Hozier Quotes

There's always a group of songs that I'm working at. Some of them are 10 years old, and some of them are just a few weeks old. I'm always trying to adjust these songs to some position where I can bring them to completion.

My initial ideas are just a starting place. As a record goes along, it becomes more about making discoveries and getting excited about new songs.

Writing songs has always been hard and easy. It's not always easy when you want it to be, and then sometimes it's just like turning on the faucet. That's just the nature of it.

I always think that you should be striving to write your best song.

I write a melody and then change it and change it until I get it the way I like it.

The studio is a place where I can experiment before I'm prepared for an idea to become a body of work, or a new way of working, or a way of working that can sustain me over a period of time.

I'm always writing lyrics. I have so many lyrics on so many stray pieces of paper. Everywhere.

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

I just get an idea and then all of a sudden I've got a song.

A lot of times, I don't feel responsible for the songs myself. But that's my job or my place in life: to keep my search and catch the ideas before they pass me by.

Once I come up with the concept, the rest of the song just comes.

Most people think an artist tries to be original, but originality is the last thing that develops in the artist.

I write a lot, and very often I write a couple of lines that are particularly revealing in some kind of way. And then as a few more lines get added and a piece gets added, eventually the song pretty much takes over and you can't really find a way to change those things.

A collection is not just one basic idea. It comes from something that is in the air, something you suddenly like and put down on paper and then work out.

Every time you write a song, you're looking for some sort of perfection, and you never quite reach it. You're always looking for that extra missing piece.

Usually one or two things happen: Either you have an idea straightaway - the sort of sound that you want or the instrumentation or one particular sound that you want to feature - or you don't.

The thing I ran up against was everybody wanted a song so fast. It took me two years to finish 'Touch Me in the Morning.'

Songwriting is kind of like a craft. It's not something that just comes in a dream. You've got to work at it.

There definitely isn't a structure anymore to how I get ideas. A lot of times I'll just write down a phrase, or I'll have an idea that's attached to just a few chords. Other times, it's work.

I always treat each take as a rehearsal for the next take. That way you can find stuff and keep adding and playing until they tell me to stop.

There's always ideas buzzing around, but it's whether they actually end up materialising into a song.

If you are afflicted with an artistic feeling, it's just perfecting something.

A lot of times, a bunch of songs have to be written to get to the next really good one.

I call it a process of elimination. You're nurturing ideas, and that takes time. What happens is there's so many, what I say, 'great ideas.' What you have to do is try to consolidate them and put them into one song, and then your song becomes eight minutes long.

I have a huge note on my phone where things just start popping up. It doesn't make that much sense to me at the time, but once a song is finished, I can read into it and figure out who the characters are in my life.