It's a Gen X thing to be okay with going unnoticed or unrated or untouched. To be free from strangers' expectations, or anger. People got angry at me when I stopped making music because it seemed I was devaluing everything.
— David Berman
I'm not a good singer.
I take pride in the fact that I can walk away from things. My willingness to walk away has protected me, I realize that now. Being able to walk away from sessions, from poetry, from dreams of being a poetry professor.
The greatest thing about Nashville is that it's welcoming.
I believe that intermittent live performance has cut short the writing lives of touring musicians.
When I was seven my parents divorced. My father went to Dallas. My mom fled to the shelter of my grandparents in a strange central Ohio town of 22,000, Wooster. When it looked like I was growing up to be a wimp I was forced to live with my father, which I did not want to do.
Bobby Braddock is great.
I don't have room in my mind to think about musical equipment.
Intellectuals and creative people, once they start talking about God they get put into this other category: 'I don't go to people's music like that to understand my life.'
Piece by piece I sent my first book of poems to American Poetry Review and was rejected one by one.
I was 29 or 30 when I felt sure of what I was doing, but not fully identifying as a songwriter until I was 37.
In the beginning, it was meant to be like a faceless art piece. Then I did the first record and it received enough notice to satisfy my needs. I questioned the procedure out of fear. The Silver Jews was never meant to be recreated live.
The world of commerce is a kind of a purgatory itself.
I can't imagine putting my name on a t-shirt. For someone to wear my name? Me? It's ridiculous.
If critics were harder on the musicians that they love, there would be better songs. But as they grow older and they lose their talent, critics refuse to let them know that and protect them, and they get to the point where they put out music that just isn't up to the levels where they've already been.
My father is a despicable man.
I trust myself.
I'm not the type to demand affirmation or to worry that I'll be forgotten. I'm more the type to dare the world to forget me.
All my songs were made at the end of the neck, 'farmer's corner' chords.
My only advice would be to someone right now, is if you're in a position in your life where you need to make a change, this is the best time.
I'm not convinced I have fans.
I was not born to be the center of attention in a crowded room.
Sometimes I turn the TV just below where you can hear it and write down what I think they might be saying by the mumbles and rhythms.
Lyrically, country music is the most satisfying music for me.
I have bad vision, but it's not distorted. It's low power!
If I believed in fate I'd be very curious why I picked the name Silver Jews.
Like they used to say about Joe Montana, he threw soft because he couldn't throw hard. He was successful because he didn't try to do what he couldn't. I couldn't rock out harder than everybody, or overpower people with mastery like Jack White of the White Stripes, so why try? That's why I've always worked harder on words.
I bought a guitar when I was twenty. But I didn't write a song until I was 25 or 26. I never learned to play others songs. I learned to play my own songs while I was learning how to make them better.
I don't have any desire to be in a relationship with anyone else, and I do feel like I'm on the other side of my career of being a Lothario.
For a long time, I've struggled very, very much with what people call treatment-resistant depression.
I heard Springsteen was an unhappy person. I don't know, I haven't read his biography. But a lot of people in my field should be a lot more unhappy than they are.
I grew up the son of a businessman. And I didn't get into music to be a businessman.
I imagine that I'm less famous than the 15th ranked bowler in the world.
Natalie Maines has a voice for the centuries.
I don't have religion or culture. I don't have anything I can believe in when I'm really scared. When I play the songs, I feel the fear disappear.
I made records for 20 years, I lived off it. But people would say I made so many mistakes, I did so many things you're not supposed to do. I had a band name nobody could say. I didn't play live. I never practiced, I never got better at my instrument.
Nashville only thrives when talented people from out of town move here from somewhere else.
In my whole life, I've had maybe 10 people who have told me how much my music means to them.
All musicians should write poetry or at least read it if they want to improve their game. Except for people who believe lyrics don't matter.
Allen Ginsburg was wrong about a lot of things, but especially when he said, 'First thought, best thought.'
When art is about craftsmanship, then guys like me don't make it as artists.
You don't meet too many actors in Nashville.
I was much further along as a poet than as a songwriter, but the songs were getting more attention. They were doing what art is supposed to do, mixing it up with people.
Everything I write goes through a lot of drafts. A hundred rewrites is not unusual for me to go through - the last fifty maybe just going back and forth on a single line or word selection.
Some nights I'm funny with the between-song commentary, some nights I'm not. I have no control over this. I pace the stage a lot and struggle with the mic stand in a ridiculous way.
Yeah, once the song is written, it just complexifies the profile of it to have the music and the words at odds. It comes naturally to me. A lot of my music is like that.
I don't have time for language poetry anymore. I don't want to throw people off anymore.
It must be very strange to live in the world of Willie Nelson or Bruce Springsteen or Pearl Jam. I don't know what kind of handle they have on their own loss of talent.
I always loved bands with mystique.
I read Henry Miller's 'Nexus,' 'Sexus' and 'Plexus' the summer after I graduated from college. It cemented my decision to spurn any and all careers.
