Tracy Chapman Quotes

Some people start with the lyrics first because they know what they want to talk about and they just write a whole bunch of lyrical ideas, but for me the music tells me what to talk about.

I think that a song, when it works, never mind a piece of long form music, even a song is something that speaks to itself but has a language all of its own, ideally.

I've always wanted to make music like people write plays, so I was inspired by writers as much as musicians.

Composing is what I love most from what I do. Each genre has a unique expression that you cannot supplant with another. All the records co-inspire each other though they are not tied conceptually in any way to another.

I try to write five or six songs each year and not just in one genre.

I find that albums generally tell a story. Because it's music, it doesn't have to be in chronological order.

For me, how I feel about what I wrote down turns into a song.

But then you have to write a song, so at that point, I picked up the reins and started to write lyrics.

'My Life' is not an autobiography. It's just music.

Writing a simple melody can take weeks to get it right where I want it, but I do quite enjoy it.

You never know what's going to play into what's worthy of getting encapsulated into a song.

I think I've always approached making albums pretty much the same way. I'm just looking for a mixture of songs and topics that aren't the same thing over and over.

'Darkness on the Edge of Town' came out of a huge body of work that had tons of very happy songs.

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

Ultimately, I'm a fan of music. I describe writing music sometimes as hieroglyphics, like, you know, excavating, gently brushing off these artifacts and discovering the song underneath it all. It seems as if it is already written in it.

For me, making music just starts with a simple melody, and lyrics will come sometime after that.

When I hear the piano played in a compositional way, like in a songwriter's way in a compositional way, there's a certain arc to that that I love.

The goal is always just to write the best song that you can write. I mean, the process for writing a song is the process for writing a song. It's not something I look at it as something I need to do something different.

As long as I can say what it is that I need to say, then I'll fit whatever I'm trying to say around a melody.

When I've produced a song, I try to record a vocal over it, and sometimes it becomes really hard. Sometimes I've already said a lot that I want to say within the production. The vocal is just adding to it, rather than it being a song.

I try to tell a story musically in a song.

The very best thing you can do is to try to write a song that has some sort of impact.

Composing music is hard work.

The blessing of being able to write music and let music speak for itself is you let the melodies and let the lyrics and the groove talk to people instead of me talking to people.

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