Harry Nilsson Quotes

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.

I don't know where my songs come from... If I knew, I'd know too much, more than we are allowed on this plane.

I don't choose the songs; the songs choose me.

When I sit down to make music, I try to enter a flow; I always open a blank session and just make something that I feel like making.

People ask me how I make music. I tell them I just step into it. It's like stepping into a river and joining the flow. Every moment in the river has its song.

You don’t think when you play music, you just try to play and be in it. It is the same for me when the writing is going really well. It’s the same kind of feeling. I’m just in it. It’s not the words, it’s not the sentences, I’m not aware of it. Then it’s good.

When composing music, I just start spilling things out and then wait until they take form, you know what I mean, until I see like a common thread or something.

I'm kind of lucky in the fact that I can take something that's in my head and write it down, or I can listen to a piece of music that somebody else has written and try to tap into what the music's saying and just kind of follow that, you know. I mean, nine times out of 10, I'm just kind of following where the music takes me.

I think good artists know when they're on a roll, and they recognize when lightning is striking. It's a very fortunate thing to have that inspiration and not to overanalyze it or mess with it; you just follow it if you love what you do.

Don't play the saxophone. Let it play you.

No, no, the songs write themselves, almost.

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.

Tones sound, and roar and storm about me until I have set them down in notes.

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.

I've gone periods of maybe four months without writing anything, but it's not a problem. It just means something's building inside you, and it'll build and it'll build, and at some point it'll come out, and it does, and it usually comes out in three or four songs, and you play it that way, really.

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

Sporadic thoughts will pop into my head and I'll have to go write something down, and the next thing you know I've written a whole song in an hour.

None of my books has been ever in my head; after they're finished, they go. It's like being a sort of medium; you just grab it when it's there then just release it when it's time to go. There's a lot of instinct, not planning.

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

I don't get my inspiration from a specific source. It's more like if you listen to a good tune, it gives me inspiration to write a better tune.

I never think about rhythm versus melody; I've always just played to what's in my head.

I stand firm behind the belief that, for me, songwriting isn't something that I do or command, it happens to me. I can either choose to stop and acknowledge it, or put it off and hope that it won't fade away. 'That Wasn't Me' is no exception - it came together more quickly than any other song I have ever constructed on my own.

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.

Ultimately, at the end of it, it's just trying to get into that space where you feel like you're hitting the right thing and you're making music. And it feels intuitive rather than being counterintuitive.

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.