Kiesza Quotes

Not being a natural songwriter... for me the appreciation of a great song and the writers came early on, growing up in a musical family. My dad got to sing songs by some of the greatest writers of all time, Rodgers and Hammerstein.

As a songwriter, you try your best to write a good song, and you like nothing better than hearing a good song. It's easy to admire a great song, and you want to share out of enthusiasm.

Some people have said that I can 'hear' a hit song, meaning that I can tell the first time a song is played for me if it has potential. I have been able to hear some of the hits that way, but I can also 'feel' one.

I enjoy reading about the lives of musicians, and find many similarities in their ideas of preparation and their utter devotion to this great, eternal language: music.

We human beings are tuned such that we crave great melody and great lyrics. And if somebody writes a great song, it's timeless that we as humans are going to feel something for that and there's going to be a real appreciation.

There's so many great songs already written, it's kind of really wonderful you don't have to write your own.

A great song can make a terrible singer sound good, but a good singer - you put a great song on top of that, you're really in great shape!

One of my side strange abilities is to hear a good song, no matter how it's being performed. Even if you get a bad performance, I can still hear that there's a good song.

When your hair is rising, that's when you know it's a good song - that's happened to me with some artists and some songs, John Lennon songs or when Nina Simone sings. It's great to make those moments yourself.

Why would I want to sound like Joni Mitchell? I've got Joni Mitchell records, and they're great, and I couldn't possibly be that good.

It's great when you play to an audience that knows the words to all your songs, and sings them back to you.

My talent is definitely a gift. I don't understand where it comes from. I don't play an instrument, and I never went to school for music production, but I know exactly how a song should sound and how to give an artist direction.

People have made a living deconstructing Lennon and The Beatles songs because of their compositional sophistication. But what's so exciting about John is that he never had any of that training on musical theory; something just spoke to him, and he just knew what sounded right.

I don't remember consciously not being able to play an instrument. It's been kind of like a language for me.

I grew up listening to hits, and if I write something I feel, I think that's pretty mass appeal. I'm not very elitist with music. Love is universal; a great melody is universal; it goes around the world; it's not just American. A great song can touch the world.

We worked very hard to make the lyrics suit the music. I can't, like Elton John, for example, compose by lyrics. Elton has a great talent for that. Whatever you give him, including your questions, he composes in half an hour and makes a great song out of it.

If there is no music, I will perish. While I have not learnt music, I can play the tune that comes into my head on the keyboard.

It seems like if they'd given Bob Dylan a pen and paper in the cradle that he would've come up with a great song. I'd love to write songs like that.

I take enormous pleasure in seeing artists go out and sing my songs, or being in the corner of a festival, and everyone's singing along, and no one knows that you've written it.

I knew I loved music, and I knew that I could feel music. So, I knew I had rhythm.

I think all kids are creative, so I wouldn't say my kids are geniuses. But they immediately respond to music. And they've got great rhythm!

When I was in junior high school, I knew I really wanted to sing.

I was born understanding the language of music.

I think I have an instinct of, like, the right record comes knocking at my door and says, 'Want to come out to play?' and I go.

I look at bands like the Beach Boys, Hall & Oates and Blur, and those are the bands I want to be in company with because their songwriting is intelligent, and yet you don't need to be a musical genius to pick it up.