Motley never once sat down and said, 'Well, the music scene's changing. We need to make this record a little darker or heavier musically or lyrically.' It was just four guys sitting in a room like a bunch of 16-year-olds in a garage and jamming on riffs.

John Corabi

Lyrically we tried to just not be the same as a lot of the other crap that is out there right now.

When I first started playing metal, lyrically, I sort of related a little bit more to the punk and hardcore scenes, where there was a lot more veganism and straight-edge people and people taking a stance for causes that they believe in.

Alissa White-Gluz

Art Yin Where

Music critics think of lyrics first and don't consider melody but so many songs are lyrically depressing but musically great, and that's why they become classics.

Aloe Blacc

Music Great Why

Lyrically, the most important thing for me is, how can I tell a cohesive story?

Andy Biersack

Tory Thing Thin

I think rap in general allows you to be more lyrically expressive. It's a lot easier to state your identity, as opposed to with a guitar making all these weird metaphors.

Awkwafina

Your You Wit

Lyrically and melodically, Drake was definitely a big influence of mine.

Bazzi

T NFL Mine

Death Cab always gets right of first refusal on everything I write, but I tend to know early on. There's a song that has yet to be released - it might come to light at some point in the near future - that when I was writing it, I was really proud of it lyrically.

Ben Gibbard

Future Death Writing

If you're going through a difficult time, and there's a piece of music that speaks to you - be it musically or lyrically or both - you are almost always able to access that music. You're always able to sit down with it.

Ben Gibbard

Time Music You

My goal every time I make a record is just to make the funkiest, the best music I could possibly make, both lyrically, and music-wise.

Big Boi

Time Music Wise

People know, lyrically, I go in, and you should never take me lightly on any record.

Big K.R.I.T.

You Take T

I feel like Black Milk has found his way of putting his life into his music. I feel like, lyrically, he is a beast; a lot of people sleep on Black Milk. Black Milk is a monster. He from church. He from the street. He get down how I get down. He's a soulful cat, and I love how he get down.

BJ the Chicago Kid

Music Love Life

You cannot have black music without something soulful in it, whether it's lyrically, how it's performed, or how it's expressed.

BJ the Chicago Kid

Music You Without

For some music, lyrically, the best move is to keep it simple in what it is that you are saying, and just kind of come across in your rhythm and the way that you lock in on the music.

Black Thought

Music Your You

That's why we do this. In country music, we do this for this very reason... to impact people lyrically, to be a part of their lives.

Brad Paisley

Music Art Why

I think one thing that's amazing about 'Resurrection' is that we weren't afraid to lay it all out there lyrically.

Chad Gilbert

Amazing Were Think

'The Driver' kind of set the tone for what I wanted to say, and lyrically, it especially did.

Charles Kelley

Wanted Want Tone

I may not be as lyrically adept as Jay-Z and Morrissey, but at least I can sing what I feel.

Chris Martin

T Sing Sin

Lyrically and thematically, the title 'Doctor Faith', that song is about therapy, psychotherapy, and that song is about emotions and personal insight. I think all the songs on the record sort of go along with that.

Christopher Cross

Faith Wit Title

I'd rather have a hundred thousand or a million people saying I'm nuts and I'm crazy for my musical choices and what I've said lyrically, than a million people all raising their hand on the first day.

Chuck D

Music Yin USA

So much of listening to lyrically driven music is projecting your own feelings and experiences into the music.

Conor Oberst

Music Experience Your

I'm never doing a new album. I'll probably do nothing but singles. I'm as good as anybody out there lyrically and conceptually and can go toe to toe with the best of them throughout history. But I don't know how much longer I'll be doing it. It's not really fun anymore.

Coolio

It's not my concern to make a commercial pop record. I want to make a record of music that I would listen to, that is lyrically rich and has songs that people can relate to - more along the Jakob Dylan route: people who create for the art of it and not necessarily the monetary rewards of it.

Crystal Bowersox

What I love about each album is the opportunity to expand on what we've done in the past - to push myself and the band creatively, vocally, and lyrically.

Darius Rucker

Lyrically, country music is the most satisfying music for me.

