Taylor Swift Quotes

I find that I end up liking songs if I really have an idea of something I wat to write about-some problem in my life or something I want to work through; if I don't have something like that at the root of the song, then I think I end up not caring about it as much. I gravitate towards some kind of concept or idea or situation that I want to write about. Very often I have to write, rewrite and come at it from an opposite angle...and I end up writing the opposite song that I thought I was going to write.

I think all of my songs are either based on personal experience or will be based on personal experience, because I do write a lot of songs prophetically.

I think when I first started discovering I could write songs, I was so naive. And it was after I got broken up with and had my heart sliced up into a bunch of little pieces that I was like, "I'm going to say this." I didn't even know how to play guitar.

All of a sudden there's a song - there in your hotel room playing your guitar - and you write it, and two or three years later it will come true. It keeps you on your toes.

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.

If you look at the content of songs people write, it's usually about the things they know best.

The-Dream was like my diary. I would sit there and talk his ear off about all my guy situations; he would just turn my stories into songs.

I don’t have a problem baring my emotions in music. That’s one of the reasons I’m glad to have music in my life. I’m pretty resilient as far as being a human being. A lot of songs write themselves.

Sometimes I start with lyrics - rarely - but sometimes I might have an idea for some lyrics that I wanna say. I write them down and figure out how to use that in a melody to write a song.

Writing the songs is always emotional and most of the vocals on there are the first three takes from the demos, because they give so much more. You're in that moment, so it speaks for itself.

If something happens to me, you're going to hear about it. I only know how to write songs about my life.

Every song I've written, it's about what I've gone through, good or bad. It kind of comes out of me, and I'm grateful for that. I've got friends who are back home who've got no way to express that, and they're kind of in a different position in life. It's alarming to me that I've written something on my bedroom floor when I was 19 or something, and then there's 50,000 people that know the words, and they've got a similar feeling. If you thought about it too much, your head would blow up.

I can only write songs when somebody gives me some water to swim in. Otherwise, I'm a fish on the beach.

We write so many songs, it is difficult to narrow them down.

I figure I wrote 37 songs in 20 years, and that's not exactly a full-time job. It wasn't that I was writing and writing and writing and quit.

No matter how many people try, no matter how many fancy songwriters in Los Angeles try to break it down to a formula... to an extent, there isn't a science to writing great songs, I suppose. For me, it's always about melody - it doesn't matter what genre of music you're writing, if there's a strong melodic thing somewhere, whether that's in a vocal or in a guitar part or a sample. Something that sticks in your brain, that seems to be something that works.

It was really hard to find people to come over and play guitar and sing and write songs together. So that turned me into a songwriter that way, just so I could be able to play with other people.

There are times when I want to be plainspoken about my feelings in a song. But there are other times when it's really good to try and get my head around different kinds of song structures, or maybe I might get turned on by trying to write a song that would fit in this one scene in a movie. And by the end of all this, you just end up with a bunch of different ideas. And songs are really just ideas.

I have a few songs that I'm figuring out and writing. I'm still figuring out the whole concept and how it's gonna connect to Cry Baby, but I have some ideas, yes.

When I write a song it's always from the point of view: makes the song the best it can be.

You can't write a good song about a whorehouse unless you've been in one.

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.

I have a hard time memorizing stuff. I'm always in the process of writing a new song, so trying to learn a new one takes a minute.

I've been writing a lot of songs in twos, songs that are like twins in my mind.

Sometimes I write from personal experience, but so much depends on what mood I'm in. If I'm in a good mood, I'll write happier songs.