Alan Menken Quotes

There is plenty of people I'd love to collaborate with, would love to produce with, would love to write songs with.

Writing songs always trumps whatever else was on the schedule, it really is the most important and can be so fickle, you have to grab it when it's there.

This is the city that taught me how to write all of these cool songs. Yeah, you guys definitely need a royalty.

You must not you worry about leaks or pieces [stolen] on your computer. You just make songs, you gotta make music, keep stuff out. You may not know rap, but that's how it works.

I'm not one of these people who sits down and writes to say I'm gonna write a song about this or that, or a specific subject. The songs actually kind of write themselves.

People like to say their songs are like children, but you gotta get those kids out there so they can make some money and pay the rent.

I don't really know how writing process happens, how these songs are arrived at. One of the things I like about the writing process is, I don't necessarily know where it's going, and even if I think I know where it's going, it'll turn out different. I find that exciting and rewarding.

Being a producer is a very different experience than writing my own songs.

New songs are why artists go on the road. That's why I go on the road. It's a three-prong play. Writing: You're intrigued. Recording: It brings it to life. And then you want to share it.

I always felt like I could combine good pop songs that are easy for people to like with a real person and a real mind and integrity.

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

When I'm writing [songs], some days the pen just goes. I'm not in charge and I'm almost listening outside of it. That's when I realize that we all have to start looking at life as a gift. It's like listening to a color and believing that these colors have soul mates and once you get them all together the painting is complete.

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.

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

I write songs about things that I'm simultaneously trying not to think about.

I'm not done writing songs about you yet.

I'm not sure if the next song I write is going to be about love or a song about a tree.

The drumming helps a lot when I'm producing songs or writing songs. My knowledge of drums helps more in that aspect, (although) I don't know, man; I'm not great at any of them.

If you wanna write a song, ask a guitar

I don't write songs, songs write me. ... Writing a song can be agony or ecstasy. It can take half an hour or half a year. ... The popular song is America's greatest ambassador.

Blending is just like writing lyrics or finishing up the song, rearranging and arranging.

Then little writings and recordings that thankfully continue to come up. I'm in this kind of wonderful, kind of awkward, off-putting, and strange position where there's nothing I want to do more than continue to make music, but the ways that I do things are not in tune with how I can do them commercially.

I think America sees someone like myself, and they see it's not just a voice. It's the musicality of it all. People see that you can play an instrument and think you can immediately write songs.

Some people, like Leonard Cohen, write one album every 10 years, and labor over a song for five years at a time.

When I write, I'm writing as a fan, and trying to come up with songs that I would want to listen to.