J. J. Cale Quotes

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.

The day I run out of ideas is the day I stop making records.

I don't feel that all the great songs have been written. I do feel that where we are now, certainly with rock & roll music, is that so much of it is variations on themes. But I think that it's one's particular creativity and individuality that comes out within that variation on a particular theme that makes a song great.

The hardest part about writing any song is, what do you write? And how do I rewrite things? You start to run out of ideas that feel fresh.

I've got so much material; like, it feels as if every day I'm coming up with so many riffs.

There's nothing like the eureka moment of knocking off a song that didn't exist before - I won't compare it to sex, but it lasts longer.

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.

No, no, the songs write themselves, almost.

I'm always storing away phrases and ideas and things that I think might turn into songs.

Music. It's all creativity right here, right now.

Every day you can write a song but some days there is just some magic in the air and something special about the catch; other days you write all day on a song line or idea.

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

I've got so many melodies in my head.

Some songs just fall out of you. And some you have to wrestle out like an abscess.

Music is all about creativity.

It's not that I'm trying to write another '7 Years' or a new version of 'Mama Said.' Songs just kind of come out of nowhere, and you need to catch them when they do.

You can't write a song out of thin air you have to feel and know what you are writing about.

If you can't write your song in half an hour, you're in trouble - which is always true.

All the best lyrics are written in ten minutes.

When I get an idea for a song it would gel in my mind for weeks or months, and then one day just like that, Ill write it.

The hardest part is not to repeat yourself. I don't really believe my core obsessions are going to change, but you need to look for ways to express them that are different. The main reason for doing that is not to bore yourself, and obviously, I don't want to bore readers.

I can't legislate a song into being; it just will not happen for me.

For me, it would be pointless to write a novel that I knew I could complete within a specific length of time. I could do that only by repeating something I had done before, and I've never wanted to do that.

There is a formula that allows you to write a decent song. But a song like 'You're All I Need to Get By,' it just writes itself.

I love working and writing new songs. But sometimes you need to wait, to have something in your mind, and then you can let yourself play music.