Rodney Crowell Quotes

The beautiful despair is never fruitless. It keeps you going. Like when I first heard Bob Dylan do 'Things Have Changed,' or any time I see any work of art really beautifully done, like Michelangelo's 'The David' or that movie 'Lost in Translation' - it inspires me to try and find my own version of that.
The chances of getting Townes to like it were very remote. When I wrote 'Til I Gain Control Again,' Townes Van Zandt sort of nodded. And I thought, 'Yes!'
The more I'm dedicated to this work, the more I'm able to satisfy my deep need to create. And that's a pretty good thing. If you take half-decent care of yourself, that can propel you on into productive later years.
The old handbook on writing is 'Write what you know.' I come from an autobiographical starting place almost all of the time, but it would be a mistake to presume that I'm not using fiction to extend the narrative.
'The Outsider' is a culmination of a lot of things I've been working diligently toward as a recording artist. Hopefully it will render my past pigeonholing obsolete while positioning me more solidly as a socially conscious American singer/songwriter. Wouldn't that be entertaining?
The way I made 'Diamonds and Dirt,' which had all those hits in a row, was that I was just making a record. It was just the one that rolled up in my natural process, and it happened to be commercial.
There are certain choices you make as a songwriter, based on vowel sounds and melody and chord changes.
To be earning a living as an artist at any time, any place is kinda the ultimate gift that you can receive from the universe, and I'm very much aware of that. I get to do exactly what I want to do.
To me, Hank Williams is the first rock-and-roll star.
Townes Van Zandt ranks alongside Kris Kristofferson and Bob Dylan. He inspired so many songwriters to shoot for something that's timeless.
Underfunded, underwhelmed, and out of their league from the git-go, my parents took to home ownership like horse thieves to a hanging judge.
Violence was very much a part of my mother's upbringing - a little less so with my father's, but my father was an angry man when he was young. He was angry and frustrated and had no idea how to channel anger.
When I go back to seek inspiration - whether it be from Chuck Berry, Howlin' Wolf, the Beatles, Hank Williams, Ray Charles or Bob Dylan - it's from the performance. Those artists are in the studio playing their instrument and singing. There's no going back and redoing the vocals.
When I was 22 years old, and I first got to Nashville, women or girls were objects. It was a conquest. My emptiness inside and the external manifestation of my ego was to somehow conquer women.
When I was doing something on someone else's dime, I was inclined to try to anticipate what they wanted. I knew that wasn't what an artist was supposed to do. In funding my own music, I found my voice.
When I write a song with somebody else in mind, it's putting the cart before the horse. The way I write best is when I allow the song to tell me what it wants to be.
When you're younger, love is this magic thing where the heavens open up. You live 40 years past that, you realize sometimes the heavens close down.
Whether they are actual poets or their music exemplifies a poetic sensibility, generally speaking, the Americana artist shuns commercial compromise in favor of a singular vision. Which resonates with me.
With 'Fate's Right Hand,' I think I reached a level of completeness in forming and articulating ideas at around the same time I reached a place where I could match it with my singing voice. It was a kind of coming together.
You start creating art through the people that are looking at you, trying to route it through their sensibilities or their eyes, and then it's not you anymore.
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AuthorName
Rodney Crowell
Profession
Musician
BirthDate
07 August, 1950
Country
Algeria
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