Micky Dolenz Quotes

I've written probably over 200 songs that have a verse and a chorus and that's it.

For me to create an album of 12 songs, I've got to write about 80 songs. Half of those are totally weird and rubbish. But I get to some really good stuff after a while.

I feel like I want to write some songs and I don't know how to go about doing it. Usually it's the lyrics that are a problem, and I think I am not really cut out to be a lyricist.

I'm not somebody who carries around a notepad and writes songs all day long. I don't imagine everything I think of is worth being in a song. So I tend to collect notes, and I set time aside to go to work and write songs.

My songs pretty much revolve in my brain most of the time - usually, whatever's coming next.

I find writing songs hard, because it does not come naturally to me. I never set out to be a songwriter or a singer.

I'm not a natural songwriter.

I've always tended to write songs prolifically.

Every song I've ever written always starts with the words because I want the music to be the musical extension of the feelings of the words, and not the words being the emotional extension of the feeling of the music.

There's many, many ways to write a song. But generally, sitting down at a table and writing is not one of them.

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

I've written a song for Prince. I never showed it to Prince, but just to see if I could do it. At the time, when I sort of knew him, he was recording a song a day. I wondered if I could do that. So I wrote it.

Usually when I write a song, I'll write the music and then kind of fit some words to it.

Most songs have meager beginnings. You wake up in the morning, you throw on your suspenders, and you subvocalize and just think. They seem to form like calcium. I can't think of a story right off the bat that was that interesting. I write things on the back of my hand, usually, and sing into a tape recorder.

The goal is always just to write the best song that you can write. I mean, the process for writing a song is the process for writing a song. It's not something I look at it as something I need to do something different.

Most of the time, songs that I write end up being finished in 30 minutes or less.

The melody will tell me what the song should be about, the tone of the song. That's when the intellect comes in. Because I have a list of possible titles and concepts, and I expand on that.

It takes me, like, half an hour to write the lyrics for a song. They just come out.

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'm no songwriter because all of my popular songs have just been outgrowths of themes for the various pictures.

I started quite late. I only discovered that I could write a song when I was, like, 17... some musicians, they're starting out, writing songs when they're, like, 12, 13. I never thought I would go into songwriting when I was that young.

As a songwriter, I go into the studio, and I just try to write a great song.

Sometimes I have a melody in my head; sometimes it's just a verse. I read lines from a book or movies that I watch and grab a few quotes and start writing on paper. From there, I record a really rough version and work on the song.

I didn't know if I could write. I was writing all these songs at home and was like, 'Maybe I can write?'

Writing songs about having a nice time - 'Oh I'm so happy on tour with my band' - I'd find it really difficult to write a good song about it.