Mary Gauthier Quotes

There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few.

When I finish a picture I don't show it to anyone if I feel it's not good enough yet. I've learnt to listen to my partners and my friends. For me it's the biggest success if they like it.

I'm always writing. And, I mean, I always counsel people when they call me a musician: I really do not have the skills of a musician. I really don't think like a musician, though I love music and I perform and sing.

I'd rather sing a good lyric written by someone else than one of my own that is terrible.

I sometimes make pictures which are not up to my standard, but then it can only be said of a mediocrity that all his work is up to his standard.

That's the nice thing about being a live act. I can get the audience, but it's for the moment. It's like, 'Can I do it tonight?' And you can see when people like you. But on record - and with the pen - it's almost for all time. Really, a lot more thought has to go into it.

I used to play works in progress to people, but now I wait 'til it's finished, because you make excuses all the time: 'Well, there's gonna be an orchestra on it.' Rather than make excuses, wait 'til it's finished, and then they can say they don't like it.

When you write songs, you can't really point out the exact thing you're inspired by. It's more a state or a mood or an atmosphere that you're trying to put into words.

I started as a songwriter and wanted to be like Leonard Cohen. I've always seen my stories as enlarged songs.

It's pretty amazing to write under any circumstances when someone gives you an assignment to write a song, even if it doesn't get accepted. I've written songs a couple of times, some for Disney, that haven't actually ended up in their films, but then you're left with a song forever.

When you produce an album, you're dealing with it theatrically. It has to have a structure, and the inner response to that is that the ear loves it.

Tones sound, and roar and storm about me until I have set them down in notes.

I saw I could rhyme words. It came simply to me. But I wrote some pretty horrible songs that I still have on tape.

For example, after developing a sound similar to an elephant trumpeting, I wrote the song Elephant Talk which gave my elephant sound an appropriate place to live.

When it comes to lyrics, I just write down a lot of things, and only a very tiny fraction of it, I think, is any good.

It's not like making records is terrible. Still, I do find the writing of the songs and the live shows to be the things that give you the most clear picture of what it's all about.

I find it harder to write the lyrics afterwards because then you're just trying to fit them into something that's already there.

I write a lot of rhymes, but I don't really end up using them a lot of times, and I end up just freestyling. I like to write music, though, more than I like to freestyle, to be honest.

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

To be honest, I rewrote 'Wicked Nights' a number of times. I just wasn't happy with the end result.

A lot of the songs I've recorded are songs I write.

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.

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

The first set of lyrics for the first songs I ever wrote, which are the ones on 'Pretty Hate Machine,' came from private journal entries that I realized I was writing in lyric form.

Writing for somebody else is really fun 'cause I consider myself a songwriter first and foremost.