Mark Lanegan Quotes

Most of the songs I write are just very directly from my life. I don't have a big imagination. Whenever I tried to write from fantasy, it comes out sounding really fake.

Every song I've ever written has been based in reality, based in fact, things that happen to me.

I never reflect or convey that which I have not experienced myself.

Don't imitate. Write what you know about, that has to be your goal.

It's so easy for me to do a boy-bashing pop song, but to sit down and write honestly about something that's really close to me, something I've been through, it's a totally different thing.

You need to write about something that you really know about or you deeply connect with. Don't fake it.

There is no way I'll ever write an album for Avril Lavigne or Christina Aguilera. I just couldn't do it. There is no way I could ever do it because my musical process is about being directly involved with whatever I'm going through in life.

A lot of my songs are about things that concern me personally, not a heightened version of myself or any of the characters that I play.

I love writing about things I know, and I like to be very honest in my music.

I've always kind of ripped from real life to some degree or at least how I'm feeling in the moment. In fact, maybe that's really it. In anything I've ever written, all the characters sound like me, which I don't think is a bad thing.

A work will only have deep resonance if the kind of darkness I can generate is something that is resident in me already.

I decided at 15 that I didn't want to be one of those artists that gets up and sings love songs they don't mean. I decided that I was going to be me to the fullest extent, that my songs were going to reflect relationships I've had, things I've been through, and even the stuff I'm embarrassed about.

My concepts are never bright ideas; they're never notions I think will sell or be trendy or attract new fans. I don't think that way. All I can do is sing from my life.

I think anything that anyone writes that's any good is going to have a lot of autobiography.

I think I take little pieces of inspiration, then kind of do what's real to me and what's going on in my life or what I observe from other people's experiences and hope other people connect with it, too.

I can only speak for myself and my own music, because that is what I am most familiar with, and I write about things that I am living or experiencing.

I've always written about things that cause me to feel something.

If I'm writing strictly for others, how does that show what I'm experiencing or thinking? I just got to a point where I realized I could be as personal as I wanted to be and people could relate to those situations if they so choose.

I write my songs because I've lived them.

I'm self-deprecating, but I'm an artist, too. I have to write new songs to chronicle stuff for myself. I write a song like 'Middle Age' or 'Responsibility' or 'I Just Work Here,' and it's about how bleak life can be. But it's real.

All my songs come from me because I only seem able to write about myself and my experiences.

As a songwriter I hate this whole, 'If it's a sad song, it has to sound like a sad song thing.' And that goes all the way back to my days with the Format. I'm an insane narcissist, so if I have to get something off my chest, I'll get something off my chest.

I don't write anything that I haven't lived. In terms of integrity, you have to write what you live. And if you write beyond what you live, it is theory. And theory is not helpful. It is just not.

I'm definitely using different parts of myself, but I think when it comes down to words and melodies, I can't really force anything too much.

With songs, I've always pledged to be honest. I write my songs because I've lived them.