Often my best work comes from somebody trying to stretch me in a direction that I wouldn't normally want to go in. It's not something I fight at all.
Alan MenkenRead
The act of writing a song involves a degree of letting go of yourself, and that's very much being a child.
Interpretation
Writing a song requires self-expression and a childlike openness to creativity.
Alan Menken emphasizes that songwriting is a process that demands vulnerability and a willingness to release one's ego. This creative act mirrors the innocence and spontaneity of childhood, reminding us that true artistry often comes from a free and uninhibited mindset.
In practice
A speaker at a songwriting workshop might use this quote to inspire attendees to embrace their creativity without fear.
Often my best work comes from somebody trying to stretch me in a direction that I wouldn't normally want to go in. It's not something I fight at all.
What a great poem teaches you - and it's not intellectual at all - is the resonance in the language that's heard there. This goes back to the very origins of poetry and to the very origins of language.
Writing is the hardest work in the world. I have been a bricklayer and a truck driver, and I tell you β as if you haven't been told a million times already β that writing is harder. Lonelier. And nobler and more enriching.
There is a music for lonely hearts nearly always. If the music dies down there is a silence. Almost the same as the movement of music. To know silence perfectly is to know music.
Fashion is a language that creates itself in clothes to interpret reality.
Journalism is concerned with events, poetry with feelings. Journalism is concerned with the look of the world, poetry with the feel of the world.
Nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis, that we get at the real meaning of things.
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