Don Felder Quotes

The main thing you worry about is just coming up with songs at all. I don't sit down and write stuff like certain writers do. They think about what they are going to write first and then they write it. I just get what comes in at me. It's like I'm a musician and if I can keep my mitt on, I can catch the balls that come at me.

I will always have my songs and I don't think I will ever dry-up.

My favorite travel pastime is writing music, either with my guitar or on my computer.

I kinda taught myself how to play guitar, and I still play to this day. It's become a pretty big part of my life.

Ultimately, at the end of it, it's just trying to get into that space where you feel like you're hitting the right thing and you're making music. And it feels intuitive rather than being counterintuitive.

Writing screenplays makes me a better musician because it clears my head. After writing a movie, I go running back to music as fast as I can.

When I write songs, it's very random. I get influenced by the most random things! Sometimes it just comes to me in my sleep or just hanging out in a restaurant or something. Music just comes to me, and I'll start writing from there.

I just play the guitar and write songs.

One would be lying if one didn't say that one had melodies that I keep in my back pocket.

I've written my own music, and I play guitar.

I listen to everything and find parts about a song in the lyrics/melody/chords/production that I like and can be inspired by when I write my next song.

I'll only pick up my guitar if something is knocking on the door. Once the melodies have sort of been bothering me for a time, then I pick up my guitar and try to find them. But only if they want to be found.

I got this cheap guitar, and then I fell in love with it and basically put down the keyboard.

Whenever it was spring break, someone would always have a guitar down at the beach, and they'd play a random song, and I'd sing. Eventually, hearing compliments from people saying I sounded pretty good stuck with me.

'Flying In A Blue Dream' was quite automatic. I was working on another song, and I took a break and picked up my acoustic guitar, tuned it strangely, and instantly wrote the tune. It's funny how you can struggle with one piece and write a better one in a minute. Usually, when things come easy, it means it's good.

I had big dreams when I was a boy. And I can't say that I never saw a beach house in Malibu in those dreams.

How does a person create a song? A lot of it is being open to encounter and to be in touch with the miraculous.

People say, "How do you write songs?" I say, "Patience." I may have a track that's hot, but no words. I'll just let it sit for years, because I know they're going to meet. They'll find it.

There are five things to write songs about: I'm leaving you. You're leaving me. I want you. You don't want me. I believe in something. Five subjects, and 12 notes. For all that, we musicians do pretty well.

I think I always thought of the guitar as the vehicle to be able to make some musical idea up. The only appeal to learning more chords was having more chords to put into songs. I never got too wrapped up in becoming technically good. So writing songs happened pretty simultaneously with learning how to play the guitar.

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

I love sex as much as I love music, and I think it's as hard to do.

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.

Writin songs is like a mystery. The most difficult thing to do is have a good idea. If you have a decent idea, the songs are the easy part. Actually having something to say is the hard part. If you get an idea for a song, then it pulls you along. There are just some ideas that you get that are really hard to edit out; it's hard to stop thinking about some bad ideas. So you just finish it and you end up putting it on a record.

I probably would've kept slogging on that same chord change, because there's a tendency to have that happen. You get into the cadence in your mind, and it's hard to make the kind of left turn that you probably need to keep it really interesting.