In terms of growing as a songwriter, I'm just a guy who understands the craft better. I understand what I want to do with it. I think that's where I've grown. Have I fully achieved that? No, but I don't think you ever do. There's always room to grow.

Albert Hammond, Jr.

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There's no one songwriter in the band. It's collaborative, and we all have different tastes.

My first album after 'American Idol' I did with Desmond - we paid for it together, and we literally were together working on it every day for a year and half, just writing. We wrote in New York, Nashville, L.A., Sweden - we wrote with some other amazing songwriters like Diane Warren, too.

Ace Young

Work War Amazing

It's cool that our stuff is received as it is, and our stuff is fairly long. But from a songwriter's purview as well as an exercise, I'm trying to write shorter material and find ways to condense ideas.

Adam Granduciel

Cool Yin Writer

What should a song be about? It's a trick question for songwriters because lots of amazing songs aren't 'about' anything. Or, at least, they're not about anything that's obvious or logical.

Adam Schlesinger

Amazing Writers Writer

Pakistan never valued Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan saab until English songwriter Peter Gabriel started collaborating with him. After that, the country suddenly realised that they have an amazing talent. This is the story of a lot of artistes there.

Adnan Sami

Pet Art Amazing

It's unfortunate we've never been just songwriters.

Adolph Green

Writers Writer Write

The songwriters whom we think of being the greatest songwriters usually write one hit and six or seven flops. That includes the Irving Berlins and the Hoagy Carmichaels, the Harold Arlens, Cole Porter.

Ahmet Ertegun

Great Car Writers

I came along with that crowd of singer-songwriters who were able to make their own statements in such a personal way that it changed the industry: Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Sly and the Family Stone.

Al Jarreau

Men Family Change

I traveled the world as a DJ, as a singer, as a songwriter, as a producer.

Al Walser

Travel Writer Write

A lot of times when songwriters get together and write a song... somebody will come in with a hook and a lot of times they come out with something that sounds a little crafty.

Alan Jackson

Time Writers Writer

In terms of growing as a songwriter, I'm just a guy who understands the craft better. I understand what I want to do with it. I think that's where I've grown. Have I fully achieved that? No, but I don't think you ever do. There's always room to grow.

Albert Hammond, Jr.

You Writer Write

I didn't start writing songs, honestly, until I started making my album. I was always doing poetry, but I never thought I could write songs. I discouraged myself and thought it was so hard. But starting this process and learning just what it is to be a songwriter and performer taught me that you don't have to feel discouraged about anything.

Alessia Cara

Poetry Learning Courage

I never thought of myself as being a good songwriter. There are a ton of other people that are good songwriters, but I don't think I'm in the club. What I do well is perform, sometimes sing pretty good, and accompany myself well and arrange fairly well.

Alex Chilton

Time Good Writers

I've always been around musicians and always been the songwriter who doesn't end up playing the music.

Alex Ebert

Music Yin Writer

Songwriters always reminded me of that kid at school who would go around with his guitar, like, 'Yeah, songwritin' man,' looking wistful. That wasn't me - those kinds of people put me off. In the early days, I'd write a bunch of lyrics and almost look at them as a sort of joke, to make the rest of the boys laugh.

Alex Turner

Yeah Writers Writer

Babyface is one of the top songwriters in the world ever, and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis have worked with everybody that I grew up listening to.

Algee Smith

Work Writers Writer

Springsteen's 'Thunder Road' and Carole King's 'It's Too Late' are examples of why I am a singer/songwriter. I practice these songs every day. The melodies are timeless in the rock world, the lyrics are words that I need to say, and they need to be heard again.

Alice Ripley

Time Teen Car

Like Juan Gabriel and Ana Gabriel, both singers and songwriters of legendary talent, Marco Antonio has reshaped a kind of Mexican romanticism. What he brings to pop music is the kind of songs that really talk to people's hearts.

Alicia Villarreal

Romantic Music Art

Roman Polanski is one of my favorite filmmakers, and John Phillips one of my favorite songwriters. I had the honor to meet each of these men and was almost giddy to be blessed with the chance to tell each artist what his work meant has to me.

Allison Anders

Work Men Chance

My number-one goal is to never feel like I'm strictly defining myself. The minute I feel like I'm doing that as anything - as theatrical, as feminist, as songwriter - I feel like the minute I name it, I'm stuck in a box.

Amanda Palmer

Writer Write Tuck

When I'm outside gardening, it can be so inspiring. I think of words and melodies. It's peaceful. Every singer-songwriter should find something outside of music that makes them as happy as gardening makes me.

