Matthew Ramsey Quotes

The songs are not necessarily autobiographical. A lot of songs are a combination of influences. It might be some part of my life, or something I've felt, or something somebody's told me. It all comes together.

I'm just writing songs about how I feel or about how people I know feel.

I began seeing certain things happen in my life and other people's lives and getting inspired by it and writing about it. And that's where you get 'Happy Birthday' from and 'Ross Capicchioni' from or you even get 'I'm Sorry' from.

Yes, all my songs come from personal experience and relationships.

I'd say most of my songs I write from personal experience. When I feel like I don't have any inspiration in my personal life, I think about others that are close to me and maybe what they're going through or even just people I've come across, acquaintances.

Most of my songs aren't about me. They're about stuff I've seen.

I always prefer to write songs about emotional situations and heartbreak because I like getting into the character.

I write most songs randomly. They don't always deal with something I've been through but something I think is important to tell.

My inspiration for songs is just everyday life. I just write down words about things that have happened to me, people I've met.

I think, with music, I'm a lyricist who talks about real life things.

I love music. I love creating, so I just get inspired with whatever mood I'm in. Whatever the story dictates, that's where my mind goes.

All my songs are things that have happened to me.

Most of my songs are written about movies or TV shows - they're not about me.

Man, I live out 90 percent of my songs and the other 10 percent... once in a while, I'll put myself in someone else's shoes and try to go down that road.

I just tried to come up with some honest songs. What I was writing about was real plain stuff that I wasn't sure was going to be interesting to other people. But I guess it was...I've never had any discipline whatsoever. I just wait on a song like I was waiting for lightning to strike. And eventually-usually sometime around 3 in the morning-I'll have a good idea. By the time the sun comes up, hopefully, I'll have a decent song.

Most of the really good songs are dead true. ... It had to have happened to have the song be there. Every time I've tried to make stuff up it just kind of falls flat. So the majority of my work is something that happened to me, I saw happen to someone else, or a friend of mine told me happened. There is a certain amount of theatrical and poetic license. People are supposed to like it, that's why you're doing it. It's supposed to be fun. It's not brain surgery, it's heart surgery. They're just songs.

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

For me, how I feel about what I wrote down turns into a song.

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.

No, no, the songs write themselves, almost.

I started as a songwriter and wanted to be like Leonard Cohen. I've always seen my stories as enlarged songs.

It's pretty amazing to write under any circumstances when someone gives you an assignment to write a song, even if it doesn't get accepted. I've written songs a couple of times, some for Disney, that haven't actually ended up in their films, but then you're left with a song forever.

I just sit down and the page just comes out and I look at it and the elements that appear on that page have a lot to do with what's going on in my life.

I can only write a book like 'The Tin Drum' or 'From the Diary of a Snail' at a special period of my life. The books came about because of how I felt and thought at the time.

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.