Neil Innes Quotes

The classic, quote/unquote, craft of songwriting still works; it still is relevant.

Usually when I write a song, I'll write the music and then kind of fit some words to it.

I generally, you know, I don't - I don't really scat. I'm - I'm basically a songwriter so you need a little lyrics that rhyme and stuff.

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.

I don't really know that there's any real rules for songwriting.

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

Freddie and Brian tend to write the majority of the material.

I try to read a lot and listen to a lot of good songwriters, and I try to actually work on the craft of writing a song rather than just leaving it up to inspiration.

I started playing guitar when I was 13. I'd written a few songs on the guitar over some time. I'd written a book of poetry, and I got a book of lyrics that I had when I was a kid.

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

I'm a songwriter.

A lot of things come together to make up a song. It's just images.

I've always thought of music as something which gives the words their flight and their wings and the music often comes first, although sometimes I'll have a concept, a title idea, a lyric idea that I want to write and the lyric will come first.

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

Every song has a bouquet, which is the music. If you can put words with something that is really apt, then you've done it.

It doesn't take me long to write songs.

A lot of the great songwriters in history have been collaborators, with a separate lyricist.

I have to have a guitar sitting around. I sing in the shower. I sing around the house. The music comes secondary. The lyrics come first.

Songwriting's a weird game.

I never write from concept. The beat is the beginning, and then I fill in the rest of the song into what it should be.

I think my favorite thing is songwriting.

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

In my songs, I'm not saying something that's never been said before. The have lyrics aren't going to blow people away. It's the emotion and the melody that drive it home.

The lyrics are always the last thing I do. I always have a recording of basic tracks and maybe some of the lead work. I'll sit back and listen to it, and I'll just concentrate on what kind of feeling it gives me. My goal writing the lyrics is to not disrupt that feeling.

I am really heavy into songwriting.