He's written some great songs. I thought that 'Blues Man' was a perfect song for me to do as a tribute.
Alan Jackson
He learned through the way that my father and I felt about his songs, his country songs, that they were great songs. And then he went out and sang them for the audiences that we found, and he found a tremendous reaction to that.
Alan Lomax
A singer can quit once he or she has made ten great songs; a director can finish once he or she has made five amazing films; a writer just needs to write three great books.
Alber Elbaz
There are many examples of great songs that become more famous when they are covered.
Alex Ebert
That's one of my problems is that there are so many songs to sing that I sort of get indecisive about what I want to do in a show - because there are so many possibilities! There are so many great songs out there.
Alison Elliott
That's what I love. Not being interrupted, sitting in a car by myself and listening to music in the rain. There are so many great songs yet to sing.
Alison Krauss
There are so many great songs yet to sing.
To me, it's all about the song. Songs are what make me excited. You hear a great song and you want to record it or get a great idea and you want to write it.
Amy Grant
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
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
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
I've always had good songs, it's the great songs that are difficult to find.
Anne Murray
We human beings are tuned such that we crave great melody and great lyrics. And if somebody writes a great song, it's timeless that we as humans are going to feel something for that and there's going to be a real appreciation.
Art Garfunkel
Anything can become a big tune in Scandinavia because people decide what they want to listen to. So I think that's very motivating because songwriters can really think outside the box. A great song - whether or not it's radio-friendly - can really blow up here.
Astrid S
'She's Dynamite' was a 100 years ago, and I recorded that song because the company thought that it was a great song and it was hot. That was the beginning of rock n' roll, and I guess they thought it would be a BB King version of rock n' roll.
B. B. King
I looked through our catalog year by year, and I saw that there were pockets of time when we wrote some terrific songs. Then all of a sudden, we'd go for another two or three months and there weren't great songs.
Barry Mann
The real danger of writing a great song when you're on something is that it might get you thinking that the only way to repeat that is by only writing when you're high.
I know great songwriters. Fred Neil would come up when he was in L.A., we all used to hang out. He would sit there and sing, and we would just melt. I mean, we would go to his recording sessions.
Barry McGuire
I'm nosey, and I have a great imagination. So it's not necessarily things I have to go through, but it's things people I know or my family is going through, and I hear about it, and I think, 'That sounds like a great song.'
Becky G
I don't feel that all the great songs have been written. I do feel that where we are now, certainly with rock & roll music, is that so much of it is variations on themes. But I think that it's one's particular creativity and individuality that comes out within that variation on a particular theme that makes a song great.
Ben Gibbard
The advice I have for new artists is this - write great songs and play them live as often as possible. Get residencies all over town and crush it.
To me, I don't care if I co-write or if I write alone. If it's a great song and it makes it to the record, then that's what is supposed to come, you know what I mean.
Not being a natural songwriter... for me the appreciation of a great song and the writers came early on, growing up in a musical family. My dad got to sing songs by some of the greatest writers of all time, Rodgers and Hammerstein.
Finding great songs is the hard part of my gig - it's not as hard as songwriting, that's much more daunting - but I love playing other people's music.
I think 'Invisible' is a great song, but I don't know how accessible it is.
Crossfire's done very well. I knew it was a great song, but I didn't know it would be so big.
There's a saying, 'It's easy to write songs, but very difficult to write great songs.' I'm going through that right now.
The quality of the writing, really. Simple as that. Beautiful words. It's very nice as a singer to do great songs, which have wonderful lyrics and strong feelings underneath the song.
Coming from the U.K., I can think of so many great songs and musical moments that didn't require a belter of a voice; my favorite singer is Kate Bush and she's not a belter, or PJ Harvey... I'm definitely more of an alternative girl.
With Martha Stewart, the power of the brand, the power of television, taught me that if you can marry all those ingredients - like you marry a great song with a great artist - and get the right television exposure, then you've got something that really is going to be sustainable. You can expand and blow up.
The '80s, no matter what kind of wacky fashion or whatever else that went on in the '80s, the songs that came out of it, there was really great songwriting, in my opinion.
I like Stevie Wonder as my favorite non-pianist pianist. I mean, I shouldn't call him a non-pianist, because he's really a great pianist, but he doesn't feature it that much - he uses his keyboards and his piano technique to support his great songs and so forth, but he can really blow.
There are great songs out there, and if I love them, and I know them, I'm going to sing them just because that's what songs are for.
It seems like if they'd given Bob Dylan a pen and paper in the cradle that he would've come up with a great song. I'd love to write songs like that.
When I'm writing songs, I write visually. When I'm writing the words down and I listen to the melody and the lyrics, I start seeing the video form. And if I can get through a song and from the beginning to the end have the whole video in my mind, I think that's a great song.
Every single day I wrote a song, I was hoping somebody like Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean or whoever would record the song. It's tough to do because there are so many great songwriters in Nashville, and I was lucky enough to get some songs recorded before I got my record deal.
I just kind of go with what I am feeling and don't think I have any kind of recipe for it... I mean, that's what drew me into writing. It's fun, and sometimes you don't get a great song. Sometimes you do.
We pride ourselves on being great songwriters.
At the end of the day, I'm a fan of great stories and great songs.
That's one of my pet peeves. People always want to put something into a category - this one or that one. You know, a great song is a great song.
We love great melodies and great songs that have great hooks and melodies, so we start a little bit more on that side as opposed to other people that start more lyric-based. Sometimes we'll do it the other way.
I love the Memphis sound. When I was 16-and-a-half, with my driver's permit, I was playing New Jersey clubs in a 10-piece band; we had a horn section and would play great, great songs like 'Hold On! I'm Comin'' and 'Knock on Wood' and 'Midnight Hour.'
It's hard to believe the life that 'Someone Like You' has taken on. It's proof that people hunger for great songs - and they are open to different interpretations of songs they love.
There are some great songs - like, I really like 'Snowcone' and 'Whelk Then' and 'No Problem.' I think I'm dissatisfied that it's not written from start to finish; it's over a year's worth of work that doesn't correlate.
The record was only released in the UK, and then when the idea for the remixed album came about, which was an idea that I've had for the longest time, I said this would be great song to remix as well, and so we did it.
There are certain functions that a writer has to do. In a time of crisis, it is great to have heroic poems, as it was in the Irish Revolution. It's great to have great songs, because people need something to sing when they are marching. That's OK, but it should be on the side. It's not the ultimate thing.
I grew up listening to hits, and if I write something I feel, I think that's pretty mass appeal. I'm not very elitist with music. Love is universal; a great melody is universal; it goes around the world; it's not just American. A great song can touch the world.
What makes a great song - you don't put it into words. You feel it. The perfect lyric. The perfect melody. It makes you feel something.
To me and my band, guitar riffs are what it's all about. We know that every time we jam on a great riff, we've got a fighting chance of writing a great song!
'Wrecking Ball' is a great song.
