56 Quotes by Courtney Barnett

Sometimes I have something stuck in my head and that directs the rhyme that I'm writing with.

I grew up listening to Nirvana, and then went through some bad 90s pop stuff - a lot of Australian one-hit wonders.

I definitely grew up on a lot of American bands. I didn't really know that there were any decent Australian bands until I was around 20.

The first song I wrote was called "You" and it was a love song about somebody who didn't even exist. I remember them all because I used to always write terrible poetry. I keep all my notebooks.

Every time I write a song it feels like it could be the last one I do, or it always feels like a fluke.

I try to take notes of things that happen that I think are important or interesting or just little tidbits here and there that happen in life. And some of it's even just one line or like a saying and I just go off that.

I try to write a lot and my process is kind of back and forth. I procrastinate a lot so when I do sit down to write, I'm pretty lazy at it. And it's such a frustrating thing sometimes - writing - when you don't do it all the time, you get that thing in your head that you have nothing to talk about and you can't write songs.

The music, I think, is just as important as the lyrics; it portrays the emotion of the song. I play the kind of music that I want to listen to.

I've never really had a certain style of music in mind that I make, or am really adamant on how something should sound, but I like the process of not knowing, of just seeing what happens and what comes out.