Benjamin Clementine Quotes

Songwriting has become such a big part of what I do that emotions and the melodies that accompany them blur into one.

I don't know what makes a guy want to write songs and sing, but if you've got a message, you want to get it across. When I come up with an idea about the way I feel, I can really state it strongly in a song.

In songwriting, I needed language. And I always believed in singing about what I do.

Most of the songs I wrote are personal.

That's the great thing about songwriting: You have that time to have perspective and look back and think about all the things you'd want to say.

The act of song writing and recording became one and the same to me; because I essentially recorded everything I did from the day I began trying to write songs. I've always had a lot to say. I'd always written poems.

I never have used any other artist as a model for a sound or a song. It always has to come from an emotion, and capturing the essence of that emotion in a song.

Every song I've ever written always starts with the words because I want the music to be the musical extension of the feelings of the words, and not the words being the emotional extension of the feeling of the music.

You never know what's going to play into what's worthy of getting encapsulated into a song.

My songwriting process, and maybe loads of other people's, is just this sort of smashing together of emotions and stuff to make some music. It's kind of simple and really complex at the same time and, as you can see, incredibly hard to explain.

Rap is just somebody getting something off his chest. That's all it is.

The thing I always default to is that I'll always be here to write songs.

I'm the only instrument that's got the words, so I've got to be able to get that across.

I'm not the best person at putting words together. I can't give you the melody. But I might inspire somebody.

I wouldn't say that my songs are autobiographical.

I would say that I'm more moved by melody, even though I love to rap.

That's what we get to do as songwriters, right? You get to explore stuff.

When I hear somebody like Hayes Carll write a song that's touching and poignant and sad and funny all at the same time, it motivates me to step my game up and try to figure out a way to get more different emotions into one line or one song.

I am an open book through the songwriting.

I'd say, at the end of the day, you know, from a songwriting practice standpoint, you write songs to make yourself feel something true and validating, and cathartic, maybe, and then whoever responds to it is, like, out of your control.

Songs do write themselves through you; I know people find it hard to believe, but it's true.

I want people to really recognize that this is what I am naturally good at: I'm really good at making music and describing your feelings vicariously through my experiences, through my past and my future. I want people to relate to me in multiple ways and be versatile in my music.

Songwriting I think, or any art form, the inspiration comes from your personal life or it can be from politics or region you live in.

I don't know, I've always written songs that are mainly about attitude, not me personally.

All my songs encapsulate a particular emotion.