Lyric Inspiration Quotes

Usually, the music inspires the lyrics. The lyrics just sort of fall off like a bunch of crumbs from the melody. That's all I want them to be - crumbs. I don't want to work any kind of fabricated message.

All of my lyrics are based on the one thing that's never failed me, and that's the Word of God.

I always take notes on my phone of lyric ideas.

Sometimes I'll have an idea for a story or have a subject, and that will inspire lyrics, but most of the time, hopefully, they already exist somewhere else.

Tori Amos had a major influence on how I craft words in a song. Until I heard 'Little Earthquakes' all my lyrics used really obvious analogies like rain for tears.

Sometimes, for me, lyrics are derived from poems that I'm working on, and they kind of cross back and forth between the two.

I actually wrote the lyrics for 'Goodbye' in 10 minutes.

I don't start a song with an idea of what ingredients are going to go into a song. It's not like a recipe. I will normally either talk from personal experience or I'll make a character and then try to allow that character to behave the way he or she naturally would.

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

[The lyrics and melody] usually come a little simultaneously, but I would say the lyrics are first; usually I have the idea for a story in my head, or few lines.

When I write a song, the music comes from my spirit, which is very playful and optimistic, but then the lyrics come from my head, which is in a different space.

In the beginning of Audioslave, I was very honest. I said, 'We make great albums and write great albums - but don't be under the impression I'm going to be a lyricist that writes anything other than what strikes me as inspiring in the moment.' The lyrics weren't going to be focused politically.

It's very rare - and it does happen on occasion - where I'll take a piece of lyric and I'll just sit down and purposefully craft that melody around that lyric because I think the lyric is the wellspring for the song, without question.

Sometimes the word dictated the melody.

The fact is when I get pissed off about something or something awful has happened, I just say, 'You know what? Thank you very much. Thank you for the lyrics. Because that is exactly what you just gave me.' There's no real negative then. So if something happens, I don't cry about it. I just find myself a pen and I figure it out.

I have dyslexia, and I never did learn to read music, and I even had a problem in reading because everything was turned upside down, so I just had to draw from the lyrics and the voice that I would hear in my mind.

The most common time I write lyrics is the middle of the night.

I really don't have a method. I gravitate towards the organic/acoustic, but I still often complete songs musically before attempting to find the lyric.

I am a big Pink Floyd fan. That is where a lot of the concept lyrics come from.

There are some songs where I'll have had the music for 20 years and then finally the lyric will come through. That's not common but it does happen. Then there are other songs that come really quickly.

Most of my lyrics are little stories about my experiences or those of my friends.

Sometimes I start just on the piano with a melody or musical idea that kind of leads me to certain lyrics.

I think a domestic situation can change you and your attitudes. I suppose if you did get a bit content, then you might not write savage lyrics.

I got a little bit lost in the writing process: like, that moment in the 'Fight Song' music video where I'm throwing the crumpled paper on the bed, that was really true life. I was filling journals with different possibilities of lyrics for the first verse. And none of them felt right.

For me, naming bands was the forerunner to really writing lyrics, because I work off titles.