Suicide Girls interview Kool Keith, aka Dr. Octagon on his songwriting process. (via LargeHeartedBoy)

Suicide Girls also interviewed singer-songwriter Frank Black.

“I just write songs and they come out the way they come out. But I suppose that there might be something in the air before I start to make a record. I might go, “Yeah, I think it’s time to rock out a little bit” or “I think it’s time to not worry about whether or not it’s going to rock and let these dudes play what they’re going to play.” But you don’t necessarily just sit around and make a concentrated effort. You don’t analyze everything that far, you just do it. It’s still rigid and music is still rubbing the muse so you don’t want to pigeonhole the muse.”

(via LargeHeartedBoy)

Cool comments from singer-songwriter Jolie Holland about Tom Waits.
“I think he and I have some similar goals,” Holland says. “Obviously, we have different instruments and experiences to draw from but I think the both of us are aiming for a quality, not necessarily playing by other people’s rules. He has always been in my mind as a role model for fearlessness.” (via LargeHeartedBoy)

Elvira songwriter …

“In his songwriting heyday, Frazier’s new things were created in a manner entirely dissimilar to most modern Nashville songwriting sessions. Music Row songwriters normally set office appointments to craft songs. Frazier doesn’t knock that system, but he said it would have prevented him from coming up with some of his best-loved songs.”

Justin Timberlake on how acting has helped his songwriting …

Anne Freeman offers tips to musicians and songwriters on how to maximize the effectiveness of your MySpace page in her article at Music News Nashville.

Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame nominees announced

The nominees in the Songwriter category are Pat Alger (”The Thunder Rolls,” performed by Garth Brooks), Larry Henley (”The Wind Beneath My Wings,” Bette Midler), Mark James (”Suspicious Minds,” Elvis Presley), Mac McAnally (”Old Flame,” Alabama), Bob Morrison (”You Decorated My Life,” Kenny Rogers), Gary Nicholson (”One More Last Chance,” Vince Gill), Hugh Prestwood (”Ghost In This House,” Shenandoah), Thom Schuyler (”16th Avenue,” Lacy J. Dalton), John Scott Sherrill (”Wild and Blue,” John Anderson) and Jim Weatherly (”Midnight Train to Georgia,” Gladys Knight & The Pips).

The nominees in the Songwriter/Artist category are Arthur Alexander (”You Better Move On”), Jimmy Buffet (”Margaritaville”), J.J. Cale (”Cocaine”), John Hiatt (”Have A Little Faith In Me”) and Tony Joe White (”Rainy Night in Georgia”).

It’s little things that inspire the greatest songs …

“Like so much in popular music, we can trace the idea of finding magic in the mundane back to the Beatles. In the mid-1960s, when Bob Dylan hugely broadened the subject matter available to songwriters, the Beatles chose to look not outwards, but inwards, at the apparent monotony of everyday life.”