Melanie Martinez Quotes

I have a few songs that I'm figuring out and writing. I'm still figuring out the whole concept and how it's gonna connect to Cry Baby, but I have some ideas, yes.

Songwriting is ... all about intuition - this thing pops into your head for a reason and it's up to you to follow it. It's like there's a spirit, or intuitive network, that comes through all of us, but most people don't take the time to think about it or remember it. These little things pop into our heads - it's just a process of intuition. The initial thought comes in a baby state, and you work on that some more.

When you sit down and write a song, you kind of have the idea for the song, and you sit there at the piano and you kinda just write it. And then of course later there's some dinking around with it and changing some stuff. But there's this thing that happens when the song first comes out, that sort of magic when it first comes out of the ether, and you can't even really explain where it comes from. That happens so much with music, and people understand that with music. But I really think that a lot of movie and TV should be the same way.

When I'm writing, I'm focusing more on just the basic melody and the lyrics.

I think all of my songs are either based on personal experience or will be based on personal experience, because I do write a lot of songs prophetically.

If you wanna write a song, ask a guitar

All of a sudden there's a song - there in your hotel room playing your guitar - and you write it, and two or three years later it will come true. It keeps you on your toes.

I've been writing a lot of songs in twos, songs that are like twins in my mind.

When I write, I tend toward melancholy, and the few times that I've tried pure joy in music, it doesn't really work that well. The joy can be through catharsis. I think that's what I do well, and observation.

I think what I wanted to do was meet someone who knew more than me about songwriting structure and progressions and middle eights and things that more traditional writers write and I don't usually employ.

I think that, when you're writing your songs, there's always a debate about whether, is that you in the song? Is it not you in the song?

I love writing every song I can like a little mini movie. I like to have a character, or some characters, and really paint a picture with the song.

A lot of times I have the song inside of me and I have to fight to get it out. I'm a very visual person, so I can see the song but I can't hear it. But I think that if your music becomes a war for it to happen, in the end there's a certain kind of aggression in the music. And I think that's a lot more interesting.

It's rather mystifying when you think about writing songs - where they come from, and how they're born.

I look at the film without any music or sound. I try to grasp the story from the screenplay. I try to write to the novel or book if there is one. I try to create music that's honest and true to my heart for the story.

I try not to think the song to death. The main criteria is if it's working on an emotional level.

If I write songs and I think they sound good, then that's it. That's what I do. I'm not a technical musician, which is fine for rock and roll.

It's so difficult to write good music. It's also really difficult to think about how to do it without violating the sanctity of the fourth wall.

You think you photograph a particular scene for the pleasure it gives. In fact it's the scene that wants to be photographed. You're merely an extra in the production.

The songs that I sing and the songs that I write have always just been what I feel my voice does well, and what my inspirations have been and a kind of culmination of everything.

I think it's good to have a balance. Everything I write about, it's not something I necessarily might have went through, there's songs where I might have an idea, sometimes it might be a melody or something that I like, I make up a story to go with that melody. But I do think it's most important to have honest songs.

When you write, what's going on in your life shines through in the songs.

I think there are a lot of similarities between writing and music. Music is much more direct and much more emotional and that's the level I want to be at when I'm writing. Writing is much more intellectual and indirect and abstract, in a way.

I don't think that writers or painters or filmmakers function because they have something they particularly want to say. They have something that they feel. And they like the art form; they like words, or the smell of paint, or celluloid and photographic images and working with actors. I don't think that any genuine artist has ever been oriented by some didactic point of view, even if he thought he was.

I am always writing music. I have got unlimited ideas because I have been clean and sober for my entire life.