Paul Simon Quotes

As a songwriter, you try your best to write a good song, and you like nothing better than hearing a good song. It's easy to admire a great song, and you want to share out of enthusiasm.

I'm very lucky; I have a lot of knowledge. My favorite band is The Beatles, so a lot of inspiration for my music comes from them, too.

As far as songwriting, I'm not sure if they wrote all of their own stuff, but I love the Dixie Chicks.

The Bee Gees who are brilliant, I just love great music.

I love Ray Charles. He can still teach everybody a lot about how to make great music. Not necessarily how to make hits, but how to make great music. Of course, part of it is his incredible talent. Who are the greatest jazz singers in the world? Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and Ray Charles.

I didn't want to be a solo Westlife - covers and ballads - and the reason I signed with Capitol Records was because they wanted me to write songs myself. It was pretty scary, but they put me in a studio in Nashville with some new songwriters, and the results were pretty good.

I started playing guitar at, like, 12 or 13 and just rock bands mostly. I had a punk rock band and hard core bands and all that.

I mean, there are so many of his songs that I like that I could easily do that one day.

I like a composer called Henry Purcell, and I love to listen to Neil Young.

Being on 'Nashville' and working with some incredible people like T-Bone Burnett and Buddy Miller - so many wonderful, incredible musicians that I've been blessed to play with and observe - that has continued to shape the process of arranging music, writing music.

If you don't write good music, people aren't going to listen to anything you say.

I think I always had a musicality, and I think I could tell a good song from a bad song. And I would appreciate hearing something that was new to me.

I am permanently a student of people who make great songs, but besides sort of learning by absorption, I just love listening to music, hearing what's going on, hearing new things or new old things.

I know great songwriters. Fred Neil would come up when he was in L.A., we all used to hang out. He would sit there and sing, and we would just melt. I mean, we would go to his recording sessions.

To be a good musician, you need to give people what they want, what they need.

I had this talent for these stupid little teenage songs.

I love Frank Ocean. I think he's so talented and his music is so great. So, I would love to do one of his songs like 'Bad Religion' or 'Pink Matter.'

I did this thing with Trisha Yearwood, a song called 'The Price.' I had been sitting on it for a while, because I figured, you know, this really needs a good singer.

Anyone who takes the craft of songwriting seriously I radiate towards. Spending time with Daryl Hall was a dream come true. I picked his brain a lot because Hall And Oats is timeless.

I listened to country music my whole life. I started writing music when I was a teenager. It all came out country.

I don't care if it's a Cole Porter song, or George Gershwin, or Lennon/McCartney, or Elton John, or you know, whoever, Bob Dylan. Great songs are great songs, and they stand the test of time, and they can be interpreted and recorded with many points of view, but yet still retain the essence of what makes them good songs.

I love Emmylou Harris's version of my song, 'Sweet Old World.' Her intonation is great.

When I write, I don't really focus on duets or anything like that or whether I'm going to feature this or that rapper. I just focus on just making a great song and figure out the rest later.

Musically, I'm always inspired by the legends like Barbra Streisand.

I love Frank Ocean. For me, 'Channel Orange' is the best LP ever. I love his voice, the songwriting, everything.