Rodney Crowell Quotes

Author Image

Rodney Crowell

Profession : Musician

Birth : August 7, 1950

Pretty much any artist that I know of that has found that mentor status, if they're generous and okay to bestow a bit of mentor-type information, it's do what you feel, not what you think.

Rodney Crowell

I feel like I'm a realized artist, but hey, the good news is I can get better, and I'm going to continue to aim for that.

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.

Rodney Crowell

My mother was an oral storyteller. She would tell stories over and over again.

Rodney Crowell

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.

Rodney Crowell

My mother met my father at a Roy Acuff concert.

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.

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.

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.

Rodney Crowell

Collaboration allows me to challenge myself to find a new passion for music.

Rodney Crowell

So much of inspiration comes from collaboration with other musicians.

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.

Rodney Crowell

As a poet, Will Rogers just had this natural conversational style.

Rodney Crowell

At the end of the day, Johnny Cash was a poet.

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.

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.

Rodney Crowell

As an artist, one of the ingredients to doing good work is self-awareness, and that's something I cultivate.

Rodney Crowell

I can stitch a song together in about an hour anytime you want, but it won't have the depth.

Rodney Crowell

It varies from song to song, but melody was always easy for me.

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.

Rodney Crowell