Jens Lekman Quotes

U2 is sort of song writing by accident really. We don't really know what we're doing and when we do, it doesn't seem to help.

I just start playing music and eventually I sing something, a line of a verse or a B section or a line of a chorus, and the line that I end up singing is related to the music I'm playing, if that makes any sense. And I go from there.

Music is supposed to be inspired.

The way I did the first album... the way I wrote 'Church'... was just to trust my instincts with the music and let it kind of do what it does.

Music to me is spontaneous, writing is spontaneous and it's all based on not trying to do it. From beginning to end, whether it's writing a song, or playing guitar, or a particular chord sequence, or blowing a horn, it's based on improvisation and spontaneity.

Everything was a song. Every conversation, every personal hurt, every observance of people in stress, happiness and love... if you could feel it, I could feel it. And I could write a song about it.

When you find a song that you love, you just have to do it - why would I try to match it? When I wrote more of the songs in the '90s - 'Nick of Time' and other songs I was surprised I came up with - it was because nobody else was saying what I wanted to say.

Most songs I write are spur-of-the-moment-type things. I have to be spontaneous. If not, songwriting can bore me. There is no pre-design or idea of what I am going to do when I go into the studio. It's all like that for me. I could go in and write two or three songs in an eight-hour session. You can't over-think songs. You just can't.

I love to create, and to me, the ultimate freedom of expression is a blank canvas or a block of clay to capture whatever emotions your imagination gives it.

When I'm writing a song, I'm just making stuff up as I go along.

Sometimes it works. Sometimes I feel like playing 'Hospital'. Sometimes I feel like playing 'Pablo Picasso'. I've been playing a lot lately. I do it as long as I feel like it.

I'm by no means a pianist. I think that's safe to say, but the piano, for me, I would say it's the enabler. It gave me what I needed and gives me what I need in order to write a song. And I think playing or improvising on the piano is where I feel most liberated and sort of less conscious of all my insecurities or inadequacies.

I think it's important to really press on with the song writing and just go with it. There's no code, there's no craft... it's just let yourself shine through your music. If it's meant to be loved and heard, it'll happen.

When I start writing songs and it turns into an overly belabored intellectual process, I just throw it out.

When I start playing I'm just a rollercoaster of sound. I don't know what's coming next, I never do, and I sit and sign and talk to the people afterwards.

Country has been a wonderful outlet for me.

Any talk of 'craft' makes me laugh. My music looks outward; it does not gaze upon itself in admiration. Artisanal is for cheesemakers. I don't know anything about music theory. Every time I approach my guitar, it's like the first time. There's no craft in that.

Composing is my life blood.

Stone walls confine a tinker; cold iron binds a witch; but a musician's music can never be fettered, for it lives first in her heart and mind.

When I put my brush to canvas, I never know what I'm going to paint. It's like when you're walking down the street with your hands in your pockets, humming a tune, you don't know what you'll be humming five minutes from now.

I think it's all about making records when you're inspired to make them.

I was driving home and thinking about what rock and roll should be about. 'Adventure and Trouble!' I thought. I sang the song first and then added the chords later.

I feel like there are things that inspire the music, and then there's the music itself. I don't feel like I always need to force them together.

Every time somebody asks me, 'Oh, when you mix your own music, what are you going to make?' And I don't know.

I'm a traveler and a vagabond and an observer, and the songs come through that. And that's just the way it's going to be.