150 Lyrical Quotes

Following is our list of lyrical quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about lyricism.

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Famous Lyrical Quotes

The country is lyric, the town dramatic. When mingled, they make the most perfect musical drama. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Words are what make the song. I get a personal vision about what the lyrics are about. — Julie Andrews

I'm not a lyric writer to make statements. What I enjoy doing is making paintings with lyrics, creating colorful images. I think that's more what entertainment and music should be. — Chris Cornell

I'm really big into lyrics in my own songs, so I look up to Drake in that aspect. — Jake Paul

Poetic justice, poetic justice.. if I told you that a flower bloom in a dark room would you trust it. I mean I write poems in these songs. — Kendrick Lamar

Its a combination of melody and lyrics, not one without the other. Its a confluence of these different elements that makes something powerful. — Michael Bolton

I've always written songs that were confessional, acoustic, wordy - my writing style matches my personality. The music always has to match the mouth it comes out of. — Camila Cabello

Are you tired of lyrical liars, passing fliers, Wannabe MC's, but really good triers, Tripping over mic cords, getting you bored, A total fraud, this kind of thing I can't afford! — KRS-One

Elysian beauty, melancholy grace, Brought from a pensive though a happy place. — William Wordsworth

If lyrics sold then truth be told/I'd probably be just as rich and famous as Jay-Z. — Talib Kweli

When you know the lyrics to a tune, you have some kind of insight as to it's composition. — Dexter Gordon

Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words. — Edgar Allan Poe

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. - Percy Bysshe Shelley

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

Life is like a beautiful melody, only the lyrics are messed up. — Hans Christian Andersen

Music causes us to think eloquently. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Short Lyrical Quotes

  • Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans. Lennon lyric explained on QuoraJohn Lennon
  • When you're happy you enjoy the music, but when you're sad you understand the lyrics. — Frank Ocean
  • And gentle winds and waters near, make music to the lonely ear. — Lord Byron
  • I have a high art, I hurt with cruelty those who would damage me. — Archilochus
  • Hands, touching hands, reaching out, touching me, touching you. — Neil Diamond
  • If I had only one friend left, i'd want it to be you. — Paul Overstreet
  • I hope that one or two immortal lyrics will come out of all this tumbling around. — Louise Bogan
  • I have so much of you in my heart. — John Keats
  • Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough. — A. E. Housman
  • Music's staying power is a function of how timeless the lyrics, song and production are. — Gary Wright

Lyrical Image Quotes

Lyrical quote Music is my life, but the lyrics tell you my stories
Music is my life, but the lyrics tell you my stories

Rap Lyrics Quotes

But, Eminem... No, I've loved rap for a long time, especially when it got out of its first period and became this gangsta rap, ya know this heavy rap thing? That's when I started to fall in love with it. I loved the lyrics. I loved the beat. — Alan Vega

I said Yo Jay, I can rap. And I spit this rap that said I'm killin' ya'll *****s on this lyrical sh*t, mayonnaise colored benz, I push miracle whips. — Kanye West

If skills sold truth be told I'd probably be lyrically Talib Kweli Truthfully I want to rhyme like Common Sense (But I did five Mil) I ain't been rhyming like Common since. — Jay-Z

I pay attention to lyrics and I know what rap fans care about. I try to write for the average listener and I'm conscious of the mainstream without selling out. — J. Cole

If we're all saying that rap is an art form then we gotta be more responsible for our lyrics. If you see everybody dying because of what you're saying, it don't matter that you didn't make them die, it just matters that you didn't save them. — Tupac Shakur

I bomb atomically, Socrates' philosophies and hypotheses Can't define how I be dropping these mockeries. Lyrically perform armed robbery, Flee with the lottery, possibly they spotted me. — Inspectah Deck

Lyrical lecture, word architecture, Rap director, the best in my sector. Microphone cool chief, releasin the smooth speech... I get nasty with a pen and some loose leaf. — Lord Finesse

I started doing shows in places that I couldn't pronounce, didn't know existed, and I've seen people that didn't speak English or Spanish rapping to every lyric and singing to every hook. I said, "This is the type of music that I want to do." — Pitbull

Sometimes I'll have a whole song done without having a beat - I'll just rap on an instrumental tempo and recreate a whole new song just around the lyrics. — Tyga

At 24 I decided that my life is enough for me, and I stopped looking for some other piece to complete it. I also learned how to needlepoint ironic cross-stitches of rap lyrics and gave them to my friends as presents. I’ll let you decide which is the more important revelation. — Taylor Swift

