Todd Rundgren Quotes

Writing songs has always been hard and easy. It's not always easy when you want it to be, and then sometimes it's just like turning on the faucet. That's just the nature of it.

Even when I don't think I'm writing, I'm writing. There's some part of my brain geared toward making songs up, and I know it's collecting things and I know when I get a moment to be by myself, that's when they come out.

I write a lot, and very often I write a couple of lines that are particularly revealing in some kind of way. And then as a few more lines get added and a piece gets added, eventually the song pretty much takes over and you can't really find a way to change those things.

Sometimes when I write songs, I don't know what they're about, and it just suddenly comes to me.

When I write songs, it happens very quickly, sometimes 10 to 15 minutes, and I draw inspiration from everything.

Sometimes, writing songs is like waiting in for deliveries. They give you a window, and your washing machine is going to show up, whether the window is the album or something you're thinking, like, 'This thing is going to come to me.'

We all love to sing, and when we sit down to write a song I think it kind of shows itself to us.

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.

No, no, the songs write themselves, almost.

There's many, many ways to write a song. But generally, sitting down at a table and writing is not one of them.

I probably wrote three-quarters of the songs without an instrument in my hands.

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.

Usually when a song comes to me, I don't ask a lot of questions; I hear something, and I just let it out in song. It's like making a salad. Everything I hear, and everything I am, I mix together in a different way in each song.

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 a song wants to be written, it will be written.

The actual writing of a song usually comes in the form of a realisation. I can't contrive a song.

I don't get my inspiration from a specific source. It's more like if you listen to a good tune, it gives me inspiration to write a better tune.

I don't think I approach my songs differently from other artists. You get a big picture of it, and you imagine the song and hear and feel it, and that big picture is like a snapshot, and it comes to you as fast as it takes to click a camera.

Sometimes I'll come up with a lick that I really love, and I'll try to put the right words to it for years. Suddenly something comes to me that works just right.

I don't think I've ever actually written from inspiration, actually had a song just go, 'Bing!' I only recall that happening to me twice - once was with 'Terrapin' and the other was 'Wharf Rat.' I mean, that's twice in a lifetime of writing!

It takes me, like, half an hour to write the lyrics for a song. They just come out.

Music comes to me more readily than words.

I just hear a beat and start mumbling words. I just hear sounds and rhythms, and it just kind of comes intuitively. Formatting a song, figuring out a flow, how I respond to the beat.

It's not hard to create a song, but to write a song that's really going affect somebody? That takes a hell of a lot of time.