Leon Russell Quotes

I always start with the music and then try to figure out what I want to write about lyrically.

Everything I did on the 'Paid in Full' album and those first three albums, I wrote everything right in the studio.

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.

It takes a lot of people hours to make music because they focus so much on one thing. I just do it, and I make something you can just vibe to.

I was trying to do the same thing that I always do which is make an interesting record.

I'm not one for walking the beaches humming a melody. I love the discipline of sitting in the studio, writing and listening. That is my domain.

Ever since I picked up a bass, I've written songs.

Writing music and lyrics, you tend to become a control freak - sitting alone in your room with a bare light bulb over your head, writing communist manifestos.

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

I definitely don't sit down every day and make a new song.

I have come up with very creative ideas that really didn't work with the song I was currently composing.

I don't have any particular methodology, to tell you the truth. 'Silver Blue' took exactly the amount of time to write that it takes to sing it, and 'Prisoner in Disguise' took about a year and a half. So you just never know.

Sometimes I'll write without the guitar or the piano, but most of the time I'll be playing and just improvising some words. And when I get something that sounds good, a line with a story in it, I'll try and tease it out and figure out where the story is going.

If I try to write a song, I will completely fail to write a song. But if I'm just holding my guitar and I just start humming, then I'll have a song in an hour.

When I pick up the guitar, it's a melody, and that's what drives the lyrics. It's bits and pieces of truth, but it is storytelling.

For me, the music dictates the melody. Give me a riff to sing over, you know?

I'm working on my music - I've taken a little break from it and want to get back into that.

It all comes together. It's - that's the way it's always worked for me with songwriting.

I play guitar all the time, and I'm constantly thinking of songs... Every time I pick up a guitar, I come up with different riffs, all different bands I've been in. Sometimes there is a song or riff that could only belong with Slipknot, and I just can't use it for anything else, regardless of whatever happened.

I've finally figured out how to make a Rodney Crowell record, and that's let it be, leave the mistakes.

Beats are really inspiring. They always make me want to write something over them.

I used to write on pads with a pen but had trouble reading the words the next day. Years later, Bob Dylan taught me to just write and write on a laptop computer. Then I'd print that out. When it was time to write a song, I'd go through the pages and sing melodies to words that moved me.

Most of my collaborations, certainly post - Howard Ashman but even with Howard, are music first.

I don't think we ever really think about it when we're doing it, because if you sort of go in with a plan of attack, it tends to take away the natural rhythm of songwriting.

When I was about 14, I got a tacky keyboard for 250 pounds and put on a drum machine and found I could write a song.