John Legend Quotes

As far as songwriting, I'm not sure if they wrote all of their own stuff, but I love the Dixie Chicks.

Songwriting is something I really need to work on. I don't have very many songs but I really love it. I would love to be a great song writer some day.

Anyone who takes the craft of songwriting seriously I radiate towards. Spending time with Daryl Hall was a dream come true. I picked his brain a lot because Hall And Oats is timeless.

I don't know if I want her to sing it with us, but I'm curious to what type of song Taylor Swift would write for us. I'm curious to see what kind of pen she would write for TLC. Or like an Adam Levine. Somebody like that. They're phenomenal writers.

I write a lot of my own music. I usually go in with a producer, and every now and then there will be another writer in the room.

I found when I started getting serious about writing music, that my writing was country songs. It was basically country subject matter, country melodies and simple chord changes.

I tend to start with a full set of lyrics, and then my producer, Joel Little, and I work on the music collaboratively.

I've always been around musicians and always been the songwriter who doesn't end up playing the music.

The one thing I'm really the most confident in as an artist is my songwriting ability and ear for pop music. I'm really excited to show that off. It was a side that I wasn't able to show on 'American Idol.'

I'm always writing songs, and I've got a bunch that I want to record.

At any given time I'm listening to the Cory Branan, Leonna Naess, Eve 6, the King's Noyse, Sean Paul, Green Day, the BoDeans, Buddy Holly, Nowell Sing We Clear... the list goes on and on. But I rarely listen to music while I write. I start typing the lyrics.

When I am seriously composing, sometimes a phrase will come into my head, a catch phrase. When I was writing pop songs for a few years, as a career, separate from my folksinging career, I used to write songs for pop singers.

Creating a decent pop song is a challenge - and occasionally, once in every decade - it's kind of fun to do that.

I get the music, I get the beats. And I go to the studios and write the lyrics.

I've just always been around great songwriters. To me, they were the standard.

Anybody who thinks pop music's easy should try to make a pop single and find out that it isn't.

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.

I will write a verse or a story and bring it into a songwriting session, because that's what's big in Nashville - the collaborative part of songwriting.

I do always the music before the lyrics. The story or an idea for the lyrics appears during the composing process normally, but some other times I already have a strong idea of the story I would like to sing before any music comes to my mind.

Success is good, but I have seen the other side. I don't think much about it. I just work towards making a good melody, with catchy yet meaningful lyrics, and as I'm a music producer and arranger myself, I know the sound I need.

I spent the summer of '88 indoors, writing 'Shoot You Down,' 'Bye Bye Badman,' and 'Don't Stop.'

Whenever I work on a song, my focus is on the listeners who follow my type of music.

I played around with GarageBand before, but I'd never actually made a proper song. So it was getting into the studio with him where I made my first proper song. I've always loved creative writing, so I had done that as well.

I write all of my music.

When I make albums, I do a lot of songwriting but not necessarily a whole album.