Alex Kapranos Quotes

If I get an idea for a song, I have a melody for it. I'm a musician first. I'm not limited by the fretboard.

I get like a melody that comes up and I try to write it down or record it. Hum it into a tape recorder or write it down on some manuscript paper. It could happen at any time, on the road or off the road, but mostly, you know, at home.

I have a lot of memos in my phone of songs; I've had dreams about a melody. It's always melody first as far as when stuff like that happens - I find that my melodic sense is my strongest asset as a songwriter.

I wouldn't sit down and work at writing a song like a novelist or something.

Songs seem to always spring from improvisation.

Melody is the first thing that comes to me when I'm songwriting. I learned piano classically first, and then I went into soul, and so melody has always been the first. It's so important.

Writing a song is like - you're writing a song all the time. It's just when it pops out. It's been there all the time. It's not something that suddenly you do it. It's always there. Suddenly, it's in the right mixture inside you to come out. Usually when you're writing on the piano or a guitar, you don't write in lyrics, on their own. To me it's very boring.

No, no, the songs write themselves, almost.

It's no longer necessary to slave over the vocals. I don't sing the lyrics until I write them, and singing is the very last thing I do. I record the entire track, and then I worry about lyrics and vocals. The music will suggest where the words are going to a certain extent.

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

I'm not going to put out a Christmas CD until it's coming out of me naturally.

I never set out to write a certain kind of song, I just play my guitar and see if I catch something.

One day a whole damn song fell into place in my head.

I mean Gorilla was really our first sort of goes at songwriting.

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.

Music has to be written while people are still excited about a particular melodic or rhythmic sequence. The idea doesn't come out the same if we're not really excited about it.

When I write songs, it's very random. I get influenced by the most random things! Sometimes it just comes to me in my sleep or just hanging out in a restaurant or something. Music just comes to me, and I'll start writing from there.

Whenever I start writing, I try to put together songs that feed the feeling of the movie.

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

R. Kelly is different - music is always going through his brain. I remember we'd be having a conversation, and he'd choose a word I said and write a whole song to it.

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

I always start with writing vocal melodies before writing lyrics.

I'm a songwriter; it's in my nature to express things openly.

There was never an 'a-ha' moment when a spider bit me and I knew I could write songs. For that reason, I don't know if I'm always going to be able to. I want to write songs forever, but it's an elusive thing.

I think there are ways a place can sneak its way into a song, or a feeling that you take into the studio.