QuoteProject
Songwriting is about getting the demon out of me. It's like being possessed.
John Lennon
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Songwriting serves as a cathartic expression for artists to release their inner struggles and emotions.

In this quote, John Lennon likens the process of songwriting to an exorcism of personal demons. He suggests that creating music is a powerful and almost supernatural experience, allowing him to channel intense emotions, thoughts, and conflicts in a way that is both liberating and transformative.

Themes

SongwritingEmotionArtCatharsisCreativity

In practice

Example use cases

During a workshop on songwriting, this quote could be shared to illustrate the emotional depth music can provide.

More from John Lennon

When I get older losing my hair many years from now. Will you still be sending me a Valentine. Birthday greetings, bottle of wine? If I'd been out till quarter to three would you lock the door? Will you still need me, will you still feed me, When I'm sixty-four?
John LennonRead
The writing of the Beatles, or John and Paul's contribution to the Beatles in the late sixties - had a kind of depth to it, a more mature, more intellectual approach. We were different people, we were older. We knew each other in all kinds of different ways than when we wrote together as teenagers and in our older twenties.
John LennonRead
I put things down on sheets of paper and stuff them in my pockets. When I have enough, I have a book.
John LennonRead
Guilt for being rich, and guilt thinking that perhaps love and peace isn't enough and you have to go and get shot or something.
John LennonRead
I regret profoundly that I was not an American and not born in Greenwich Village. It might be dying, and there might be a lot of dirt in the air you breathe, but this is where it's happening.
John LennonRead
I've been baking bread and looking after the baby...Everyone else who has asked me that question over the last few years says. 'But what else have you been doing?' To which I say, 'Are you kidding?' Because bread and babies, as every housewife knows, is a full-time job. After I made the loaves [of bread,] I felt like I had conquered something. But as I watched the bread being eaten, I thought, Well, Jesus, don't I get a gold record or knighted or nothing?
John LennonRead

Similar quotes

Profoundness, genius, spontaneity, merit, nobility, ingenuity, voice propriety, feeling, discernment, sensibility, good taste, great tone, rightness, courtliness, vivacity, boldness, style, freshness, harmony, perfection, imagination, purity, correctness. The greatest writer of all times. God's most astonishing creation.
Johann Wolfgang Von GoetheRead
The meaning of song goes deep. Who in logical words can explain the effect music has on us? A kind of inarticulate, unfathomable speech, which leads us to the edge of the infinite, and lets us for a moment gaze into that!
Thomas CarlyleRead
Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.
Oscar WildeRead
I certainly had no feeling for harmony, and Schoenberg thought that that would make it impossible for me to write music. He said, 'You'll come to a wall you won't be able to get through.' So I said, 'I'll beat my head against that wall.'
John CageRead
They say that the eyes of some paintings can follow you around the room, a fact that I doubt, but I am wondering whether some music can follow you for ever.
Terry PratchettRead
I was the female Marlon Brando of my generation.
Bette DavisRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.