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Taylor Swift no good at writing songs because she’s lazy, says Quincy Jones

By | Published on Wednesday 31 January 2018

Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift is no good at writing songs, mainly because she doesn’t put the effort in. So says Quincy Jones.

Asked if he’s a fan of Swift’s work in an interview with GQ, the producer said: “We need more songs, man. Fucking songs, not hooks … Since I was a little kid, I’ve always heard the people that don’t wanna do the work. It takes work, man. The only place you find success before work is the dictionary, and that’s alphabetical”.

Taylor Swift is definitely successful, so I’m not sure that analogy works on any level. As for what he’d do to polish up a Swift song if she came into his studio, he added: “I’ll figure something out. Man, the song is the shit – that’s what people don’t realise. A great song can make the worst singer in the world a star. A bad song can’t be saved by the three best singers in the world. I learned that 50 years ago”.

When the interviewer protested that, in fact, many people do consider Swift a good songwriter – even one of the best of her generation – Jones dismissed this too. “But they don’t know, man”, he said. “They don’t know. I’ve come and gone through seven decades of this shit. Seen all that. Seen how that works. Ignorance is no thing”.

Discussing other artists he’s taken a dislike to during those 70 years, talk turned to Jones’ distaste for Elvis. “Motherfucker couldn’t sing”, he decreed.



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