Sarah McLachlan Quotes

I know already the music I will write. But the words? I have not yet decided.

For me, making music just starts with a simple melody, and lyrics will come sometime after that.

I don't write poems and put them to music. Just let things flow.

I think I need the demons in order to write, but the demons have gone. It bothers me a lot. I've tried and tried, but I just can't seem to find a melody.

I find lyrics can come at any time during the day, as can music.

I've always thought of music as something which gives the words their flight and their wings and the music often comes first, although sometimes I'll have a concept, a title idea, a lyric idea that I want to write and the lyric will come first.

Every song has a bouquet, which is the music. If you can put words with something that is really apt, then you've done it.

We all love to sing, and when we sit down to write a song I think it kind of shows itself to us.

But then you have to write a song, so at that point, I picked up the reins and started to write lyrics.

Every song I've ever written always starts with the words because I want the music to be the musical extension of the feelings of the words, and not the words being the emotional extension of the feeling of the music.

It's a big plethora of music floating around in my head all the time, and I'll sit there and write a song.

I don't write poetry and then strum some chords and then fit the words on top of the chords.

I think there are some songwriters who are just brilliant who can write and then I think there are some songwriters who can like me I have a problem writing chorus lyrics but I can write a song in a story like that.

Sometimes I get a lyric, and the lyric, you know, comes off the page, and goes into my brain and comes out with a melody. Other times, I may create a melody first.

We all write the music, and then Mark and Tom write the lyrics.

With writing a song, I've always felt, right from the start, like I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel. I don't ever feel there's a font of ideas to fall back on.

There are some songs where I'll have had the music for 20 years and then finally the lyric will come through. That's not common but it does happen. Then there are other songs that come really quickly.

Usually when I write a song, I'll write the music and then kind of fit some words to it.

Sometimes I'll come up with a lick that I really love, and I'll try to put the right words to it for years. Suddenly something comes to me that works just right.

I start with the subject matter I want to write about. Then I make a musical base for that and create an atmosphere with the music. Once I've done that, the lyrics come last.

With 'Light,' I collaborated with a lot of different producers and musicians I respected, and we all wrote and worked on material which I then took to an old-school producer, David Kahne, and we put it all together. The lyrics came first - they were written before the music.

I compose my own stuff. I've been writing songs with words. I've been playing more on the keyboard because I can transpose it to sheet music on the computer.

It's really hard for me to finish a song unless I have a strong visual in my head while I'm writing it.

I usually start with a lyric and see where that takes me.

I guess I started writing poetry and stuff and then decided to set it to music.