Tom Araya Quotes

I'd say almost that words come first, melody second.

I write lyrics based on music, on a musical flow, and what sounds good at the time.

I started to write my own stories, like small novels, and those novels became poems, and after poems, they became lyrics, and song came from that.

I would write poems and think up melodies to them later.

For me, making music just starts with a simple melody, and lyrics will come sometime after that.

I really wanted to work hard on my lyrics.

Writing music is just like writing a book.

It's not just music. To me, it's songwriting more than anything. A lot of people say it's expression, but to me, it's more than that.

People don't stress enough that when they're writing lyrics, they are writing.

I fell into lyric writing because of music. I backed into it.

Yes, basically, like you said, I'll work out a chord pattern and work out the lyrics over that.

I'm always writing something. There's always some structure sitting around someplace. There's always things on the computer, things scratched on score paper, legal tablets full of lyrics. It's never not buzzing around me all the time. I'm always doing it.

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.

I know already the music I will write. But the words? I have not yet decided.

At times I have a beat first and then I write. Sometimes I have a melody in my head and I pick up the guitar to develop the song. Other times I just write without any melodies, and I end up using those lyrics when I think I have the appropriate instrumental that would bring out and depict the emotions of what I have written.

I don't write poems and put them to music. Just let things flow.

It's important to have good tunes, but words are the thing for me.

I was never a 'sit down with a notepad and write lyrics' kind of person.

The music is the main thing and it's just as easy to write acceptable words.

I have always written poetry but I have never applied it to songwriting.

If you can say the lyrics almost like a poem and they stand up, that's a great thing. Some songs have great lyrics and I don't like the melodies, and vice versa.

I'll write lines or words in a notepad. You work on little things and little parts; sometimes they turn into bigger songs.

I always wrote poetry and stuff like that, so putting songs together wasn't that spectacular.

I'm not like a professional writer with professional skills. Songs kind of come into my head the same way they did when I was a kid. I say I'm an overgrown kindergarten kid. I work on songs.

I write everything. It's my favorite part of what I do. And lyrics are my favorite thing.