Stephen Malkmus Quotes

Once I come up with the concept, the rest of the song just comes.

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.

I don't think I've ever actually written from inspiration, actually had a song just go, 'Bing!' I only recall that happening to me twice - once was with 'Terrapin' and the other was 'Wharf Rat.' I mean, that's twice in a lifetime of writing!

I have a hard time making a linear-idea song, because that's not the way my thoughts work.

It doesn't really matter what chords I play, what words I say or time of day it is, as it's only a Northern Song.

I came in with a completely new perspective. I would write songs and they would pick tunes they felt were in the Purple vein.

Writing songs has always been hard and easy. It's not always easy when you want it to be, and then sometimes it's just like turning on the faucet. That's just the nature of it.

Sometimes when you're writing a song and that song comes into your head, it definitely comes from somewhere, like a real experience.

I have a really hard time writing my own lyrics for this record, because one, I had to write so many and also I was kind of perplexed by the idea of how I was going to sing and play... because at that time, we hadn't really thought about asking someone else.

When I sit down to write a song, it's a kind of improvisation, but I formalize it a bit to get it into the studio, and when I step up to a microphone, I have a vague idea of what I'm about to do.

No, no, the songs write themselves, almost.

But then you have to write a song, so at that point, I picked up the reins and started to write lyrics.

I can't just sit down and make a song in a day. It's only possible if you focus on the music and not the sound.

That's what I find with any good song, you just have to let it happen. Out of about twenty songs you might write, one of any significance. It might be thirty or forty, but I just keep churning them out and churning them out in hope that one of them will stick.

Typically I go in the studio and whatever I'm contemplating that day will wind up being a song. I don't come in with lyrics... I just go in and let it happen.

I don't dream songs. I'm more apt to write dreams down and then to be able to interpret them into a song. I also tend to get up and write prose in the morning from which will come songs.

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.

I'll have the music, and then I'll just turn the microphone on, press Play and Record and sing. And whatever comes out ends up being the melody.

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

I knew there was something about 'Sun Medallion,' in particular, because I just had to record it the second I wrote it.

Sporadic thoughts will pop into my head and I'll have to go write something down, and the next thing you know I've written a whole song in an hour.

Every day you can write a song but some days there is just some magic in the air and something special about the catch; other days you write all day on a song line or idea.

Songwriting is a give-and-take process, and it can lead to some good, healthy debates.

There's always a special feeling I have while writing any song.

Ultimately, I'm a fan of music. I describe writing music sometimes as hieroglyphics, like, you know, excavating, gently brushing off these artifacts and discovering the song underneath it all. It seems as if it is already written in it.