Jay DeMarcus Quotes

My concern has always been to write songs that my audience, my fans are able to identify with.

A song has to take on character, shape, body and influence people to an extent that they use it for their own devices. It must affect them not just as a song, but as a lifestyle.

I always tell people, the first time I heard 'She Talks To Angels,' those lyrics did something to me.

I think that talking about the personal specificity, personal details, is how you get the big, big audiences - by talking about your relationships or your personal tragedies. If you reach out with that energy, you'll touch people.

My main goal as a songwriter is to make something that inspires people. To write things about my life that people can relate to. Whether it's a whole record or just one song for someone, I hope it can do that for them. Knowing that I have the ability to do that is inspiring to me.

If the beat gets to the audience, and the message touches them, you've got a hit.

Whenever you write music, you want it to touch people on a certain level. I mean, I've been reading tweets about 'Troublemaker' and people saying 'OMG, I can so relate to this - this is a guy that I fancy, or a girl that I fancy; it's exactly like this person.'

Songs are more powerful than books.

I'm a big fan of lyrics - lyrics are the thing that move me in certain ways.

Hopefully, somebody who's hearing my music, it's relatable to them, and it strikes a cord with them.

I like to write songs that people can identify with and sing along to.

If I want people to connect to my words and my stories, I need to tell them where they came from. Because then, when you break into song, they have kind of a blueprint for why I wrote that song, so they can come to it with something they went through that helps them connect to it.

If you can write a song that makes people have emotions and show their feelings, that's a powerful thing and a beautiful thing.

I had self-doubt about whether my story was interesting to people. I didn't want to write something that was anecdotal. It was important to me that people would get something out of my book. I want people to read it and say, "Now I don't feel so alone," or "I'm going to remember that next time I'm being an asshole."

Everything was a song. Every conversation, every personal hurt, every observance of people in stress, happiness and love... if you could feel it, I could feel it. And I could write a song about it.

It doesn't matter what age you are, an effective song will move you.

Anytime in radio that you can reach somebody on an emotional level, you're really connecting.

And that's what people want to see when they go to the theater. I believe at the end of the day, they want to see themselves - parts of their lives they can recognize. And I feel if I can achieve that, it's pretty spectacular.

Country music busts the wall between performer and audience. There's a connection because there's a vulnerability, a confessional quality, to so much of the songwriting. Those lyrics take you in.

I think of my songs as there to be something to move people emotionally.

I love the art form of songwriting. I get to carry a lot of vibes to a lot of people. My songs are all about the human condition, and people will be able to find themselves in my songs.

It's amazing when I do a gig how many people of different ages come up to me afterwards and chat to me about songs. The emotions I feel are what any person can relate to. Sometimes I'm just a narrator.

I just want to make art that connects with people and moves them on an emotional level. Any time I can put out music and place a story behind it and have people watch it and go, 'Wow, I was affected by that,' to me, feels like I've done my job.

Because of 'Wasn't Expecting That,' I've had a lot of people come up to me and say how I've written their lives or their grandparents' lives. It means the world to me that I helped in the tiniest way.

I put my emotions in my music and I want people to relate to that.