Gold Nuggets of Songwriting Wisdom

On today's post you'll not hear form me. Instead, I'm posting some little nuggets of wisdom about songwriting that continue to inform the process for me - and are good to re-visit once in a while when I'm sliding off the song writing rails. Perhaps you will find some inspiration and encouragement from these quotes as well. Happy writing in 2011!

"The more abstract the truth you wish to teach, the more you need to seduce the senses to it." - Friedrich Nietzsche

"Songwriting is the art of blending the sounds, meaning, and rhythm of words to touch the hidden places within people." - Bill Pere

“I don’t really develop songs. I’m usually just doing something useful, like changing the oil in my car or clearing the wax out of my ears, and the song just comes to me and I just stop what I’m doing and go write it down in a little book I have for such occasions.” - Simon Joyner

"... the crafting process – distinctly different from the song generation/creation process. Creation is unconscious, spiritual, emotional, and very individual. The biggest trap that aspiring songwriters fall into is believing that when that burst of inspiration is spent, the song is "done". The successful, seasoned songwriter knows that the end of that wonderful, indescribable time of inspiration marks the beginning of the next phase in the life of a song, which is the crafting phase. This is the rational, analytical process where specific tools and techniques are applied to the raw output of the creative flow, to cut and polish the raw gem into a final product that touches people in a desired way." - Bill Pere

"But there's a thin line between songwriting and arranging" - Warren Zevon

"When you tune your guitar in a different way, it lends itself to a new way of looking at your songwriting. " - Sheryl Crow

""Songwriting is in the imagination, not always in the truth." - Vince Gill

"If songwriting is in you, it will have to come out - even if you don't make a living at it." - Rachel Thibodeau

"Try to leave people with a feeling of 'Yes, I was there, too.' - Pat Alger