Lyricism Quotes

The only music minister to whom the Lord will say, 'Well done, thy good and faithful servant,' is the one whose life proves what their lyrics are saying, and to whom music is the least important part of their life. Glorifying the only worthy One has to be a minister's most important goal! — Keith Green

Sometimes I need to reject the music proposed for my songs because the musicians misunderstand that the Fanny Crosby who once wrote for the people in the saloons has merely changed the lyrics. Oh my no. The church must never sing it's songs to the melodies of the world. — Fanny Crosby

All my lyrics are open to interpretation by the individual and imply many different meanings, therefore their relevance is purely subjective. — Ian Curtis

You were the one who made things different, you were the one who took me in. You were the one thing I could count on, above all, you were my friend. — Tom Petty

I was babysitting the night High School Musical premiered last year. I watched with the kids and we sang along to the lyrics. I was making $12 an hour. — Monique Coleman

It was about working with other musicians, but more than that it's about exploring musical areas that you could never do with the band you're in, in my case Judas Priest. You could tackle musical areas and lyrical areas that wouldn't be appropriate for Priest. — Glenn Tipton

All classes of people under social pressure are permeated with a common experience; they are emotionally welded as others cannot be. With them, even ordinary living has epic depth and lyric intensity, and this, their material handicap, is their spiritual advantage. — Alain LeRoy Locke

When you write a song, most of the words you use are in black and white, and then, from time to time, you use one that’s in color. These words in color are a part of ourselves, because we give them a meaning. If you like, we give them a third dimension. — Jacques Brel

I write the lyrics based on what is going on in my life - I'm not going to write about the old hair metal stuff, like castles and stuff. — Oliver Sykes

Once there was a darkness, a deep and endless night, you gave me everything you had and oh, you gave me light — Sarah McLachlan

Music And Lyrics Quotes

Fleetwood Mac were really accessible musically, but lyrically and emotionally, we weren't so easy. And it was our music that helped us survive. But all of us were in pieces personally. — Mick Fleetwood

I grew up with all kinds ofmusic, but my heart was particularly drawn to Country Music because of the guitar playing, the lyrics and of artists like Steve Warner and Vince Gill. — Bryan White

My music is basically all about witty punchlines and lyric progression that is aimed to make you laugh or say "Woah." — Mike Stud

If conversation was the lyrics, laughter was the music, making time spent together a melody that could be replayed over and over without getting stale. — Nicholas Sparks

A film just doesn't involve actors, a director and a producer, there is also the cameraman, the sound engineer, the music composer, the lyric writer. So many people come together to make a film. When we all feel satisfied with the film that we have created it's a win for all of us. — Aamir Khan

Most people think its sex, money, and drugs but Hip-Hop is about lyrics, storytelling, and everybody having a different style. That's just another idea of beautiful, being yourself and creating music that represents you and what you like. — Rapsody

Rock 'n roll smells phony and false. It is sung, played and written for the most part by cretinous goons and by means of its almost imbecilic reiteration and sly, lewd, in plain fact, dirty lyrics ... manages to be the martial music of every side-burned delinquent on the face of the earth. — Frank Sinatra

As I have continued to make music and progress as an artist, I think I am steadily getting better at expanding my lyrical content and defining who I am as an artist. — Mike Stud

It means rock'n'roll in the sack. It means sex: the lyrics, the beat of it, the thunderous feeling through your body. Before the word groupie even existed I knew that I wanted to share myself with someone who created that music and turned me on in every kind of way. — Pamela Des Barres

I've programmed myself musically to come up with love-feeling tracks that are romantic, sexy, but classy, all in one. And that's the challenge. Once I create that music, then the lyrical content starts to come - you know, the stories and things like that. — R. Kelly

Song Lyric Quotes

When I wrote a song, it would have to be from something I was really excited about, or a melody that's been haunting me for weeks, or a message I wanted to convey lyrically. So it would have to start from something I felt very strongly about. — Brendon Urie

Chelsea Morning is a great Joni Mitchell song and I guess I'm partial to her lyrics because they show me a slightly different perspective on life. — Neil Diamond

A lot of Woody Guthrie's songs were taken from other songs. He would rework the melody and lyrics, and all of a sudden it was a Woody Guthrie song. — John Mellencamp

You're like the lyrics to my favorite song. You stick with me all day long. And when I reach the end I wanna hear it again. — TobyMac

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

We recorded Star Climbing over a three-year period between our studios, working on songs and lyrics until we felt like we had found the albums direction. It is our most distinctive album to date, combining all our different tastes and styles into one. — Stuart Price

