Innovative Songwriting Quotes

Almost everything The Beatles did was great, and it's hard to improve on. They were our Bach. The way to get around it may be to keep it as simple as possible.

I listened to a lot of Amy Winehouse: her albums 'Frank' and 'Back to Black'. She was such an incredible artist. She was just so raw and had her unique sound; she paired jazz with pop and was so soulful at the same time. So I pulled from her a lot in the beginning.

I'd like to write some songs that are so good that nobody understands them. Not even myself.

I've always kind of tried to do something that was a little different than just simple 'I love you, baby'-type songs.

One of my main problems with music is that the basic formula is always the same: verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus, chorus, chorus, end. One of the bands that changed that was The Beatles. If you listen to 'Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey.' It's three verses, bridge, end.

I spent my whole musical career trying to be different and make songs that people think shouldn't go together... go together.

I'm a genius. I'm like Prince.

The reason Strapping Young Lad was such a good band was we were honest about what we were doing.

I'm always looking to find things that are different in country music.

I really like working with unique and unknown artists, as they usually bring something fresh to a song.

The lead singer for Deerhunter, Bradford Cox... I don't like saying people are geniuses or whatever, but I just think that dude is so good at every single thing he does. He stays within his genre, but I think he does so well experimenting with stuff.

Bob Dylan continues to release odd and unsettling records, and to do odd and unsettling things on stage. So the term 'still' seems meaningless to me. But the real answer is simple: I listen to Bob Dylan for pleasure more than I listen to anyone else for pleasure.

Lady Gaga is one of the most amazingly talented musicians to bring her gifts to humanity in a long time.

You know, people always ask me how I describe my music. First of all I tell them that's their job and then that also one day I hope to have things referred to as Martha Wainwright -esque.

The public has heard the stereotypical love songs a million times, and they've heard the stereotypical life-or-death songs millions of times. It's good to mix it up a little bit.

It's always my mission to try to do something that hasn't been done before, whether that's musically, lyrically or in terms of mixing.

Arcade Fire has such intimacy and epic-ness, at the same time, and that's really inspiring.

The Beatles changed music forever. They took rock n' roll from a medium that was about cars and girls and gave it context, interesting chord changes and true musicianship.

With a song called 'House Party,' you'd expect it to be more about a big party, not as much about a relationship, so we tried to put a little bit of a unique twist on it.

I feel like I write songs for the future or something. Not in an arrogant way, but I feel like maybe my songs were, like, before their time or something.