Adam Schlesinger Quotes

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 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.

Songwriting is a mysterious art. When I sit down to write a song, the end result should be mysterious and have this dark quality.

Much as I adore the melodies, I choose a song for what it has to say.

It's not hard to create a song, but to write a song that's really going affect somebody? That takes a hell of a lot of time.

I know, deep down, that what makes my music what it is are my words. It always starts from me wanting to say something. Once I've run out of things to say, I'll be done.

Songwriting has become such a big part of what I do that emotions and the melodies that accompany them blur into one.

I found songwriting really hard at first, but after a while it was actually very easy. I wrote about everyday stuff.

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

I think that's my gift in this world is to put experience into music.

I guess what people forget sometimes is that when I write songs, I write them sometimes in about 20 minutes.

Nobody thinks mystery writers go around killing people, but they always seem to assume singers are singing about themselves, especially if you write melancholy songs like me.

When you write songs, you can't really point out the exact thing you're inspired by. It's more a state or a mood or an atmosphere that you're trying to put into words.

The best songwriting comes from being as creative as you can and editing it down to the good bits, essentially.

Human nature is not amenable to prediction based on the trends or tendencies prevailing at the time. It is amenable to startling creativity of the kind practiced by great artists, directors, writers, musicians, actors, who know how to touch a chord in humans everywhere.

My template for most songs is 'Is this inspiring?' and with the blues it so often is.

Even when I don't think I'm writing, I'm writing. There's some part of my brain geared toward making songs up, and I know it's collecting things and I know when I get a moment to be by myself, that's when they come out.

I feed on other people's creativity, photographers, artists of every kind. Sometimes a feeling that you get listening to a song can be so powerful. I've wanted to write whole scripts around what I felt just listening to a piece of music. I think music is important, and surrounding your visual field with stimulating things.

I sat down one night and wrote the line rock, rock, rock everybody.

True creativity often starts where language ends.

Ralph Lemon is my idol. But music is my biggest passion. Frank Ocean's 'Pyramids' is on repeat. That kind of stuff with Frank Ocean makes me cry.

My songs are self-explanatory... somebody pointed out to me that... my songs pretty much speak for themselves.

A song is the most intangible thing in the world.

I try not to be overly literal. When I'm writing songs, I write down a lot of words, and then I try to simplify it. I like to give people hints or words that make visual pictures for them.

You never know what's going to play into what's worthy of getting encapsulated into a song.