Gordon Waller Quotes

Melody is king, and don't you ever forget it. Lyrics appear to be out front, but they're not; they're just an accompanying factor. If they're good, you're really in good shape. Lyrics are written to be rewritten.

Yes, basically, like you said, I'll work out a chord pattern and work out the lyrics over that.

We start a lot with melodies and instrumentation and trying to figure out good melodies for verses and choruses. We get to lyrics sometimes second, so we'll start humming a melody, finding something, and see where the music takes you as far as lyrics are and what you want to say and go from there.

There's such a huge difference between a great arrangement of riffs and a song. Sometimes the two can be the same. But the difference is a song doesn't necessarily need a riff, whereas a riff doesn't necessarily mean you've got a good song on your hands.

The best songwriting comes from being as creative as you can and editing it down to the good bits, essentially.

When you sit down and write a song, you kind of have the idea for the song, and you sit there at the piano and you kinda just write it. And then of course later there's some dinking around with it and changing some stuff.

It's never easy to write a song. It's the most difficult thing I do.

I don't think you ever get tired of the well-written, well-crafted songs.

Right from day one, you know when you've written a good song.

It seems when I put together records, as Henley used to say, they're just like movies. They should have action, tension, love scenes, places to relax.

So many good songs get written fast, because you know exactly what has to work.

I'm a composer, and therefore I know when I've written a good tune. When you've written a good song is when you know that the lyric is completely coalesced with the song.

The melody will tell me what the song should be about, the tone of the song. That's when the intellect comes in. Because I have a list of possible titles and concepts, and I expand on that.

I had a really pleasant time composing music for 'Raaga.'

Songs come to me and I hear them. At least in part, they are very complete; I hear the whole chorus, including the drum pattern, the base, the countermelody, the basic harmonic structure and the main thrust of the lyric.

Sometimes I have a melody in my head; sometimes it's just a verse. I read lines from a book or movies that I watch and grab a few quotes and start writing on paper. From there, I record a really rough version and work on the song.

I usually start with a lyric or a melody and then build a song around that.

When I'm writing, I'm focusing more on just the basic melody and the lyrics.

I don't really focus on if what I'm writing is pop or not. I just write music and then I try to figure out how to arrange the things that I write.

I'd say 99 per cent of the time I write on my own, just with my guitar, and then it's trying to figure out what it needs in a production sense.

When I listen to my favorite songwriters, they have such simple melodies and chords. I occasionally manage to stop at the right time, but all too often I keep on going until I have way too many notes and words. But that's just what I do.

I've always thought of music as something which gives the words their flight and their wings and the music often comes first, although sometimes I'll have a concept, a title idea, a lyric idea that I want to write and the lyric will come first.

Every song has a bouquet, which is the music. If you can put words with something that is really apt, then you've done it.

The first thing that inspires any song is a chord progression. When I have one I really like, I get into the lyrics even more.

Songwriting is different from music, although I don't deny now that it would be nice to have a little more background in music theory.