Writing lyrics is part spontaneous, intuitive and part really thought through and carefully analyzed as you write it. It’s a mixture of two approaches, and I imagine writing anything is like that, really. Some of it just flows, and you just go with it. Ian Anderson Read Quote
If you’re gonna use simile, analogy, metaphor, be descriptive and have some flowery adjectives and a few odd nouns and some engaging bits of dialogue or sentiment, then you’re sort of writing a novel, really. But rock lyrics are not really known for their sophistication. Ian Anderson Read Quote
In writing lyrics – well, for me, anyway – it’s about getting into character, you know? ‘Who is writing this?’ In the case of the original ‘Thick As A Brick,’ supposedly a precocious, very young child who’s fantasizing about his future and the context of all the confusing elements to which school boys are subjected at that time. Ian Anderson Read Quote
I don’t really set out to please anybody, and I don’t think I ever have. I have occasionally been encouraged to try to write something specifically for the purpose of releasing it as a single to get radio play. Those are not my best songs, as a rule. Ian Anderson Read Quote
I’m very motivated by the occasional creative payoff that comes when something goes really well, be it a song, a recording or performance. The payoff is enormous – when you get it. Most of the time, though, I’m filled with self-loathing and general frustration at the limitations I have as a musician. Ian Anderson Read Quote
Most of what I’ve written songs about are things that come out of the confusing emotional, spiritual and psychological period of time when you’re going through puberty. Ian Anderson Read Quote
I’m not one for Sudoku or crosswords – the thing that fires my little brain is doing tour budgets. Ian Anderson Read Quote
As a songwriter, you tend to develop your own style, your own technique, based around what it is you’re trying to write and perform, in terms of your own music. So a way of evolving a guitar style as a songwriter is much easier, I think, than developing a true style of your own just from listening to music or playing other people’s music. Ian Anderson Read Quote
There’s always going to be a little bit of autobiographical content to everything. It’s how you lend some authority to what you write – you give it that weight by drawing on your direct experiences and indirect experiences from people that you know well, or a little. Ian Anderson Read Quote
Prog didn’t really go away. Just took a catnap in the late Seventies. A new generation of fans discovered it, and a whole new array of bands and solo artists took it on into the new millennium. Ian Anderson Read Quote