David Berman

I have always wanted what I have now come to call the voice of personal narrative. That has always been the appealing voice in poetry. It started for me lyrically in Shakespeare's sonnets.

Diane Wakoski

Whether lyrically or musically, it reaches in there and grabs your soul. That's the stuff I gravitate toward.

Dierks Bentley

I was the biggest Public Enemy fan - I think it's what inspired the aggression of N.W.A. We just took a different route lyrically.

Dr. Dre

We've never been your traditional rock-pop band. Lyrically, I've always had more of an interest in spirituality and that kind of thing.

Ed Kowalczyk

The place we go as a band is a sort of samadhi, intensely emotional and not bound by self-thinking. And lyrically, one of the goals is to suggest that something is going on beyond what you can see.

Ed Kowalczyk

I feel like 'Next To Me' is a great introduction because it's a simple song that has a simple message for me. I wanted to introduce something that lyrically I'm proud of and introduces me both as an artist and as a writer.

Emeli Sande

When I first started, I thought I was wack. Lyrically, I thought I was wack. The thing I had over everybody was that I was the realest rapper.

Fat Joe

The quality of my songs will get through to people. They are good songs. Lyrically, some of them are interesting: there's stories, a bit of humour. I'm very confident about the music I play, you know.

Gilbert O'Sullivan

Like MCs, each chess player has his own style: how he likes to open, when he likes to attack. Just like we face off with each other lyrically, we challenge each other's minds on the chessboard. Sharpen each other's swords.

Gza

I just want to get to that point where I'm able to fully create music that's good lyrically and quality-wise as far as the way it's knocking and everything.

Hopsin

Rarely do I finish a song lyrically before I have a musical idea there, but then again, rarely ever would I finish a song musically before starting the lyrical ideas. So a lot of the time, they come in tandem, or they just come at a glance.

Hozier

Lyrically, I think I'm frustrated with this whole process of trying to figure out what I believe about the world and life. I don't like to adopt a sort of guiding philosophy.

James Mercer

More often than not, changes had to be made in order for a song to make sense, and by the end of it, it would just be something different. Lyrically, I am usually fairly confused until something is finished, and then it makes perfect sense to me.

James Vincent McMorrow

We all knew how talented K.Dot is. We knew how dope he was lyrically.

Jay Rock

The songs sort of come out spontaneously and it'll take me awhile to figure out what exactly is happening lyrically, what kind of story I'm telling. Then I start building little bridges - word bridges - to make everything go from one point to the next point to the next point until it reaches the end.

Jeff Mangum

At first it was a bit daunting, but once I started to do it, the more I got into it, the more I started enjoying it and being able to say things lyrically that I would normally have to say musically.

Jimmy Chamberlin

Motley never once sat down and said, 'Well, the music scene's changing. We need to make this record a little darker or heavier musically or lyrically.' It was just four guys sitting in a room like a bunch of 16-year-olds in a garage and jamming on riffs.

John Corabi

The Clash were the first big love of my life. Lyrically, they inspired me to get out, explore life, and maybe kick some doors down.

John Niven

I guess lyrically they're similar because they're talking about escaping the kind of misery that likes company. 'The Last One Alive,' for me, is very simple. It's just about alienation, really, that causes anger.

Jon Crosby

I always start with the music and then try to figure out what I want to write about lyrically.

Jose Gonzalez

Great music is just very clear. Sonically and lyrically, you understand the point of view, you understand the melodies, you understand the vibe, and you understand the lyric pretty damn quickly. To me, that doesn't make it 'less than' - it makes it 'more than.'

Justin Tranter

There's a few times in the past when I wrote a song, and I put the words together, and they were very clear pictures, and I felt like I was putting together a really good story. But I don't think I was ever really able to stay on that. What I've sort of developed lyrically is more about the sound of the vocals and what they are.

Justin Vernon

I hope people describe my music as lyrically driven, cross genre. Kind of alternative, kind of indie, kind of rap, kind of everything.

K. Flay

Lyrically, you know, most of the things on 'Rumours' were very autobiographical and very much conversations the three writers were having with other members of the band.

Lindsey Buckingham

Lyrically, I've always thought about albums as a record of a period of time.

Maggie Rogers

I'm lyrically driven, I'm not musically driven.

Mandy Patinkin