Rickey Medlocke Quotes

I have no shame in making music that maybe, if you listen to it long enough, you'll realize you've heard this or that part of it before. I'm still very excited by an amazingly written song, so that's really the thing that I work on when I make records with people.

The older I get, the more I think it's this listening. You listen for it, and you have a bit of patience. And it'll come until it sounds - to me, the best songs I've written, I think, are ones that I can't hear anything - any of myself in it. It sounds like a cover song, like somebody else's song - really something you've stolen wholesale off a radio that you've listened to in someone else's flat.

In songwriting, I needed language. And I always believed in singing about what I do.

I think if you're writing from the heart, very often, the subject matter will adjust as you age... but you try to write the best song you can possibly write. For us, we have the same basic elements that make up the America sound.

Well, as a songwriter, it's really dangerous to use the word love in a song. It's a word that has been used in songs so many millions of times before, and it's the most popular topic to ever write about.

A lot of bands are influenced by other bands, and that informs their songwriting for sure. It definitely informs my songwriting, too. But it's more about not thinking about it, and if it comes out of you, it's better.

I write my own lyrics; I can incorporate my own ideas. And yes, apparently, people think it's cool. That's pretty awesome.

We wrote the songs we wrote - we took from our own experiences, melded it together, and wrote what became 'Appetite For Destruction.'

I write all my own songs. Everything I did on 'The X Factor' was basically original, except for some of the live shows. Everything I did was original, and I wrote it from the heart.

I think that's what makes my music different from other artists in my lane is that I write every word that's on my album, and every word comes from a real experience or a real feeling that I've either experienced or felt. And I'm very particular about that, and I take a lot of pride in it, so you know if I say something on a song, I mean it.

I'm not the kind of writer that can wake up and say, "Okay, I'm gonna write a song today," and have that song be the kind I would want to record. The songs of mine that I end up liking are songs that come from real experience. They're like chapter titles in my life.

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

I love originating shows and originating songs - there is nothing better than being the first one to get to do a song.

My mother bought a piano, put it in the front room, and I just started writing my songs.

There is a formula that allows you to write a decent song. But a song like 'You're All I Need to Get By,' it just writes itself.

I have to have a guitar sitting around. I sing in the shower. I sing around the house. The music comes secondary. The lyrics come first.

As a songwriter, you respect and appreciate the writings of other people, and I often get asked, are there songs out there I wish I'd written? Yes. There's many of them!

I can't constantly be trying to write the unwritten song, the song that the 15-year-old girl needs. I need to write the song that I need.

I'm always writing lyrics. I have so many lyrics on so many stray pieces of paper. Everywhere.

I could have done a hundred songs, really. It was hard to narrow them down, because I tried to pick songs for the most part that actually did have some effect on me or influenced me in the past.

If you look at the content of songs people write, it's usually about the things they know best.

I write songs about real things... The subject dictates the mood and it goes from there, really.

In my songs, I'm not saying something that's never been said before. The have lyrics aren't going to blow people away. It's the emotion and the melody that drive it home.

Composers shouldn't think too much - it interferes with their plagiarism.

I never dreamed that the little ditties I wrote about annoying customers or bagel recipes would turn into a full-length musical comedy. But a very wise person told me to 'write what you know'. So I did.