Jens Lekman Quotes

Since I was a child, my whole life has revolved around music. It's often while listening to a song that ideas for my fashion collections formed.

I fell into lyric writing because of music. I backed into it.

I've been gearing up for this future of writing a lot of new music by digging into my favorite old stuff, and twisting it around and highlighting the things I really love.

The thing is I write to music, so every script I have has its own playlist. Music just opens me up to the emotions that I'm writing. It's just a pretty cool thing.

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

I like Patti Smith's lyrics, and sometimes think I could be influenced by them. But she has a kind of cool that's beyond me.

I started playing guitar and writing songs when I was 15. I think what mainly sparked my interest was just the fact that I grew up listening to Cheryl King, Joni Mitchell, and James Taylor, and was just always inspired by that sort of organic art, and organic songs and just very natural songwriting that came out of some of those artists.

When I was recording my first solo album 'Imaginaryland,' I was listening to a lot of movie scores.

Some people start with the lyrics first because they know what they want to talk about and they just write a whole bunch of lyrical ideas, but for me the music tells me what to talk about.

I don't really know what inspires me to write the music I do, but usually, the music will set the tone for the lyrics.

I always start with the music and then try to figure out what I want to write about lyrically.

'Iggy' was my dog - he was named after Iggy Pop - and 'Azalea' is the street where I grew up; together, they have the right amount of syllables to make the perfect name.

Everything that I do on stage comes from seeing the Black Crowes in '95 in Charlotte. For 'Let Her Cry,' I was just trying to write 'She Talks to Angels.'

Since I was old enough to understand what a songwriter/producer is, I've had a curiosity about how Max Martin creates what he creates. I wanted to see that happen. I wanted to be there. I wanted to learn from him.

How did I write 'Spin Me?' I listened to Luther Vandross's 'I Wanted Your Love.'

I'd say I did a lot of what I did with songs like 'At My Best' was because of the influence of my daughter.

We wrote many a Rage song where we'd use Soundgarden as a template.

Lyrically and melodically, Drake was definitely a big influence of mine.

I just like a beat that grabs me. And then I'll come up with a concept after. I like to take my time with music.

I've been a huge fan of Adele, Sam Smith, and Ed Sheeran, and those amazing artists draw inspiration from their present and past experiences; they write songs from their heart.

Hopefully, reading and being around great literature inspires me to write songs, but I'm not sure about that.

Every song I've written, it's about what I've gone through, good or bad. It kind of comes out of me, and I'm grateful for that. I've got friends who are back home who've got no way to express that, and they're kind of in a different position in life. It's alarming to me that I've written something on my bedroom floor when I was 19 or something, and then there's 50,000 people that know the words, and they've got a similar feeling. If you thought about it too much, your head would blow up.

Well, this is shortly after the idea was put to me because it wasn't my idea to do a Christmas record. We can talk about that a little bit, if you like, later on. But I wrote that song actually about two days after the idea was put to me.

I only write when listening to the music.

If I hadn't had Freddie Mercury's lyrics to hold on to as a kid I don't know where I would be. It taught me about all forms of music... it would open my mind. I never really had a bigger teacher in my whole life.