Ahmet Ertegun Quotes

Things like 'Lucky Man' were never written to even be a record, let alone a hit record.

I've never written a song that I thought was a hit.

It's rare when you stumble upon this amazing melody. We'd love to make a 'Let Me Love You' every time we go into the studio, but it's definitely a special one.

Let Me Love You' is one of my favorite records from my catalogue. It's one of those songs that just happened magically.

I like being in a recording studio. I like watching a song go from the simplicity of the original music.

The act of song writing and recording became one and the same to me; because I essentially recorded everything I did from the day I began trying to write songs. I've always had a lot to say. I'd always written poems.

It's hard to know exactly what it sounds like to me. I'm in the studio and I write it. and that's it.

When you first start writing a song, it's fun, then when you start recording it, it's fun, but by the time you've finished recording it, you're sick of it.

The first record we put out on Fueled by Ramon, 'The Papercut Chronicles,' we had no idea what the term 'producer' meant. It was just us writing songs, and we are trying to go back to that - singing in a room and vibing off each other.

Mike Campbell and Don Henley and I wrote 'The Heart of the Matter,' which was a huge hit for Don.

I record stuff all the time, like little vocal things. I write random things down... Sometimes I just get things stuck in my head and I record them, and that actually becomes a song quite a lot of the time.

Sometimes, I make 50 songs and pick out the best 10. I've been in the studio all day, all night, making the beat, writing the raps. You never know what's gonna be a hit.

The big thing that everyone forgets, you're famous and on TV and everything, but I think there's something very rewarding to be able to write a song, record it, and have it turn out as you heard it in your head, or even better.

You get some confidence in your songwriting abilities and go for the essentials - guitar, bass, drums, vocals. Those are the basic band essentials that have to be in place before you go any further.

I think that every song has to be like it could be the biggest hit of my album.

I was invited to L.A. when I was 16 for a weekend-long songwriting session by a writer I had met through my voice teacher in Pittsburgh. My first hit, 'Hide Away,' was one of the songs written during those sessions. It was played for a radio rep who then started a new label; the song got a pretty organic start at radio and then took off.

Big Pop songs are born of inspiration and spontaneity. The question becomes how do you create spontaneity when you're going into the studio five days a week?

I got really hooked on this riff in the middle of this song called 'Minor Miracles' by my friend Eric Johnson from Fruit Bats. I got the tracks for that from him, and that turned into 'Here in Spirit.'

I have some lofty goals. I want 'You Broke Up With Me' to go Number One.

Once I got into pop songwriting, I was kind of just ready to help other people tell their stories... I'm here to facilitate and structure and grow and make things a little more fabulous and a little more urgent.

It takes so much energy and time to make one song perfect.

I always knew 'My Dawg' would be a hit, but I didn't even know what a hit was. When I made the song I knew it sounded hard.

What's cool about making music is when you create a record, it comes from somewhere.

I tend to have a lot of songs ready for each record I do anyway. I always have. I was thinking, the more you write, the better chance you're going to come up with a collection of stuff that is going to work together.

It's every songwriter's dream to come up with a standard.