Jason Isbell Quotes
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I think I'm writing for an intelligent stranger - you know, in my mind I can't remember who coined that phrase first. I don't want to write anything that makes me cringe, first of all. I cringe a lot - mostly when I hear popular music.
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I write pretty much year-round, but I definitely do more when a deadline is looming.
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A lot of people make records where there are a couple songs worth listening to and you skip through the rest, and I don't want to do that because those records bore me pretty bad.
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I don't care what 'Pitchfork' says. They write from a place that's a little too self-aware for me to really give a damn about what they're talking about.
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If you're the person whose problems were solved when you were born, your job is to try and help the people who aren't in that situation. It's very easy to say you're tired of political discussion when all of your problems are solved. I keep trying to think of it that way.
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I didn't grow up with a lot of money, but I grew up with a lot of opportunities that many people don't have.
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My wife may be the role model for our daughter in some ways, but I think I represent what she'll put up with. You know, I think one day she'll say, 'OK my dad behaved this way, so if whoever I happen to fall in love with behaves this way it's got to be OK because I love my dad.'
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I think for anything to be successful, your problems have to become different problems over time.
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Good sounds, they just make you feel good.
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No matter what you thought your plans were, that's not how things are going to work out, and that's the only way you can really, I think, live successfully.
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I like those kinds of songs that have details that you remember and that have stories that mean something and that open up into different levels philosophically. I like those kinds of movies, and I like those kinds of books.
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I'll take a certain concern of my own or a situation and try to frame it around a fictional story, but sometimes just straight-up autobiographical songs work well, and sometimes a story is better. I like stories. I like to hear them. I don't think there are enough of them in songs anymore.
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I don't start a song with an idea of what ingredients are going to go into a song. It's not like a recipe. I will normally either talk from personal experience or I'll make a character and then try to allow that character to behave the way he or she naturally would.
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I think a lot of people are scared, and I know I was scared to get sober, at least using this as an excuse; 'I don't want to be one of those sober people.' And I don't think you have to be. I think you can be one of those people who happens to be sober.
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At the end of the day, I'm just trying to write a song that I like, that I'm not afraid to turn loose on the world. I do read a lot. I know a lot of people who read more, but I do try to keep a book in my hand most of the time, and I think that informs any kind of output that I'm going to have.
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I went to school for creative writing in college, and I wound up about six hours short of my degree.
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I've spent a lot of time in a rock n' roll band trying to fight off the fact that I was old enough to rent a car. And it's all sort of rushed in at once now. And I like it.
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Democracy can tie your hands in a rock 'n' roll band, you know? It can be a great thing, but if you've got a certain amount of vision and you write a lot of songs, it's sometimes better to have your own band and make your own decisions.
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You don't have any kind of control ultimately. Things are just going to happen as they will. And I think your best option sometimes is just to react rather than try to plan everything out in advance.
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My wife is so very important to me that it's made my mom more important to me. It's made every woman I know more important to me.
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I need enough room to eventually throw a baseball with a child; that's all the yard I need. That's all I want.
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I'm not trying to steer people in a direction. I'm just trying to move them. Wherever it takes them, it doesn't matter to me. I just want them to be moved in one way or another, and that's a hard thing to do, I think.
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I'm not looking to be a superstar. I just want to be in a room with good people who are similar to me and are at least open to things that I have to say.
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For me, the things like the Confederate flag - I just don't think that it does anybody much good, and it certainly causes a lot of people a lot of pain.