Leo Sayer Quotes

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

Usually, I'll just be walking from my house to somewhere else, and melodies and words will start coming up, and I'll have to run home to write it all down.

Sometimes the songs just come to me. I don't sit down to write like you'd sit down to make a pair of boots.

Every time I get up in the morning, melodies occur to me and I start trying to shape lyrics to melodies.

I can't legislate a song into being; it just will not happen for me.

I've actually had a melody on my guitar since the day I learned how to play it, back when I was 7. And for some reason I can't add lyrics to it.

No, no, the songs write themselves, almost.

It seems to me that those songs that have been any good, I have nothing much to do with the writing of them. The words have just crawled down my sleeve and come out on the page.

Writing songs is really about writing. It's not about necessarily focusing on one particular style or making it one particular thing.

My songwriting process, and maybe loads of other people's, is just this sort of smashing together of emotions and stuff to make some music. It's kind of simple and really complex at the same time and, as you can see, incredibly hard to explain.

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

I don't really know that there's any real rules for songwriting.

It is the most delightful thing that ever happens to me, when I hear something coming out of my guitar and out of my mouth that wasn't there before.

The recollection of how, when and where it all happened became vague as the lingering strains hung in the rafters of the studio. I wanted to shout back at it, Maybe I didn't write you, but I found you.

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.

It's hard - some people get inspired by a feeling, but I'm mostly inspired by melodies.

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 find so many songwriters today are missing an element... either the production is amazing but the songs aren't, or it's the other way around.

I often think of random melodies. And I pretty much hear in my head what I want to do with the orchestra as I'm writing on the piano.

I can't say that I'm always writing in my head but I do spend a lot of time in my head writing or coming up with ideas. And what I do usually is write the music and melody and then, you know, maybe the basic idea. But when I feel that I don't have a song or just say, God, please give me another song. And I just am quiet and it happens.

I'm not the sort of chap who can sit down and write music. When it comes, I'm happy.

I am so highly skilled that when I pick up a phrase and then pick up my guitar, a form comes out almost immediately - a song - and once I start, I have to finish it.

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.

I'll hear a phrase around me that someone says... I'll write it down in my notebook, and as soon as I'll sit down with my guitar, I'll come up with the rest of the arrangement there.

If you write songs long enough, you run out of material that's original to yourself.