Bernie Taupin Quotes

It usually takes me 20 to 90 minutes to write a song because once I start, I don't stop. I like when it's really organic, so I try to knock it out in one shot.

I love working quickly. I don't like to do thousands of takes, and I don't want to do thousands of set ups.

I write in the studio, I don't sit around with a piano or a guitar and write songs. I get satisfaction out of that because I can finish the song really quickly. I can use whatever momentum I have. I've got to put it down, develop it, and get it as far [as I can], because the excitement of the moment of when you get that idea - you want to try and hold it and build on it and really gain strength from it. Being in the studio and writing songs like that is really the best way.

I called the guys from Promise of the Real, whom I've been playing with, and they were all on the road. Right after I hung up the phone, I wrote another song and started writing another, and I'm going, "Hey, I can't wait. I should be doing this now!" My experience tells me that when it's there, it's there, and you can't make it wait. So I got Jimmy Keltner and Paul Bushnell, two good guys, and went in and did this record ["Peace Trail"].

Any time I write a new song, I am jazzed about it for like 24 hours and then I am over it and want to write another one.

I just write all the time. In my whole life I've never had what I've heard people talk about writer's block. I've never had that. Life is like a song to me. I just hear everything in music, so I have never once thought "Well, I'm never gonna be able to write again." I've got thousands of songs.

If you can't write your song in half an hour, you're in trouble - which is always true.

I've found that there isn't any correlation whatsoever between the hours put in and the quality of what comes out. Most of the Beatles' songs probably originated in about five minutes.

When I feel I'm going to write something, then I just am quiet and I try to listen. Then something comes through. And I do what I can in order not to tamper with it.

I spent a fair amount of time editing the lyrics and allowing the song to kind of evolve. ... anytime there's anything worthwhile, it certainly 'feels' like it happened on the spur of the moment, but it's a composite of lots of spurs of the moment, hopefully. And over time, you catch up with those, and then you have a full set of lyrics you've thought of and you feel comfortable singing.

During those times like in my early years as a writer I could actually write a song in ten minutes because all of a sudden a song is writing itself, I'm just putting down words. It just seem each line that you put down flows with the other ones. It's like writing a love letter you don't think about it, it's something from the heart.

Song ideas have come to me in the middle of interviews, in the shower, or while I'm writing another song.

When I write a song today, basically it goes on the stage tomorrow. That's the way it works. You cannont interrupt your consciousness; it all comes from the subconscious, it can happen anywhere. It could be in a telephone booth.

I used to try to write a song a day. I've been so busy lately.

There's a lot of hurry up and wait. But it gives you time to write a song.

I don't really know why an idea comes to me. But all of a sudden, an idea comes and from experience I can intuit what something means when an interesting line pops up. Or I can intuit what an interesting choice might be. And I can try a couple of different choices, and see which one feels right, and then continue the song to see where it goes.

When I get an idea for a song it would gel in my mind for weeks or months, and then one day just like that, Ill write it.

In the songs that I write, that's where I get to be really brave and outspoken.

My writing process has changed because it's harder to find uninterrupted time.

These days I keep a journal, so I'm constantly sketching down my thoughts, or lines that come to me...ideas for songs. And then when I have a moment to myself, I'll sit down with my guitar and open my journal, and start kind of massaging things together, and see if a song takes shape. Or sometimes, I'll just be hanging out with my guitar and come up with a chord progression or a lick, and that'll sort of sit around for a while waiting to marry itself to some words. So it's sort of haphazard and it's like...junk culture. I go around finding shiny objects and I glue them together laughs.

Whenever I write a song I see the whole song anyway.

Writing responds well to some gentle scheduling. A day job not only promotes solvency, it promotes creativity as well.

The opening line from a journal can be the beginning of a song.

I have tried to write songs quickly that get scrapped. I've also taken a long time on songs that get scrapped because you can over-think something, and you've squeezed the life out of it. As opposed to work of art, it looks like a really great work of craftsmanship.

I've always been in bands writing songs with friends in order to play shows or record a future record.