Jarvis Cocker Quotes

If you can say the lyrics almost like a poem and they stand up, that's a great thing. Some songs have great lyrics and I don't like the melodies, and vice versa.

Lyrics are important, but it's hard, because English isn't my first language - although it feels like it is these days! I grew up with amazing melodies, so getting that right on a song has always been the key thing for me, but there's no reason why a great melody doesn't deserve great lyrics.

Listen to the Bee Gees and you can learn to be a great writer.

For Stevie, the words are of prime importance; the song moves around the words, rather than the words moving around the song.

Right from day one, you know when you've written a good song.

As a songwriter, you try your best to write a good song, and you like nothing better than hearing a good song. It's easy to admire a great song, and you want to share out of enthusiasm.

There's such a huge difference between a great arrangement of riffs and a song. Sometimes the two can be the same. But the difference is a song doesn't necessarily need a riff, whereas a riff doesn't necessarily mean you've got a good song on your hands.

I guess a good song is a good song is a good song, ya know.

Keep in mind, you can use Auto-Tune and you can know how to work it perfectly, but you still have to know how to write a good song.

I'm a composer, and therefore I know when I've written a good tune. When you've written a good song is when you know that the lyric is completely coalesced with the song.

I'd say almost that words come first, melody second.

Lyrics are so important, but they're really underrated.

In my opinion, lyrics are a paramount factor and will always be.

I think a good song is a good song is a good song.

If you've got a good song, it's easy to play. But you can't make a bad song sound good no matter who you have to play on it.

There's a few times in the past when I wrote a song, and I put the words together, and they were very clear pictures, and I felt like I was putting together a really good story. But I don't think I was ever really able to stay on that. What I've sort of developed lyrically is more about the sound of the vocals and what they are.

I think my melodies are superior to my lyrics.

I love great lyrics, and I love the way it could shape a tune into a very unpredictable one, and I also like taking a great melody and putting lyrics into it.

Melody is king, and don't you ever forget it. Lyrics appear to be out front, but they're not; they're just an accompanying factor. If they're good, you're really in good shape. Lyrics are written to be rewritten.

It's important to have good tunes, but words are the thing for me.

I keep reminding people that an editorial in rhyme is not a song. A good song makes you laugh, it makes you cry, it makes you think.

I don't think you ever get tired of the well-written, well-crafted songs.

The music is the main thing and it's just as easy to write acceptable words.

I just don't write musically, but lyrically, yeah I write.

You'd think, of course, it's about the melody - that's a given. But really, I'm no good at singing a song unless it has a good lyric.