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The big problem with songwriting for me is starting a new song. It's the thing where all the anguish exists, not in the writing of the song, but the starting of the new song.

The best songwriting comes from being as creative as you can and editing it down to the good bits, essentially.

I've always gravitated towards songwriting that happens easily and spontaneously, because those have always been my best songs.

Songwriting is like editing. You write down all this stuff - all this bad, stupid stuff - and then you have to get rid of everything except the very best.

I'm a great believer in not over-thinking lyrics. You might become technically better as a songwriter, but you lose what originally made your songs great.

I don't believe that songwriting has to be profound, but I truly believe that it's a crime for you to go outta your way for it not to be.

Songwriting is something that's very daunting until you have your first successful song, I think.

The joy of songwriting only gets messed up if you are trying to follow up a big success, or you are trying to create a hit single, or if you have conscious thoughts of a particular outcome for the music.

Songwriting is too mysterious and uncontrolled a process for me to direct it towards any one thing.

That's what I find with any good song, you just have to let it happen. Out of about twenty songs you might write, one of any significance. It might be thirty or forty, but I just keep churning them out and churning them out in hope that one of them will stick.