Ben Gibbard Quotes

I've written some poetry, but...songs have to be more poetic, and I've really gotten to this non-poetic sort of writing.

People don't stress enough that when they're writing lyrics, they are writing.

Lyrics are so important, but they're really underrated.

I'm finding that writing poetry is strengthening my songwriting, because you're learning to make a piece of writing work on a page with nothing else. I was also finding within poetry I felt a lot more free to write about very different matters, to write about social issues or things that are going on around me.

I don't think I ever wrote a song. I can write a lot of jokes, but when I try to write lyrics they're the most direct, non-figurative words, like, 'I like you, I like you,'... and that's it, for the whole song. People would go, 'Ooh, this guy's Dylan or something.' It gives me a lot more respect for songwriters, actually.

You have to be a poet to know how to write a song with lyrics.

I write lyrics everyday as I go. I'm always taking notes in my phone whenever I am inspired by something. Most of my writing starts out as poetry before I put it into songs.

You don't have to be as good a writer to write a song; it's a very different process to writing straight prose. To learn how to write prose takes a lot of years of practice.

I started as a songwriter and wanted to be like Leonard Cohen. I've always seen my stories as enlarged songs.

I always loved singing and writing poetry. I always loved music, and I've loved writing my whole life. When I put them together, it was probably in my early 20s where I put words to music for the first time.

I've written poetry since I was in the first grade, and it wasn't until I was a little bit older that I realized poetry could be put to music and become a song.

I've always wanted to be a songwriter and a storyteller and somebody who conveys a feeling to the listener or the viewer.

Great song lyrics are as valid a part of American literature as any novel.

I write everything. It's my favorite part of what I do. And lyrics are my favorite thing.

Rap lyrics are really the only thing I've ever written.

So what comes naturally to me is writing lyrics and writing songs and telling stories.

I'd always tended to regard song lyrics as sort of a bastard medium because they're subjugated under the music. If you were to regard them as poetry, it would be bad, embarrassing, confessional poetry - a lot of the lyrics I love.

When you write really good lyrics - and sometimes I did! - they are just a joy to sing.

I was writing songs as a kid about leprechauns and Catwoman and teapots - whatever it is that little girls wanna sing about.

I work on words, mostly, toward them being poetry or short stories, and then some of those become songs.

Writing dialogue is like writing a song, which I've done.

I've been writing songs since I was like six or seven. I've been writing poetry and short stories and stuff, but my first serious, serious song, I wrote when I was fourteen.

I always think its easier for me to write without thinking about the strict meter that's required for songs and song structures and things like that. It's much easier to just write on the page.

I started to write songs. And I started to like what I was writing. I think it's a new way for me to express things that are closer to myself than when I play a role, because, of course, it's really not me. I'm finding a new way. I don't know what it's going to be. But I know that I will need to give it to people one day.

I think of myself as a songwriter, a weaver of story and imagination in a way that a novelist might write a book.