Famous quote by Shawn Colvin

"I have yet to have a successful outcome of sitting in a room with someone and trying to write a song. The way that I generally co-write is that someone else writes the music or part of the music"

About this Quote

Shawn Colvin describes a creative temperament that resists the classic co-writing ritual: two people in a room, chasing sparks on command. For her, that setup rarely yields something alive. The admission points to a deeper belief about how songs germinate, privately, obliquely, over time, rather than through the pressure of immediate chemistry or the social performance of brainstorming.

She favors a division-of-labor approach: someone else creates the musical bed or a fragment of it, and she responds. That method reframes collaboration as a conversation rather than a committee meeting. Music arrives with its own emotional weather and architecture; she listens, decodes the mood, and lets lyrics or vocal lines emerge in dialogue with what’s already there. The process is sequential instead of simultaneous, reflective instead of reactive.

There’s also a boundary-setting quality here. Sitting in a room with another writer can trigger self-consciousness, compromise, or speed for speed’s sake. It often privileges quick ideas over the kind of excavation Colvin’s songs are known for. By starting from an existing piece of music, she preserves interiority; she can wander, edit, and re-enter the work without the performative urgency of a co-write session.

Her stance challenges industry norms, especially in scenes like Nashville or pop where room-writing is standard. It reminds us that collaboration isn’t one-size-fits-all. Some artists thrive on volleying lines across a table; others need the solitude to hear what the song wants before negotiating with another mind. It also underscores the value of constraint: a chord progression or motif can act as a compass, focusing language and melody.

Ultimately, Colvin’s method honors responsiveness over spontaneity, craft over chemistry. She’s not rejecting partnership, just shaping it into a form that protects authenticity, letting another musician’s groundwork invite her voice rather than drown it out.

More details

TagsMusic

About the Author

USA Flag This quote is written / told by Shawn Colvin somewhere between January 10, 1958 and today. He/she was a famous Artist from USA. The author also have 5 other quotes.
Go to author profile

Similar Quotes