We all love to sing along with our favorite songs. We sing in the car, in the shower, and at the karaoke bar. The problem is that half the time we don't know what we're singing. We're making up lyrics as we go along and hoping no one will notice. — Shawn Amos

As a musician and a guitar player, I can noodle as well as anybody. But from my background as a session musician, I always try to play what is called for by the lyric and listening to the song. As a writer, that's what I do, too. — Richie Sambora

I'm always thinking about songs, I'm thinking of life maybe a little bit more lyrically than a computer programmer or someone like that. — Jon Foreman

Whether it's a letter, song lyrics, part of a novel, or instructions on how to fix a kitchen sink, it's writing. You keep your craft honed, you acquire the discipline to finish things. You turn into a self-taskmaster. — Jimmy Buffett

Lyric Poetry Quotes

Will you love me in December as you do in May, Will you love me in the good old fashioned way? When my hair has all turned gray, Will you kiss me then and say, That you love me in December as you do in May? — Jimmy Walker

There's a fierce practicality and empiricism which the whole imaginative, lyrical aspect of poetry comes from. — David Whyte

A lyric, it is true, is the expression of personal emotion, but then so is all poetry, and to suppose that there are several kinds of poetry, differing from each other in essence, is to be deceived by wholly artificial divisions which have no real being. — John Drinkwater

This proves that great lyric poetry can die, be reborn, die again, but will always remain one of the most outstanding creations of the human soul. — Eugenio Montale

Poetry is a lyrical insinuation. Often, its melodic subtlety kisses the subconscious mind. — Masiela Lusha

Music straightjackets a poem and prevents it from breathing on its own, whereas it liberates a lyric. Poetry doesn't need music; lyrics do. — Stephen Sondheim

In fact, in lyric poetry, truthfulness becomes recognizable as a ring of truth within the medium itself. — Seamus Heaney

I am convinced that the first lyric poem was written at night, and that the moon was witness to the event and that the event was witness to the moon. For me, the moon has always been the very embodiment of lyric poetry. — Mary Ruefle

I think it was T.S. Eliot who talked about good poetry being felt before it’s understood. I believe that. There are some bands where I love their lyrics but I don’t have a clue what they’re on about. — Marcus Mumford

Most songs have bridges in them, to distract listeners from the main verses of a song so they don't get bored. My songs don't have a lot of bridges because lyric poetry never had them. — Bob Dylan

Good Lyric Quotes

I think it need realness, you should speak on thing that you know about, that you being from, that you experienced or that you been around, you know. I think you need a good hook, good beats and good lyrics. — Obie Trice

What I believe is really good in the so-called documentary approach to photography is the addition of lyricism.[this quality] is usually produced unconsciously and even unintentionally and accidentally by the cameraman. — Walker Evans

A man who is not touched by the earthy lyricism of hot pastrami, the pungent fantasy of corned beef, pickles, frankfurters, the great lusty impertinence of good mustard is a man of stone and without heart. — Herb Gardner

I'm not crazy about country-western music. But the lyrics are good. "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy" is pretty clever. — Alice Cooper

People don't really care about lyrics anymore. It's kinda really sad, like they'll listen to something musically and has a really cool beat down or something, that's great, that's good enough; but the message is the most important thing. — Roger Miret

For me the music is a vehicle for my lyrics. It's a chance to get some really good words across. — Joe Strummer

A good idea for lyrics and a melody to expand on. — Gordon Waller

Since I didn't spend a great amount of time on writing the lyrics, some people would argue that they're too vague or simplistic, but I think it's kind of good. I wouldn't say they're all stream of consciousness, but they're not necessarily overwrought. — Jack Tatum

A good song is a nice set of chords and some good lyrics; a great song is a song that reinvents itself over time. That you can always find something interesting in the more you listen to it - it keeps revealing something to you. — Bryce Dessner

Musically, there's probably nothing better than, after spending weeks or months of grinding on a lyric or a song, when you play a good song from beginning to end for the first time - there's a moment there where all the pain and suffering is worth it. — Five for Fighting

Lyric Quotes

I did try to come back and listen You never it..I didn't wish it But I did hear every answer ever question It's all about protection stil through the sunlight days I wait Track a ghost through the fog The sun is burning me And you come running out in the wind with me The ocean is your blanket. — Stevie Nicks

It's funny how the littlest things can make you feel larger than life; the right lyric, the most heartfelt melody, the clearest message. Love. — Alex Gaskarth

