Ben Gibbard Quotes

You never forget where you were when you write a song; it's a very proper memory, so I knew exactly where I was and what I was doing for each track. It was like going into a time machine.

Sometimes I dream song ideas. I write a song in my dream, the melody and everything. But then sometimes I can't remember them. I think later on, I probably do.

My main thing is just to keep writing. I've been doing some songwriting that's for my own record, I suppose.

I can put some chords together and maybe write a song, but I'm learning every day. And that's the fun part.

If you wanna write a song, ask a guitar

I think when I first started discovering I could write songs, I was so naive. And it was after I got broken up with and had my heart sliced up into a bunch of little pieces that I was like, "I'm going to say this." I didn't even know how to play 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.

Our whole intention was to make a record of songs that we grew up with and change them up a little bit, but we kind of stumbled on writing "Joseph's Lullaby." The irony is when I originally wrote the song, it was called "Mary's Lullaby." I wrote it from Mary's standpoint and it was in a higher key, a real falsetto, and it just wasn't right. One day, the producer's wife said, "Well, it's kind of odd that you're singing from Mary's perspective, being the guy. Why don't you do Joseph?

The first song I wrote was the first song I remember thinking, "Well, maybe I can do something here." The very first one. By the second one I knew I could do something.

Well, it grow together. It's like, first time I try to write a song is the first time I try to play the guitar. And so I can write a song without the guitar. But it really grow together. I really like stay with my guitar. But it just happen, is the inspiration come through man. Because, I personally, it look like, could I write a whole heap a tune, it look like. But I pick special tune to write. Cause a man can think of plenty things. Yuh know wah ah mean.

I'm not here to write a song for you, I'm here to help you write a song for yourself.

The first song I wrote was called "You" and it was a love song about somebody who didn't even exist. I remember them all because I used to always write terrible poetry. I keep all my notebooks.

I've been writing music since I was about eight. I would write sporadically. I wrote a lot of music in high school. I guess the oldest song on the record ("I Thought I Saw Your Face") is about eight years old. It's the old "I had my whole life to write my first album and six months to write the second one." I did, to some degree, but actually, a lot of the songs that ended up on the record, I wrote really recently. So it varies.

Writing every song is a little journey. The first note has to lift you.

I was writing tons of music in my spare time. I might be on location somewhere, and I'd go home and I'd have my guitar and my little keyboard or something and write music. Or if I was at home, on my piano. I've always been a late bloomer with a lot of things, just in general, so I think this was something that needed to come to fruition in this particular way.

Sometimes I'll write a song first and then I'm like, "Oh this person will be great on this song." But there are some artists I know what want, like off the top I knew I wanted Brandy and Faith Evans. Their music is like the soundtrack to my life, so it was a personal thing for me. So once they said yes, I wrote songs specifically for them.

It's like a dream sometimes, a song just pops into your head and you can't tell if it's something you heard or it's new and you got to write it down.

It usually takes me 20 to 90 minutes to write a song because once I start, I don't stop. I like when it's really organic, so I try to knock it out in one shot.

I don't really care about how good a song is, I only want them to reflect what I felt when I was writing them

Writing songs does not get any easier, and that might be because I am harder on myself than I was twenty years ago. Hopefully, as we grow older and change, there are fresh topics, new perspectives, or at least there should be.

I approach song writing three different ways. One way is where I write the initial melody and lyrics first and then take it in to the producer to collaborate. Another way is where the producer sends me his initial musical track ideas and then I write the lyrics and melody over his track. The third way is where we just jam out in the studio and see what we come up with.

I'm only 49 years old. I'm still in the middle of this whole thing. I don't feel like it's finished at all. I'm still planning to write better songs.

These days I keep a journal, so I'm constantly sketching down my thoughts, or lines that come to me...ideas for songs. And then when I have a moment to myself, I'll sit down with my guitar and open my journal, and start kind of massaging things together, and see if a song takes shape. Or sometimes, I'll just be hanging out with my guitar and come up with a chord progression or a lick, and that'll sort of sit around for a while waiting to marry itself to some words. So it's sort of haphazard and it's like...junk culture. I go around finding shiny objects and I glue them together laughs.

When I was first writing, I used to sit at the piano and play songs - I'd write one or two a night. It was my hobby. At some point, it then became a process that was mainly done within the context of the studio, and writing became part of the recording process.

I think that anyone really can write songs, it just takes having an idea and a feeling and chasing it, and you can learn more about it. I think that's why I go to so many sessions. It is a craft that you can learn from other people. I find it to be the most fascinating thing. So I write a lot, yeah!