Songwriting Competition Quotes

I've written a song for Prince. I never showed it to Prince, but just to see if I could do it. At the time, when I sort of knew him, he was recording a song a day. I wondered if I could do that. So I wrote it.

I entered a songwriting competition, I didn't win, and one of the judges on the panel was an A&R man at a record label that had no other acts and I signed to them. We sent my demo out to five people and David Kahne got back to me that day, and said I think you're amazing I want to start with you tomorrow. He was like my Harvard reach school, I couldn't believe it. I was really excited. It was the first time anyone of any importance said I was good and I ran with that validation for a long time.

In Nashville, everybody just wants to write the best songs. So it's a very inviting songwriting community.

I think it's exciting because it pushes you harder to write a great song. Even for established artists, it has to be really good now because people have so many other options.

We record in the spirit of the Berry Gordy camp and Gamble & Huff, where people were writing up to a dozen quality songs within a day because the competition was that hard.

I have to write 100 songs before you write the first good one.

I don't make the mistake of thinking it's a major musical event. I love the Eurovision Song Contest and it will continue long after I'm gone. Just please don't ask me to take it seriously.

It's very hard to get good songs because a lot of writers record their own; they keep the best for themselves.