Authors can write stories without people assuming that they are autobiographies, but songwriters and poets are often considered to be the characters in their works. I like Michelangelo’s vision, ‘I saw the angel in the...

I’ve played Romeo for Juliet(But in depth)It’s vignettes of silhouettes(And then read)And watched Russian roulette, yeah red SovietYet doing it simultaneouslyWhile dropping down shed oubliettesTurned around and took truth to the head thatLove is the...

I tried to look at writing a song almost like solving a mystery. The song was there, buried somewhere in my brain. All I had to do was follow the clues until I figured it...

Something good happened to my writing when stopped being afraid to do something simple, for the fear that people might think I couldn’t do something more complex. Don’t be confused by the word simple. Simple...

Songwriters write songs, but they really belong to the listener.

I think there is a song out there to describe just about any situation.

I won’t be stuck in traffic ’til I see how rugged my path isAnd right now I’m loving how fast my troubles are fastingNo they don’t bother me oh realizing I’m psychopathicA wild beast, baby...

A critic can call any poem ‘doggerel.’ That is no more than a slur. ‘Doggerel’ or ‘maudlin’ or ‘sappy’ or ‘sentimental’ is in the ear of the listener. By the by, ‘sentimental’ is okay as...

… because one day, maybe one day, if I learned how to write clear enough, sing loud enough, be strong enough, I could explain myself in a way that made sense and then maybe one...

There have been times I’ve felt so much art in my soul I grew sick of artists.

I’d rather be nine people’s favorite thing than a hundred people’s ninth favorite thing.

… but I believe that music can change a life, because it changed mine.

When there’s music in your soul, there’s soul in your music.

The best songs are written through our anger. Even though feelings change over time, our lyrics will always remain inside the song as a way of reminding us how far and how much stronger we’ve...

Why I write music? Because it hurts not to.

Music is not my life. My life is music.

Of course Tucker Crowe was in pain when he made [the record], but he couldn’t just march into a recording studio and start howling. He’d have sounded mad and pathetic. He had to calm the...

I enjoy melancholic music and art. They take me to places I don’t normally get to go.

so much of the world is plunged in darkness and chaos…So ring the bells that still can ringForget your perfect offeringThere is a crack in everythingThat’s how the light gets in.

I didn’t do music to live; I lived so that I could do music.

His mindIt says survival of the fittest butHis soulRevival of the idiotsSo good riddance, dancing

When someone asks me what a song is about, it’s like, I feel like I might ruin it if you ask me that. I feel like I did my best to explain the song in...

A steampunk nationBaby pollution rises up then the loving comes arraigning ’causeOur art’s official and only partially artificialAnd our heart’s in the middle of sharp hardened shards of metal butThere’s not where it settlesBecause it’s...

I’ve finally decided to write about profit for a changeBut before I really started I already started to feel lameBaby what’s it to a beast who manely to money remains untamed

Songwriting is a bitch. And then it has puppies

If I knew what to doI’d do more than write a song for you

Is the phrase ‘pay’ or ‘play the piper’I inquire, why’Cause I admire a desire to flip the switchYeah make a way to face the music likeLife savings for a mosh pit riotListen to a mixRock...

You’re going to have people who are going to say ‘Oh, you know like, she just writes songs about her ex-boyfriends’ and I think frankly that’s a very sexist angle to take. No one says...

Because there are hundreds of different ways to say one thing, I, being a writer, songwriter, and poet, speak childishly and incoherently. In speech there is so much to decide in so little time.

Sometimes I just want to paint the words “It’s my fault” across my forehead to save people the time of being pissed off at me.

Opportunities may come along for you to convert something -something that exists into something that didn’t yet. That might be the beginning of it. Sometimes you just want to do things your way, want to...

Unless the object of the singer’s affection is a vampire, surely what Hart means is unphotogenic. Only vampires are unphotographable, but affectionate ‘-enic’ rhymes are hard to come by.

Songwriting and poetry are so commonly birthed from underdogs because one can make even the ugliest situations admirable, or more beautiful than the beautiful situations – they are the most graceful media in which the...