QUOTES by Rodney Crowell
Find most favourite and famour Authors from A.A Milne to Zoe Kravitz.
Townes Van Zandt ranks alongside Kris Kristofferson and Bob Dylan. He inspired so many songwriters to shoot for something that's timeless.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
My father took me to see Hank Williams on December 14th, 1952. I was two years and four months of age. And I remember a little cool eddy of hair hitting my cheek, and I remember the smell of his hair oil, and I remember the mingling tonality of the small talk before the show started. Those are my memories.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
For me, my career has never been about what I've done. But it's been about becoming, achieving, and pushing myself further.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
I cannot say I'm a poet. That's for someone when they take in consideration where they can bestow 'poet' on. I can't do it. But I would be disingenuous if I didn't say that my intention is poetry.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
Certainly, writing a book was challenging. It took me a long time to learn how to do it. It took me seven years to get a sense of how to wean myself off the process and trickery of songwriting. You realize that giant metaphors work in songs because you have so few words. Standing alone on a page, they threaten to be overblown in a hurry.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
My parents were sharecrop farm kids with no education - seventh, eighth grade.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
My preference for female company is based for the most part on the fact that women are more self-aware than men, in my experience.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
Collaboration allows me to challenge myself to find a new passion for music.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
I grew up poor in East Houston. I used to be ashamed of it, but I'm not anymore. It's kind of a badge of courage now.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
Memory is revisionist, you know. 'The Houston Kid' was based on true things that happened. But I know - from writing a memoir that I've been working on for awhile - that reconstructing memory is revisionism.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
Collaboration is a vital part of my creative life. I've had success with Guy Clark and Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
I've always said that Guy Clark is a regional songwriter without being regional. He's global. His craft is like, well, Larry McMurtry would be an example. I kind of see Guy Clark and Larry McMurtry in the same wave.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
I think, back in the '80s when I was having hits all the time, I took it for granted.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
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.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
As a young man, I craved fame. I was trying to fix holes in my soul that were there from childhood.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
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.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
The '90s weren't my finest years artistically. I wrote some good songs in there, but in terms of my vision of getting the paint on the canvas, that was not my best time. I didn't like the fact that I had fallen into mediocrity.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
People ask me, 'What is the mystique of the Texas songwriter?' Well, we ran barefoot from March until November. I think there's something about being a barefoot kid that gets you closer to the place - you take root.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
That young man that I was in 1988 - I was insecure. Besides making good music, I wanted to be cool; I wanted to be accepted and stuff.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
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.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
As a creative individual, I really go out of my way to avoid the corporate scene in terms of songwriting. If the first question is how much money is it going to make, I'm going to be in trouble anyway.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
I can stitch a song together in about an hour anytime you want, but it won't have the depth.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
As an artist, one of the ingredients to doing good work is self-awareness, and that's something I cultivate.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
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.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
I will say this: I've always sort of had maybe an inflated sense of my ability to sequence songs in a narrative flow.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
I concern myself with timelessness all the time. If you're not swinging for museum quality, your mind is not in the right place. It doesn't mean you get there, but at least it's the intent.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
Invariably, collaboration leads to new forms of self-expression and to the things that move you.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
Over the years, I've come to realize that writing 'I Ain't Living Long Like This' was an exercise in combined musical influence, mostly that of Hank Williams, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Beatles, and Bob Dylan - artists no one has ever heard of.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
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.
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I'm a pretty successful songwriter and known in some circles, but I didn't think the story of my career was of any real entertainment value.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
I wrote a song a good long while ago, 'I Ain't Livin' Long Like This,' that has been around and been recorded by a lot of people, but it was basically childhood memory.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
As I started to study old blues recordings and really pay attention to my favorites, it really started to come to me that all of my favorite pieces of music weren't produced, they were performed. The producer is nearly invisible: no thumbprint other than the composition and the performers.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
Sustaining a narrative in sentences and paragraphs is very different from songwriting. But the dedication to the craft and just the endurance that it takes, you know, to stick with it and believe you can pull it out and make it real and finish it, I learned that a long time ago writing songs.
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I've had a nice career. I'm no David Bowie or Bruce Springsteen out there. I'm not an icon. I'm just a working artist.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell
I don't make music for the radio. And when I was being played on the radio a lot, I didn't.
Quote by -Rodney Crowell