John Fogerty Quotes

For me to create an album of 12 songs, I've got to write about 80 songs. Half of those are totally weird and rubbish. But I get to some really good stuff after a while.

Every song you write you think is the last one you're going to manage. You put everything you've got into the song, and you've twisted it and pulled at it and dug in and found a way to complete it. To get another one is the trick.

You know, I've released some great records and I've released some dogs. But frankly, the fun is in creating the thing.

I just do what I do. I like to make music.

I think that the process of making music is a hard one to describe as well.

When it comes to lyrics, I just write down a lot of things, and only a very tiny fraction of it, I think, is any good.

I just don't think you can make records easily and have them be great. It's a process. You've got to get really lucky all the time, or you've got to work like mad.

I'm so hard on myself that when I'm in the studio, I'll write 10 songs and only use one. So those nine songs that are left over, I always think, 'Where could these go? Who could they be for?'

When you're a producer and an artist you're very critical of yourself. I like to produce other people, but I'm not that good at producing myself.

My whole goal is to make good records and keep myself inspired and able to accomplish what I need to accomplish.

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.'

We just wrote songs that seemed good to us. We wrote the album in like two weeks. We could have had more time, but we accomplished what we needed to in the two weeks.

I was just writing songs because, if a song shows up, you've gotta write it. I didn't know what to do with them. I didn't have any faith in my voice.

I work very hard on getting the songs as direct and examined as I can before I go in the studio.

I love making music. I love being involved in arranging music. It's very natural to know what I want to hear next and come up with ideas that are variations of what might be good.

I've written more songs for this record than I ever have in the past so I'm trying to give it a lot of special attention to be sure my ideas really get translated right.

I just want to make the best music I can make.

To me, I don't care if I co-write or if I write alone. If it's a great song and it makes it to the record, then that's what is supposed to come, you know what I mean.

I don't sit down to write a number one hit. I'm not that good at my job - I don't know how to do that.

I'm not a machine that just comes up with records and can give them away easily.

There are no calculations in the records I make. I record as many songs as I can. Songs that I think are my best.

It takes me a lot of time, and it's almost frustrating for the guys sometimes because they're waiting for a new song. And I - it's just so important for me to get the perfect, exact, right song.

Songwriting is a very frustrating art form. You have to get on tape exactly what's playing inside your head

I've never written a song that I thought was a hit.

You have got to make new music, that is the way that I look at it anyway.