Al Michaels Quotes

There's such a huge difference between a great arrangement of riffs and a song. Sometimes the two can be the same. But the difference is a song doesn't necessarily need a riff, whereas a riff doesn't necessarily mean you've got a good song on your hands.

Because if you've got the wit, you can make anything into a melody, ultimately.

There are no rules to writing a song.

A song should have all the color and beauty of every rose.

I've always thought of music as something which gives the words their flight and their wings and the music often comes first, although sometimes I'll have a concept, a title idea, a lyric idea that I want to write and the lyric will come first.

Every song has a bouquet, which is the music. If you can put words with something that is really apt, then you've done it.

The best songwriting comes from being as creative as you can and editing it down to the good bits, essentially.

I really believe in melody.

For me, making music just starts with a simple melody, and lyrics will come sometime after that.

The best songs I write in 20 minutes.

After writing quite a few songs now, I have not a method but a way of being patient with a couple of verses or a certain set of chords. I can match them up quicker now than I used to. The one thing you do improve is songwriting.

I always enjoyed writing music; things pop into my head every day.

It varies from song to song, but melody was always easy for me.

The best way to write a song is to think of something else and then the song kind of creeps in.

It doesn't really matter what chords I play, what words I say or time of day it is, as it's only a Northern Song.

Anything I can sing, I call a song. Anything I can't sing, I call a poem.

Music is first, lyrics are secondary.

Great melody over great riffs is, to me, the secret of it all.

For me it's also - the music is equally as important. I mean I think as somebody who writes music, there just has to sort of be the marriage between both.

I don't sit down to write a song, per se.

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'll sit around and play my guitar; that's how I write tunes.

But over a period of time It's the melodic things that are in my head all day.

I'm a songwriter who just wants to bring people great songs.

I'd never written a song before 'The Blood'; I didn't know it was going to be a song.