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Sometimes I'll have an idea for a story or have a subject, and that will inspire lyrics, but most of the time, hopefully, they already exist somewhere else.

Lyrics can be important, but ultimately, what pulls people in on a song is melody and the tracks and the way music feels.

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.

Anything is food for starting a song. A song can start with a lyric idea or a melody or just a sound that inspires.

You work very hard on the lyrics. Getting them to fit the contours of improvised melodies.

In those days, it didn't take much imagination to come up with something that required great lyric development skills. You just thought of an experience that you might have gone through, and write it down.

When it comes to lyrics, I just write down a lot of things, and only a very tiny fraction of it, I think, is any good.

I think you can have the greatest lyrics in the world and if it doesn't have the best tune in the world it will suck. I mean if the music wasn't important it would just be a poem.

I write for myself; I'm trying to keep myself interested in the music. But at the same time, I want to make the songs relatable in a way; I want to keep melodies pretty simple and the lyrics open-ended so that people could maybe relate them to their own life in different ways. Something for everybody to have a piece of.

Really, music is what I'm interested in, and the lyric part of it came from just having to have something to sing.