M. Shadows Quotes

Sometimes a song that didn't make one record will stay in my head for so long and just won't go away. I take that as a hint to keep 'em close and not forget about them.

I probably wrote three-quarters of the songs without an instrument in my hands.

I would imagine that most of my writing is done spontaneously. I had no intention of writing, and then I'll just walk through the house, and I'll hear this melody, and I'll turn on the tape players and go back to it later on. Some days I'll get 3-5 songs a day.

Sometimes when you're writing a song, it's work, and you really have to make sure you're kind of pounding out every little piece of it. And then sometimes you write a song, and you turn around and you go, 'How did we do that?'

I don't really know where the songs are coming from often. Many of the best things I made up were just off the top of my head.

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

Everything I see and hear... I will take ideas from anyplace, anywhere, anytime, and life has become a song to me. I'm always looking for a song.

I wrote 'She's a Lady' on the back of a TWA menu, flying back from London after doing Tom Jones's TV show. Jones's manager wanted me to write him a song. If I have an idea and I don't have a pad of paper, I'll write on whatever is available. What's the difference? Paper is paper.

For me, something will come in my head and I'll either end up calling my cell phone to record it, or I'll just pick my guitar up and see what comes out. Sometimes it sucks, sometimes it doesn't. So there's really no set method behind it.

No, no, the songs write themselves, almost.

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 write songs, and I sing them. I never formulated a plan; I can't tell anyone else how to do this. But it feels right, so I just kind of enjoy it and get on with it.

Even when I don't think I'm writing, I'm writing. There's some part of my brain geared toward making songs up, and I know it's collecting things and I know when I get a moment to be by myself, that's when they come out.

Sometimes I get ideas for lyrics in anyplace, but I work a lot in the studio. So I collect little bits of lyrics. I go through the box of lyrics I have and see if something fits.

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.

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

I'm a songwriter. I need silence to hear the melodies, so I don't fill the days with a lot of sound.

I've already got notebooks full of ideas for new music, so I'm gonna kind of nurture that just like I do all of my ideas and perfect it until it's ready and then I'll just let it go.

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

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.

Rap is something you can just throw on the skillet and fry up real quick. That's how it comes to me, my train of thought. It's like getting dressed - I don't have to sit down and stare at clothes, I just pick what I like and put it on. But rock, you gotta put it in the oven and let it bake.

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

I'm always writing; my phone is full of ideas - melodies and lyrics and stuff.

The great songs just come out. If it comes quick, just leave it that way.

I didn't really know what I was doing when I started. I just started writing songs. After two songs I just continued to explore it.