Amanda Shires

I started school because I felt like, as a songwriter, I was operating solely on instinct, and I was having a hard time deciding exactly what words I wanted to use. I felt like I wanted to be a writer, and being a curious person, school felt like a way to solve the problems I was having with my own work.

Amanda Shires

I had no idea I was gonna be a songwriter, because I was too young to know my own evolution. I started playing the violin as a way to express myself because I didn't have a lot of vocabulary when I was 14.

Amanda Shires

I wasn't getting any work as a songwriter in Texas because I was only known as a fiddle player.

Amanda Shires

Maybe, whatever influence we have, other songwriters or women or whatever can feel like they can have a place too, I guess. Or that they don't have to do things the way that we've been taught we have to do them.

Amanda Shires

The cool thing about being a songwriter, or a writer, I guess, in general, you can take on a lot of different things, experience a lot of different things, just by writing about them.

Amos Lee

I don't have the songwriter's obligatory sob story. My sister and I both had a very happy, normal childhood and we've turned into sensible adults.

Amy Macdonald

But if you want to be a songwriter-based musician, whether you play punk or rock or country or jazz, whatever, you have to work on your songwriting and you have to work on being able to play in front of people, I think. That performance is how you create the groundwork for a lasting career.

Amy Ray

Having listened to great songwriters like James Taylor and Carole King, I felt there was nothing new that was coming out that really represented me and the way I felt. So I started writing my own stuff.

Amy Winehouse

As a solo artist, it's so easy to be lumped into a singer / songwriter genre and writing sleepy, sad songs that are very emotionally rich that mean a lot to you, and people just get kind of tired.

Anderson East

I was at a picnic, and there were a lot of songwriters. I remember praying, 'God I wish you would give me a song.' About five minutes later, my ears popped, and I saw everybody in slow motion. Nobody knew what I was experiencing.

Andrae Crouch

Well, my main instrument is violin, but I think of myself as a songwriter who happens to play violin.

Andrew Bird

The way I work, I'm not a confessional singer-songwriter.

Andrew Bird

I think the '60s and '70s were the peak period for the singer-songwriter, for sure.

Andrew Gold

I will say one thing: Mick Mars is one of the greatest songwriters I've ever met in my life and had the pleasure to work with.

Andy Biersack

I'm a singer-songwriter, but we get loud and we jump around. We have dance moves; we freak out. It's really fun, man!

Andy Grammer

For me, it's always been about a mix of hip-hop, acoustic singer/songwriters, and piano rock. I pull all those together. Each song may lean more heavily on one than the other, but they all have all three pieces.

Andy Grammer

There's two things that are tough when you're trying to be a songwriter: Number one is, how do I write a great song? The second thing is, how do I write a great song that's right for me?

Andy Grammer

Very unique: I was a singer-songwriter-guitarist. Very unusual in the late Seventies to find a singer-songwriter, and on top of that, a guitarist.

Andy Kindler

I made numerous attempts to find a way to do it all, to be a creative singer, songwriter, producer, and to be the mother, daughter, sister, lover, wife. And the thing about music is, with me, that she's a harsh mistress. She does not come to me in the midst of stress.

Anita Baker

I am neither such a great songwriter or such a great singer that the world must hear my album. There's just no point to make.

Anna Kendrick

Less is more' may be a cliche, but that doesn't mean musicians often heed that advice. Swedish singer-songwriter Kristian Matsson, who performs and records as The Tallest Man on Earth, follows it religiously.

Anthony Fantano

On 'Kaputt,' singer-songwriter Dan Bejar reevaluates his band's sound and drifts away from the David Bowie comparisons that have plagued even his best albums.

Anthony Fantano

I was always a wannabe 'singer-songwriter' but nothing was happening. I was trying for albums. I was too afraid to quit my job for nothing. But my friends kept on encouraging me. I kept on writing songs. My first hit was probably my 150th song.

Anupam Roy

I have no such ambition of becoming an actor. I want to grow as a musician, singer and songwriter.

Anupam Roy

When I am not working, I go to the movies, text my friends, my thumbs are faster than lightening on that keyboard!, write songs, sing, dance, Facebook, Twitter and spend time with my besties. I am also a songwriter and I love to write about my life experiences.

Ariel Winter

I am songwriter. I do compose the music of songs that I write in Bengali. But I've never thought of composing for a film. That's a different art altogether.

Arijit Singh

I'm not just a singer-songwriter doing songs in the key of me.

Arlo Guthrie

I think Everclear is a weird combination of a singer-songwriter and a hard-rock band. That's why some people really dig the band, and some don't.

Art Alexakis

As a songwriter, I do kind of look at 'Santa Monica' as a thing outside of itself, because it isn't just my song. This is a song a lot of people tell me is a part of their high school or college years. That means a lot to me.

Art Alexakis