Spike Jonze Quotes

Sometimes when you're writing a song and that song comes into your head, it definitely comes from somewhere, like a real experience.

No, no, the songs write themselves, almost.

Sometimes I'll come up with a lick that I really love, and I'll try to put the right words to it for years. Suddenly something comes to me that works just right.

The very best thing you can do is to try to write a song that has some sort of impact.

I'm a songwriter who's put my childhood memories and teenage angst into songs.

I think there are ways a place can sneak its way into a song, or a feeling that you take into the studio.

It's really hard for me to finish a song unless I have a strong visual in my head while I'm writing it.

It's not that I'm trying to write another '7 Years' or a new version of 'Mama Said.' Songs just kind of come out of nowhere, and you need to catch them when they do.

In my opinion, that's one of the hardest things to do in songwriting: crafting a song that speaks to you but, at its core, is a simple concept.

Melody is the first thing that comes to me when I'm songwriting. I learned piano classically first, and then I went into soul, and so melody has always been the first. It's so important.

If I write songs and I think they sound good, then that's it. That's what I do. I'm not a technical musician, which is fine for rock and roll.

Whenever I get an idea for a song, even before jotting down the notes, I can hear it in the orchestra, I can smell it in the scenery, I can see the kind of actor who will sing it, and I am aware of an audience listening to it.

When I sit down to write a song, it's a kind of improvisation, but I formalize it a bit to get it into the studio, and when I step up to a microphone, I have a vague idea of what I'm about to do.

We all love to sing, and when we sit down to write a song I think it kind of shows itself to us.

Everything I see and hear... I will take ideas from anyplace, anywhere, anytime, and life has become a song to me. I'm always looking for a song.

But then you have to write a song, so at that point, I picked up the reins and started to write lyrics.

There is a formula that allows you to write a decent song. But a song like 'You're All I Need to Get By,' it just writes itself.

I write when I have to; I write when the song is done and I deal with the idea and I just go with it and I'll become what that song is all about until I have finished it. And when you do that, it makes the song more visual, it makes it more personal.

I started teaching myself guitar because I loved singing so much. Then one day kind of out of the blue I found I was writing a song. It just happened organically.

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

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

One thing I've tried to do in writing music is take on very basic things, very archetypal things.

Performing is the easiest part of what I do, and songwriting is the hardest.

I usually sit around with the guitar in reach and grab it when I get an idea. Sometimes it lasts five minutes, and sometimes it lasts all day.

It's hard to know exactly what it sounds like to me. I'm in the studio and I write it. and that's it.