Don Dokken Quotes

Every day you can write a song but some days there is just some magic in the air and something special about the catch; other days you write all day on a song line or idea.

Everything I see and hear... I will take ideas from anyplace, anywhere, anytime, and life has become a song to me. I'm always looking for a song.

The reflection of the world is blues, that's where that part of the music is at. Then you got this other kind of music that's tryin' to come around.

I keep this crazy notebook of song ideas.

I try to get underneath the skin of all kinds of music, and I never know what's going to inspire me and what makes me crazy.

One of my biggest thrills for me still is sitting down with a guitar or a piano and just out of nowhere trying to make a song happen.

Sometimes a chord on a guitar will somehow spur some thought in your head, and you will write a song about it.

I believe that tracks speak to me. Some tracks make me write certain music or make me feel sad or inspire me to write a sad love song. Each track has its feeling to me.

I only live in my music, and I have scarcely begun one thing when I start on another. As I am now working, I am often engaged on three or four things at the same time.

When I do music I don't think about urban music, pop or country, I just think about a good song.

I've held onto little musical sketches that I thought could be useful, and the more time that I spend doing them for each film, then the more I have to draw on.

I came up playing in both punk rock bands and hip-hop bands, and I found a more universal way of reaching people, especially with music that has a message to it.

For me, something will come in my head and I'll either end up calling my cell phone to record it, or I'll just pick my guitar up and see what comes out. Sometimes it sucks, sometimes it doesn't. So there's really no set method behind it.

We are rich in the quantity of songs rather than in the quality. The singer has to go through hundreds of compositions before he finds one that really says something.

It's a real gift to be able to have the works of brilliant, great people to learn from and build from. It gives you so much more to draw on, and then you don't have to be all about three-chord pop songs. I don't really like that kind of writing.

Drawing and visual pursuits were first. Music came and found me in a way. Really, what it's about is creative problem solving, and music is a lot more an expression of that than painting is for me.

I am a big fan of music in general. I listen to all genres: hip-hop, R&B, whatever sounds good to me; it doesn't matter to me where it comes from - there are no boundaries, no fences. If I like it, then it will inspire me to create.

I usually sit around with the guitar in reach and grab it when I get an idea. Sometimes it lasts five minutes, and sometimes it lasts all day.

It's hard to know exactly what it sounds like to me. I'm in the studio and I write it. and that's it.

Living in a capital in Europe but still surrounded by mountains and ocean, my relationship to music was strongest walking to school and back. I would sing to myself and very quickly started mapping out my melodies to landscapes - at the time I just thought it was very matter of fact, a common thing to do.

I just get an idea and then all of a sudden I've got a song.

Music is a whole oasis in my head. The creation process is so personal and fulfilling.

I love all types of music. Jazz, classical, blues, rock, hip-hop. I often write scripts to instrumentals like a hip-hop artist. Music inspires me to write. It's either music playing or completely silent. Sometimes distant sound fuels you. In New York there's always a buzzing beneath you.

Every time I get up in the morning, melodies occur to me and I start trying to shape lyrics to melodies.

It never gets boring for me because there's so many different things to explore in the studio. The studio's become the sanctuary that people have come in and found new things out about themselves, as weird as that sounds. But it's true, I'm no different. I've made some crazy hard records, and I've made a jazz album.