Jarvis Cocker Quotes

I fell into lyric writing because of music. I backed into it.

I find it harder to write the lyrics afterwards because then you're just trying to fit them into something that's already there.

I keep reminding people that an editorial in rhyme is not a song. A good song makes you laugh, it makes you cry, it makes you think.

It's very easy to think about rhymes and just usage of words that sound good but don't mean anything. Basically, I try to put into song the way people actually talk.

I got a close friend who raps.

Kendrick is phenomenal. I've never tried and practiced a song that was as hard as when I practiced Kendrick's verse on 'Control.' He's a genius. I think that people do recognize it.

If you can make a little painting for the ears with a few words, well, I like words; I like cutting them up and finding different ways of saying the same thing... I get into a spell, and it all comes easy. I don't labor over it. I go inside the song, I think you make yourself an antenna for songs, and songs want to be around you. And then they bring other songs along, and then they're all sitting around, and they're drinkin' your beer, and they're sleeping on the floor. And they are using the phone, they're rude, thankless little f---ers.

I sort of recognize it, as opposed to shaping it. Oh, that's a good idea, that's a good line. I wonder where I can use that. And when you get into a rhyme group like 'not,' you got a lot of rhymes, you got a lot of choices. The more you do it, the luckier you get.

Poetic justice, poetic justice.. if I told you that a flower bloom in a dark room would you trust it. I mean I write poems in these songs.

I think the difference between a good song and a great song is... honestly, I think the lyrics, because if you have a really solid melody and solid track and everything is there but then the lyric is just okay, then you've got a good song.

There is a certain flimsiness of poetry which seems expedient in a song.

I think of myself as a songwriter, a weaver of story and imagination in a way that a novelist might write a book.

You can find me in the melodies, the chord progressions, the song style and structure. The lyrical places you fine me most are in the lyrics that 'show' more than 'tell.' I like to describe what the listener is seeing and let them make up the middle rather than telling them.

I write lyrics everyday as I go. I'm always taking notes in my phone whenever I am inspired by something. Most of my writing starts out as poetry before I put it into songs.

There is a lot of fun to be had when you try and fit as many words as you can within a three-minute song, but there is also a lot of fun in trying to get that message across in three words, or better yet when the music can overpower the words and convey something really pure and perfect that affects our psycho-emotional space.

I think, there are a couple of songs. I'm really proud of How far I'll Go. I literally locked myself up in my childhood bedroom at my parents' house to write those lyrics. I wanted to get to my angstiest possible place. So I went method on that.

I want to make great songs.

I didn't set out to write certain kinds of songs - I just set out to write good songs.

Everything stems from real experiences but I do also have a very vivid imagination. A song lyric gets easily carried away with itself and can end up somewhere I'd never have predicted.

There are still songs that I'm writing. I like to write. I like to take a long time to do my songs, not even the actual writing process, but conceptualizing, getting into the songs. That's why I stopped doing mixtapes.

Everybody wants to write a hit song, but in Nashville people want to write the best song, which was my original intention as a singer/songwriter.

I started being me about the songs, not writing objectively, but subjectively. I think it was Dylan who helped me realize that - not by any discussion or anything, but by hearing his work.

I always loved song writers who wrote songs in the first person, so it's kind of like that.

I am interested in politics but have stayed away from writing overtly political songs, or message songs, because I find it difficult to discuss politics intelligently in a 4-minute song. But I am finding there are ways to get bits and pieces of political thought across without preaching that the people have the power or we shall not be moved. Of course these sentiments have their place too - I'm not knocking Phil Ochs - but that's a different kind of music, songs to play at rallies, not to achieve a state of bliss.

There's hundreds of different ways of writing songs.