It is a very serious consideration for a lyricist to step in there and suggest the meaning to a song. The music is speaking for itself.
Al Jarreau
Howard Ashman was an amazing lyricist and an amazing artist.
Alan Menken
When I write the music for any of my songs, I write as a composer-lyricist in my head.
I think I'm alright as a lyricist, you know? But then what will happen every couple of months or so is that I'll hear a song I've never heard before and feel I've gone right back to square one.
Alex Turner
As a lyricist, you love to hear other great lyrics or other great concepts.
Alicia Keys
In the 1990s music was a beautiful collaborative process between the composer, lyricist and director. They would exchange ideas and magic used to happen.
Amit Trivedi
Glenn Slater is my lyricist who, of the new young lyricists coming along, is the most exciting, I think.
Andrew Lloyd Webber
I have a fondness for words. On that note, I don't consider my lyrics to be all that great. I like to call myself a supplier of words rather than a lyricist.
Anoop Menon
Sammy Davis, Andy Williams, Tony Bennett... their records sell in the millions; when I do it, it just trickles. But for the composer and lyricist, there's a tidy bit to be made that way, too, so I don't really mind.
Anthony Newley
When it comes to writers and poets, for me it's Vinicius de Moraes. He's one of the greatest lyricists ever.
Ben Harper
Leonard Cohen is probably the greatest lyricist for music that's ever lived, you know?
Beth Hart
I've never considered myself a lyricist, but I have stuff to say.
Brendon Urie
I dabbled a little bit in the whole music thing but I've always thought about Bernie Taupin, who is Elton John's lyricist; Elton John is the great melody and song writer but Bernie Taupin is the one who writes all the lyrics. I don't write lyrics, and I never wanted to be in the music business if I was just going to be a puppet in it.
Carmen Ejogo
My thoughts on Eminem have always been that he is one of the greatest lyricists ever. I've never been a fan because I can't relate to a lot of his world views and experiences, but I acknowledge that he's one of the greatest MCs.
Charlamagne tha God
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.
Chris Cornell
As a writer, as a lyricist, you're just trying to make sure that you're not repeating yourself. And that's a danger for a lot of people. So for me, I just try to keep taking corners and trying to find new paths.
Corey Taylor
I feel like a lyricist is somebody that writes their own lyrics. Now songwriters and lyricists are two totally different things. You can't really be a lyricist if you didn't write your lyrics. There's no passion, there's nothing in it coming from you. It's somebody else's feelings and you just taking it and running with it.
Dave East
I rate Morrissey as one of the best lyricists in Britain. For me, he's up there with Bryan Ferry.
David Bowie
With a musical, you kind of have to do a mind-meld with the book-writer, the lyricist, the composer, the director - sometimes the producer. I think that's a reason why musicals are the hardest form.
David Henry Hwang
I don't want to work on a musical if I'm not the lyricist.
David Lindsay-Abaire
I'm not really a comparison dude. Even when people say 'Big or Pac?,' because they're two totally different types of lyricists.
Drake, I'd like to collaborate with. He's a phenomenal lyricist. Probably the best rapper in the world at the moment. I love Kanye but there's something about Drake; he's more straight up, really clever and really poetic and metaphorical - I love that. He's just clever.
I don't sing melodically. Rhyme pattern is how I sing. I also write like a lyricist or an MC because that's what I was before I was a singer. I just took those elements and put them into music.
'Lip Lock' is a play on words. It sounds flirty and fun. Also, my lips are one of my favorite features. Also, it's like, literally locking the game down with my words because I'm a lyricist.
I speak from the heart. Certain people follow lyricists and people that put words on a dictionary together, and this and that. I'm more of a rapper that speaks how I feel. I just tell it how it is.
Although I have guitars all around, and I pick them up occasionally and write a tune and make a record, I don't really see myself as a musician. It may seem a funny thing to say. It's just like, I write lyrics, and I make up songs, but I'm not a great lyricist or songwriter or producer. It's when you put all these things together - that makes me.
We all try to increase our length of life, but we all have to pass. It's highly interesting as a lyricist.
I think I'm a good lyricist.
One thing a lyricist must learn is not to fall in love with his own lines. Once you learn that, you can walk away from the lyric and look at it with a reasonable degree of objectivity.
When I came into films, I found a vacuum in the field of lyricists, writers and composers.
I would like to see more new productions of new material by new composers/lyricists/book writers. I would like to see people take more chances. I think because everything costs so much they're not taking the chances they used to.
Although the civil-rights movement did a lot to change how black life was dramatized on the American stage in the fifties and sixties, white composers and lyricists often still rely on familiar tropes when it comes to representing black women in musicals.
Kendrick Lamar is not a whack rapper, not at all. Do I think he's a super-mega-lyricist? Not really.
You have to write some poetry, first of all, to decide if you can become a lyricist. I was born in a family of poets.
I still recall how nervous I was when I went for the recording of 'Guzarish'… When I reached the studio, all of them were there - Rahman, Aamir Khan, lyricist Prasoon Joshi and director A.R. Murugadoss.
I love a good lyricist - always have. The thing that inspired me most was the different performers, like Tina Turner, James Brown, Michael Jackson, Madonna, even Janet Jackson.
Nothing against Nicki Minaj - I think she's a dope lyricist, and her body is perfect, along with a dope personality. But I'm more into a woman who's not so much into the spotlight.
I'm not a fast, stream-of-consciousness lyricist at all - I know some guys who are, and if there is one skill I wish I had, it's that.
I didn't feel like I was allowed to be a songwriter. I thought I had to be a really intelligent lyricist, like a poet.
What is so beautiful about a composer and a lyricist is that their job is to push a story along and not halt it.
Nas is truly one of the greatest lyricists to ever come out of Queens, which has produced more great MCs than any other borough. He's one of the greatest MCs of my lifetime and in the world. He's also a friend.
I think, in reading a few sentences of text, you can just tell the tone, and that's something I love in prose writers but in lyricists as well.
As far as I'm concerned, collaboration is the essence of life. It's wonderful to be able to have talents, and, very often, we think that we know what our talents are, or we find out through a back door that we have a talent. I know that I found out I was a lyricist quite through a back door.
I think, with music, I'm a lyricist who talks about real life things.
I've always done music with so-called thug- or gangster-type lyricists. I've always been associated with that because I'm from the West Coast.
I feel like I want to write some songs and I don't know how to go about doing it. Usually it's the lyrics that are a problem, and I think I am not really cut out to be a lyricist.
A lot of the great songwriters in history have been collaborators, with a separate lyricist.
I'm not tryin' to come off as the best lyricist.
If one wants to go on living, one must evolve. Before, when we composed, we would start by a series of music themes. Once created, we would hire writers and lyricists to make up the text and the story line. I was the first to do this backwards with 'Man of La Mancha.'
One of the key emotions a lot of people seem to be feeling is disillusionment, and what I try to do as a lyricist is touch on these emotions.
