Ani DiFranco Quotes

What happens is, especially when I was writing for my band, Creedence, and it's the way I write now, I go into "guitar lick" mode. When I do, it sort of leads into a real song. I'd say to myself, your songwriting is coming up with a guitar lick, and the rest is easy!

We start a lot with melodies and instrumentation and trying to figure out good melodies for verses and choruses. We get to lyrics sometimes second, so we'll start humming a melody, finding something, and see where the music takes you as far as lyrics are and what you want to say and go from there.

If you wanna write a song, ask a guitar

All of a sudden there's a song - there in your hotel room playing your guitar - and you write it, and two or three years later it will come true. It keeps you on your toes.

I think I always thought of the guitar as the vehicle to be able to make some musical idea up. The only appeal to learning more chords was having more chords to put into songs. I never got too wrapped up in becoming technically good. So writing songs happened pretty simultaneously with learning how to play the guitar.

I wrote 90 percent of the record in prison. A lot of people wonder, "How the hell did you do that?" I just pretty much played drums on my legs with my hands and while I did that, I would hum the guitar parts and sing the melodies of the songs.

I don't really know why an idea comes to me. But all of a sudden, an idea comes and from experience I can intuit what something means when an interesting line pops up. Or I can intuit what an interesting choice might be. And I can try a couple of different choices, and see which one feels right, and then continue the song to see where it goes.

When I get an idea for a song it would gel in my mind for weeks or months, and then one day just like that, Ill write it.

I write a little something every day, even though I don't write a song [every day]. Everything inspires me. I'll come up with a line, or somebody will say something that will trigger something.

I wrote 'She's a Lady' on the back of a TWA menu, flying back from London after doing Tom Jones's TV show. Jones's manager wanted me to write him a song. If I have an idea and I don't have a pad of paper, I'll write on whatever is available. What's the difference? Paper is paper.

For me, something will come in my head and I'll either end up calling my cell phone to record it, or I'll just pick my guitar up and see what comes out. Sometimes it sucks, sometimes it doesn't. So there's really no set method behind it.

One thing will lead to another and somebody will come up with a riff or a line or something we build from.

I tend to write at the piano, but usually the melody and lyrics come first. Like, I'll be in the shower, and I'll start singing, and the melody and the lyric will just come out. Then I'll quickly try to finish the shower, try to remember it, record it on my phone and save it for the studio.

I keep this crazy notebook of song ideas.

I'm not the kind of guy who sits around at home and writes songs. Once in a while I'll pick up a guitar and noodle around, but it's rare.

I just play, and I'm always trying to write songs.

Some people start with the lyrics first because they know what they want to talk about and they just write a whole bunch of lyrical ideas, but for me the music tells me what to talk about.

Sometimes I'll write without the guitar or the piano, but most of the time I'll be playing and just improvising some words. And when I get something that sounds good, a line with a story in it, I'll try and tease it out and figure out where the story is going.

I try to write down every song that comes to me, even though I know that every song that comes to me isn't a song that I need to sing.

Sometimes I might borrow something from a song I started a long time ago and see if I can grab something.

Whenever I'm out and I hear something, I'm writing. It's the process of writing it down and then just always creating wherever you go. I never stop creating.

Music comes to me more readily than words.

I'm always interested in writing. I keep music in journals on an everyday basis. I'm always looking for ideas that can be music.

All I'm trying to do is simply play guitar and elicit this creativity from the instrument.

Sometimes it starts with a random lyric idea that sets the tone for the whole song. Chords and sounds build from the lyric and rhythm, kind of. Sometimes it's a track I fall I love with... but writing my own songs, I rarely write on tracks.