Jim Carroll Quotes

As a songwriter, that's really what you hope for - to make that connection with your audience.

I love words. They're fun. I don't think any word can just be filler. There's no room for it. It's like a puzzle. Every song can be written a million times. How can you say it differently?

Composers, like authors, have a lot in common. Our main goal is to connect with the listener emotionally.

I think the thing that has made it possible for me to write personal songs and sing them year after year is the sensibility for good writing. Just opening your veins all over the paper is not necessarily going to be interesting. I wanted to speak to people.

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 popular songs that were written in the 1920s and '30s, '40s and early '50s were written by veterans - mostly men who'd had experience in life. How can you write a lyric if you haven't really lived life?

I found out a long time ago that if I didn't have a good story for a song, I could just make one up! Now it seems over half the stories in my show are made up. The funny thing is, those seem to be the ones that resonate the most with the audiences.

When I write a song, I want to write something that is really catchy and says something that might actually touch somebody.

I started performing in college, but I wasn't writing a lot.

Lyrics are no more important than the music. There's no point in forcing them on people.

I love songs but am inhibited to have my characters burst out to express themselves through songs. I use the route of using old songs at the right places.

While the concert is instant communication with the audience, composing is a creative process where a song comes up out of nowhere and then transmits happiness to many, translates into money, fame, or whatever.

I suppose I write music for people, not for the filing cabinet or the museum.

My favorite part about writing a song is really when it's released, and I can see that it relates to so many people.

When it comes down to it, it's all about good music and what makes people react. That wins over everything else.

I've been a musician and a songwriter for years, since I was a teenager, and made my living doing that on and off for a long time, so when it came to writing comedy material, it was the thing that came easiest to me, the most natural way of writing.

Different kind of cinema is being created, people are coming up with different kind of scripts, they are able to come up with scripts that work with the audiences and also scripts which will have something to say to the audience, which is a heart-warming thing.

My favorite song to perform is 'Love of my Life.'

To be honest, I'm always really interested when people say they can relate to our songs. On the first album, that wasn't something I'd ever anticipated or thought about.

All I know is, I play the guitar, beat it out, and sing a song that has some damn resonance that we feel as musicians. We send it out and people get it, and that's a good thing.

At first it was kind of hard, because I had become used to just my phone screen in front of me. But sharing your songs with an audience is incredible.

Lyrics are so important, but they're really underrated.

I can't bring myself to release an instrumental album because I feel like I want some meat on the bone. Something to chew on, lyrically and content-wise.

When you write really good lyrics - and sometimes I did! - they are just a joy to sing.

I just want to make music that people hear, and I'm not ashamed of that.