Shane MacGowan Quotes

I love having other people sing my songs.

Just like any songwriter, I love it when people sing my songs.

I get the biggest kick out of it, to hear words that I wrote and chords that I wrote being sung by somebody else.

Nothing is more rewarding than to take a song, create it out of thin air and then watch it affect people.

If somebody sings a song that I wrote, I feel like it's a nice point of validation for the song, because it shows that the song is able to stand on its own. I like that.

To finish a song is the best feeling in the world.

It feels so satisfying to hear a song I wrote come out of the radio.

So, once I've written a song, you know, I'm pretty happy with what the song is on its own terms.

There is nothing greater than the joy of composing something oneself and then listening to it.

I walk away from writing what I consider to be a good song - with a good character, a good story in it - with all I'm gonna really get out of that song. My greatest pleasure is to create it, not to record it, not to hear anyone else play it, though that can be nice too.

To write a song and have it embraced by someone, even one person, I don't think that's something that everyone gets to experience.

When you sit down and there's nothing, and then you write a song and there's something, that's the most extraordinary feeling.

It's a different kind of satisfaction, different kind of enjoyment than making your own songs, to remake someone else's song that you really like.

I'm not an artist that vents through my music. I don't do it to relieve stress. I do it for the purpose of entertaining.

I feel happy about the songs I've written. I'm a great lover of the craft of songwriting, and I sure admire it in other people when I see it - past and present. I feel comfortable with what I have accomplished. I feel happy to be able to work in that environment, and that I have a lot of songs left to be written, somewhere.

I always wanted to be an artist; being a songwriter for myself was always a must but being a songwriter for others has been a bonus.

I love originating shows and originating songs - there is nothing better than being the first one to get to do a song.

One of my real goals was to hear someone whistling a song I'd written.

I'd have to say that my favorite thing is writing a song that really says how I feel, what I believe - and it even explains the world to myself better than I knew it.

That's what I like to do, I like to make songs.

I genuinely find the most meaningful thing I do is to make music, but also to absorb some sort of creativity.

I think it is your job as an artist to be able to hear a song.

When you spend two to three years working on an album that I feel very happy with the end result, there is nothing I would change. Musically, I have achieved what I set out to do.

Songwriting is the other weight on the opposite side of the scale from touring. They balance me out creatively.

If I can't sing them myself, there's nothing better than writing songs for other people and watching them be performed. It's kind of more thrilling than doing it yourself.