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Music is very nebulous, and you can conjure up a lot of moods with music. But lyrics - they're a lot more tangible. They're much more specific. And you want to say something meaningful and creative and artistic and that tells a story and that takes people someplace else.

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.

As a writer, I find it very satisfying when a lyric suddenly ties together more neatly than you expected it to. But for the listener, hearing a good lyric is not generally as exciting as hearing a great beat or a great riff or a great melody or even a distinctive singing voice for the first time.

There is an actor's responsibility in presenting the emotional content of the lyrics to an audience. But whether you do that in a straightforward fashion or an ironic fashion or a blase fashion is all about opportunities, and singers are missing opportunities as artists if they don't pay attention to the lyric.

When there are no lyrics, people can picture what they want. It's a reflection of where they are in their lives. Music becomes a mirror.

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

I don't really love to perform in music. Some people like it more, but it's not my thing so much, but just the writing, when you get the lyric, and the lyric just goes just the right way, or you find the right bridge that takes you to the solo, and those moments are tremendous, and it's difficult to portray.

Music doesn't have to have lyrics; it doesn't have to be a particular type of music - it has the ability to bring out really strong and hopefully good emotional reactions in people.

In a song, you have to have a lyric that gives us new ideas on how to live, a lyric that makes us feel, and a melody that gives you some kind of body response and emotional response.

Songs are not better just because they're emotionally honest. To write a song well, you have to put some work into it and grind it out.