Lauren Mayberry Quotes

Even if I'm writing music, it's with a lyric in mind, to communicate some kind of feeling.

It must have been when I was 14 or 15 that I started tentatively writing songs and was able to convey an emotion and a lyric with what I wanted to say.

I try to write catchy hooks but, at the same time, things that mean something that will provoke thought.

I wanted to write some lyrics that had some meaning to them, lyrics that were meaningful to me and hopefully people can take something from that.

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.

The first set of lyrics for the first songs I ever wrote, which are the ones on 'Pretty Hate Machine,' came from private journal entries that I realized I was writing in lyric form.

We singers have a different level of responsibility from other musicians. We have words that we must convey; we have meanings that we must convey through these lyrics.

I am a songwriter. I do get to put my personal experiences in song.

The hardest song to write is a protest song, a topical song with meaning.

We didn't want to worry about the formula that has been implanted into our brains - this verse/pre-chorus/chorus format. When we were writing 'The Papercut Chronicles,' we had no idea about any of that. We didn't know how to count bars or how to write what's considered a well-formatted pop song.

I have a tape recorder, and I just sing into it. I like to write that way. Sometimes I'll just get melodic ideas, and then I'll go home and sit down and add the lyrics. Or sometimes I'll get a lyric idea that I love. Usually it's pretty combined. Usually I get some kind of a lyrical concept and a melody and work with that.

I think most of the work of songwriting is thinking of great phrases - I'm addicted, always on the hunt for a really great phrase.

I don't think writing open-ended lyrics is necessarily an important part of writing good pop songs.

I guess I started writing poetry and stuff and then decided to set it to music.

The way to write really good songs is to write about the things that happen in your life and where you are in the moment, and writing about stuff that happens in your 30s is not the sexiest song subject.

I'm a very emotional singer and songwriter.

The stories in the songs come from my real life.

I always wanted to be an artist; being a songwriter for myself was always a must but being a songwriter for others has been a bonus.

It's hard to write a song about reality because reality doesn't rhyme.

Usually, my rhymes are just in my head. I start off with a theme, and once I start rapping and writing and singing, the chorus and all that, it just starts flowing. Then it's done in about an hour! I write a lot of songs.

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

I've always felt that some of my best lyrics are less than three minutes long, and it's great when you can do that - be succinct and get the message across in a simple, clear idea.

I always saw songwriting as the top of the heap. No matter what else you were going to do creatively - and there were a lot of choices - writing songs was king.

It's pretty amazing to write under any circumstances when someone gives you an assignment to write a song, even if it doesn't get accepted. I've written songs a couple of times, some for Disney, that haven't actually ended up in their films, but then you're left with a song forever.

I remember Tim telling me that he had an idea for a musical and he said to me that he was hoping that ABBA would be writing the music, which I thought was a pretty wild idea because they were obviously known very much as pop writers.