Michael Bacon Quotes

Writing songs has always been hard and easy. It's not always easy when you want it to be, and then sometimes it's just like turning on the faucet. That's just the nature of it.

I was trying to do the same thing that I always do which is make an interesting record.

When you're in the middle of writing a song, you can come up with this whole web of stuff only you know how to get through. That's very entertaining for me to do that.

I'm not one for walking the beaches humming a melody. I love the discipline of sitting in the studio, writing and listening. That is my domain.

The composition of a single melody is born out of a bit of text, perhaps the first line, but it can also be the entire strophe; it can even be the poem's overall form.

I always try to write a song, I never just want to write a record.

I don't have any particular methodology, to tell you the truth. 'Silver Blue' took exactly the amount of time to write that it takes to sing it, and 'Prisoner in Disguise' took about a year and a half. So you just never know.

I've written many extra verses to songs that I learned to sing - an extra verse about a friend, or just add some verse - and that led to writing my own songs.

I write a lot, and very often I write a couple of lines that are particularly revealing in some kind of way. And then as a few more lines get added and a piece gets added, eventually the song pretty much takes over and you can't really find a way to change those things.

When you sample something, you're using the crutch of borrowing chords and melodies from a song that's already great, that's already stood the test of time, that's already special. When you're trying to do it all from scratch, you're writing something brand new that has to stand on its own.

Then a friend of Jim's suggested we make a theme song to explain the story, and this is where the Mads came from. Josh and I wrote it into the theme song.

It's very hard to write a song alone. It's only by jamming that you can get a song together.

I can't say that I'm always writing in my head but I do spend a lot of time in my head writing or coming up with ideas. And what I do usually is write the music and melody and then, you know, maybe the basic idea. But when I feel that I don't have a song or just say, God, please give me another song. And I just am quiet and it happens.

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 just hear a beat and start mumbling words. I just hear sounds and rhythms, and it just kind of comes intuitively. Formatting a song, figuring out a flow, how I respond to the beat.

I am so highly skilled that when I pick up a phrase and then pick up my guitar, a form comes out almost immediately - a song - and once I start, I have to finish it.

I actually often write about writing music and being in that zone.

I usually start with a lyric and see where that takes me.

I have a hard time making a linear-idea song, because that's not the way my thoughts work.

I've never had trouble finding inspiration for new songs, no matter what I'm doing.

I don't like pre-written raps; I think it makes the song better if you listen to the beat first. In a sense, you have to make a marriage with the beat. I ride the beat, hear the flow of the drums, get the melody of my flow, and then from that point, it's a process of what I want to say.

It doesn't necessarily take four years to write a good piece of music. It might take four hours. It just depends on when your inspiration comes.

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

As I sit down and start to work, I often panic. I stare at the empty piece of music paper. How can I say that my piece will be ready for performance next January when I do not have a recipe for making it happen?

I wouldn't just have other people write songs and me go out and sing it. I would sit down with a guitar and write 11 or 12 good songs for an album and that is gonna take a long time.