When I'm lost in the rain, In your eyes I know I'll find the light to light my way And when I'm scared, losing ground When my world is going crazy You can turn it all around and when I'm down you're there Pushing me to the top You're always there, giving me all you've got — Christina Aguilera

Every now and then we find a special friend, who never lets us down, who understands it all, reaches out each time you fall, you're the best friend that I've found. — Jordan Hill

Shay sometimes talked in a mysterious way, like she was quoting the lyrics of some band no one else listened to. — Scott Westerfeld

Angels in America' - which is composed of two three-hour plays, 'Millennium Approaches' and 'Perestroika' - proved to be a watershed drama, the most lyrical and ambitious augury of an era since Tennessee Williams's 'The Glass Menagerie. — John Lahr

Lyric writing is an interesting process in Sonic Youth. There's three people writing now, and we've all had a lot of interest and involvement with expression through words — Thurston Moore

Death left its old tragic heaven and became the lyrical core of man: his invisible truth, his visible secret. — Michel Foucault

Just to prove i was right that it's harder to be friends than lovers and you shouldn't try and mix the two, cause if you do and then you're still unhappy, then you know that the problem is you. — Liz Phair

Worst music ever sells millions. The worst music with the shittiest lyrics. The fact is that they pay radio stations to put it on the radio, then you've heard it a million times when you're driving from your shitty job to your shitty house. It's indoctrination, it's sad. — Sia Furler

Great Lyric Quotes

The lyricism of marginality may find inspiration in the image of the outlaw, the great social nomad, who prowls on the confines of a docile, frightened order. — Michel Foucault

But I always loved songs with great lyrics. — Johnny Rivers

Sometimes, the best songs are the ones you write without any pen and paper or audio recording device or guitar in your hands. Because there's nothing between you and the melody; it's just a great lyric. — Jon Foreman

The video forum for me has been a source of great consternation because once you start projecting a look to a song, it robs the listener of their ability to adopt that song and make the lyric their own. — Sheryl Crow

I create my own lyrics. I have a great band. I have a drummer from East Berlin. — Nina Hagen

I think maybe since there isn't a great deal of access to the mainstream media and people don't understand the language of mainstream media, if you put music out there with lyrics that are loosely political, people absorb some of it and spit it back out. — Thom Yorke

Mozart combines serenity, melancholy, and tragic intensity into one great lyric improvisation. Over it all hovers the greater spirit that is Mozart's - the spirit of compassion, of universal love, even of suffering - a spirit that knows no age, that belongs to all ages. — Leonard Bernstein

Lyrics are very different. There is a clear line between that and a poem. Something that has been a source of great excitement and delight for me is this idea that I get to rhyme. — Joanna Newsom

Music is also one of the great heart openers. Sometimes, you hear the lyrics of a song and you dance, laugh, smile, or perhaps even cry. — Michael Franti

Something taken off the page can sound great, I guess. Usually it doesn't. It seems like lately Pitchfork is trying to champion lyric writers more. — Stephen Malkmus

People Writing About Lyrical

Name Quotes Likes
Read quotes by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
quotes on love

699 7457
Read quotes by Julie Andrews

Julie Andrews
quotes on life, music

120 875
Read quotes by Chris Cornell

Chris Cornell
quotes on death, life and love

63 1125
Read quotes by Jake Paul

Jake Paul
quotes on sports, leadership and life

95 1
Read quotes by Kendrick Lamar

Kendrick Lamar
quotes on love, life and friends

140 18024
Read quotes by Michael Bolton

Michael Bolton
quotes on life, leadership and love

42 200

More Lyrical Quotes

Caught like a leaf in the wind Lookin' for a friend Where can you turn Whisper the words of a prayer and you'll find Him there Arms open wide, love in His eyes Jesus - He meets you where you are Jesus - He heals your secret scars All the love you're looking for is Jesus The friend of a wounded heart — Wayne Watson

Well a good writer writes, a good musician listens to a lot more than he actually composes, and if you're going to do lyrics - well, there's a Freudian slip. That's not even a slip, that's a Freudian move: I said going to do lyrics. If you really want it to ring true, you'll live it first. Go really get your heart broken! — David Lee Roth

Lyric night of the lingering Indian Summer, Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing, Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects, Ceaseless, insistent. The grasshopper's horn, and far-off, high in the maples, The wheel of a locust leisurely grinding the silence Under a moon waning and worn, broken, Tired with summer. — Sara Teasdale

In Conclusion

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