the melody, and that's what I do."

- Noel Gallagher

[songwriting-and-performing]

“We were pretty good up until the point where I wrote ‘Live Forever’. And then when I wrote that song, I knew enough about music to know it’s gone from being indie to classic now. And it was after that, that’s where the benchmark was set. Nothing would ever be good enough unless it was as good as that.”

- Noel Gallagher

[songwriting-and-performing]

“That's what all writing is: trying to understand, or trying to get other people to understand your perspective.”

- Bill Callahan

[songwriting-and-performing]

John Coltrane.

[songwriting-and-performing]

“The thing about being a songwriter is, even if you've been fucked over, you can find consolation in writing about it, and pour it out.”

- Keith Richards

[songwriting-and-performing]

“It’s just trying to stay focused on something pretty simple…the part of the world that you can have some immediate impact on, and not losing sight—because of your concerns, your fear for the world and your legitimate sensation of being oppressed a little bit by how the world is turning— but kind of reminding yourself that you’re a part of making a world that’s worth saving. The one that’s worth fighting for is the one that does put more good into the world, and creates beauty, and creates connection, and community, things like that which music is really good at. And art is good at. So it’s a really simple act of defiance to not just surrender to the anger, and the isolation that comes along with being angry at people.

…If nothing else, it’s a strategy that has worked for me in my life, to stay focused on creating, absorbing other people’s art, spending time singing, doing all of these things that have sustained me during just privately challenging times. And it does tend to work for the broader picture as well, to recenter yourself in your own ability to make something out of nothing.

The “Override” part of it is: override the notion of failure. To me, if your heart’s in the right place, it’s beyond critique. It’s just a good thing. There’s a whole lot of things in the world that are mixed—almost everything. Everything is a little bit complicated when you zoom out or you zoom in. But there are some things in this world that you can pretty definitively agree with yourself and the world that…I’m not hurting anybody, this is good. And I’m occupying my time in a way that makes me feel more in the moment and alive.

- Jeff Tweedy on the meaning of Twilight Override

[songwriting-and-performing]

“I don’t wanna make a record I already have, whether it’s my own or somebody else’s. The whole point is to kind of find out what else is inside of you, and if you keep kind of doing that, you don’t make the same record each time.”

- Jeff Tweedy, PBS interview on Twilight Override

[songwriting-and-performing]

“When a writer or an artist is able to express himself through song, it really is the silent soul speaking in song.”

- Stevie Wonder, interview about John Lennon being shot.

[songwriting-and-performing]

“When I go out there with my best friends and we make beautiful music that is sacred to us, that’s nothing but ultimate glorious euphoria. There is no pain when you’re on stage, the pain comes during life, and (pointing to stage) that’s the place to fucking exercise the pain out of your body.”

- Anthony Kiedis, RHCP, answering a question from a rude reporter about why he punishes himself on stage with volume and the energy spent in their show.

[songwriting-and-performing]

“Whats the beginning of a piece of art or the process of the piece of art versus the piece of art itself? Doesn’t matter. The day that you’ve had a good time making something and were a happy person, that’s the product.”

- Matt Berninger

[songwriting-and-performing]

“The world appears to be getting darker for a lot of people…it doesn’t feel as hopeful as it once did, the future doesn’t seem as bright. This is the thing I do to combat that…I spend time making things, being creative, trying to spend time with things that love me and people that love me as opposed to things that don’t.”

- Jeff Tweedy on Twilight Override

[songwriting-and-performing]

“I don’t question too much how it happens. I’m just thrilled that it does.”

- Paul McCartney on songwriting.

[songwriting-and-performing]

“The way I see it is that I was always pretty comfortable with being vulnerable, but not particularly confident,” Tweedy said. “I feel like I’m a lot more confident, but I still embrace the fact that I am pretty vulnerable, if that makes any sense. I don’t have to be somebody else. I don’t have to be as good as somebody else, I just have to keep making stuff that I am excited by. That is one of the only things I have had control over. I am more aware of it — I am more aware of the things that I have control over.”

- Jeff Tweedy

[songwriting-and-performing]

“This is the argument that I always feel like never gets as much traction as the ‘tortured artist’ argument, [which] is that artists actually have it a little easier because everybody fucking suffers but artists have something to do with it.”

- Jeff Tweedy