Matt Berninger Quotes

I deliberate over the lyrics; I really do. I'll come up with one line in a day, and then it might be a couple of days before I come up with the rhyming line. It's never been easy for me.

I sit down and draw from my lyric book. I sit down and start looking through it and see if there is anything that strikes me that I've written.

I can't believe there is a poet who hasn't eagerly put down a word one day, only to erase it the next day deciding it was sheer lunacy. It's part of the process of selection.

I can work on a verse for a very long time before realising it's not any good and then, and only then, can I discard it.

The first line of the song is always the hardest thing to write. And then after that, the song should - unless it sucks - it should write itself.

One thing a lyricist must learn is not to fall in love with his own lines. Once you learn that, you can walk away from the lyric and look at it with a reasonable degree of objectivity.

After that, I specifically started writing lyrics. I would like sweat and think and get it all together.

I can clear my mind, and lyrics just come out; it's very easy for me.

I used to write on pads with a pen but had trouble reading the words the next day. Years later, Bob Dylan taught me to just write and write on a laptop computer. Then I'd print that out. When it was time to write a song, I'd go through the pages and sing melodies to words that moved me.

I would write poems and think up melodies to them later.

I'm always writing something. There's always some structure sitting around someplace. There's always things on the computer, things scratched on score paper, legal tablets full of lyrics. It's never not buzzing around me all the time. I'm always doing it.

Occasionally if I look back at something I've written I'll find one of those that I don't understand, but that's a bad thing - the unconscious has dealt me a bad hand.

I write a chapter, then edit it and edit it and edit it and edit it. I don't think we mine creativity from within. It's bestowed from on high, from God.

I haven't had trouble with writer's block. I think it's because my process involves writing very badly. My first drafts are filled with lurching, cliched writing, outright flailing around. Writing that doesn't have a good voice or any voice. But then there will be good moments.

If I'm working on a poem, it's at the forefront of my mind; I'm working on it when I'm cooking dinner or stretched out on the sofa. But if I don't really have it by the 10th draft, I know it just isn't going to jell.

I saw I could rhyme words. It came simply to me. But I wrote some pretty horrible songs that I still have on tape.

It seems to me that those songs that have been any good, I have nothing much to do with the writing of them. The words have just crawled down my sleeve and come out on the page.

To be honest, I rewrote 'Wicked Nights' a number of times. I just wasn't happy with the end result.

I'm always writing lyrics. I have so many lyrics on so many stray pieces of paper. Everywhere.

I know already the music I will write. But the words? I have not yet decided.

I once read Updike after writing a first draft, and I wanted to put my own book on the fire. I've since learned to read utter crap while I'm writing: pulp is the thing.

I am never really surprised at the way my books take shape. They are just not as perfect as I'd like them to be.

I would be too self-conscious if I just thought of writing lyrics for a song. I have to trick myself into doing it.

For me to create an album of 12 songs, I've got to write about 80 songs. Half of those are totally weird and rubbish. But I get to some really good stuff after a while.

I was never a 'sit down with a notepad and write lyrics' kind of person.