Steve Earle Quotes
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We're Americans. I don't consider us to be evil, I just don't think we know any better. We're a really young culture. We're hillbillies, and the rest of the world sees us that way. I travel all over the world, and probably the only worse rednecks than us are the Australians. And they're an even younger country.
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You can go out and find ways to make your own record and get it out there now. If you really want to, you can be heard. Keep things simple. Learn to go out and play solo. That's a really really good thing to learn, if you're a singer-songwriter. Don't be dependent on a band because you may not always be able to afford one.
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Records are only one-dimensional. Even film is only one-dimensional. That's why music and live theatre is so important, because it's not the same thing. A recording is just a record of part of the experience, but it's not the whole experience.
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Fundamentalism, as practiced by the Taliban, is the enemy of real thought, and religion, too.
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The singer-songwriter has always played music that was stylistically rooted in the '30s and the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. But the fact of the matter is that none of us remember the Depression firsthand.
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I'm a very disciplined person when it comes to my work, but discipline can't save m from being a drug addict.
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My therapist says that I choose women that I couldn't possibly succeed in a relationship with because I really want to be alone. Which sounds complicated and convoluted to me, but I don't know. Maybe she's right. There's a part of me that wants that.
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I don't think I'm a political songwriter as much as I am just a political person. I think it's in my fabric.
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I really believe that if I make records that are indispensable to my audience, they'll go out and spend money to buy them, even if they've already downloaded them. If they can afford it. If they can't, I'd rather they be able to download it than not get it at all.
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I wasn't raised to not write about issues, and I'm just living in really politically charged times. You know, I'd rather write songs about girls, but it's just hard to do right now.
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New Orleans is a unique environment.
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I don't get in vote in whether or how people remember me when I'm gone. It's really dangerous to sit around and worry about it too much, for me. It gets me way too in myself to worry about what people are going to think about me when I'm not around anymore.
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Politics and music don't necessarily go hand in hand. They just do for me.
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I do not believe Tony Blair was a fundamentally good man who went bad. I believe he was evil in the first place.
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I'm used to writing stories with a beginning a middle and an end in four minutes.
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I have no doubt in mind that I justify the space I take up in the world.
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The idea that murder victims' families are best served by continuing the cycle of violence is something that I consider to be not only a lie, but criminally negligent. You lie to victims' families when you tell them they're going to receive closure if they participate in the process and witness the execution of a human being.
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I'll never believe that Americans have racticed in our history anything close to the purest form of democracy of the world. Because there are lots of democracies around the world that function better than ours does. It's always been that way. There's some truth to the idea that it's rigged, but there is a way that it's supposed to work that.
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I'm not going to waste a second feeling sorry for myself because I'm not a bigger star than I am. I can walk down the street in most places in the world and I still drive really nice cars.
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When you're really bummed out, the last thing you want to hear is up-tempo and positive. And it lets you know that you're not alone, that somebody has hurt before. It works the same way with chick songs as it does with political songs. When you hear somebody singing about these things, you know that you're not alone, that somebody else is suspicious of what's going on around us in the world. So you don't feel like you're crazy, and you feel like you might be able to make a difference.
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Back then, the business depended on bohemians. ... They needed Kristofferson and Roger Miller ..It was the tail end of something...the last Tin Pan Alley. ...and we were the night shift! They gave us keys, because they knew the best songs weren't written in daylight.... We got our keys taken away several times...me and Guy Clark.
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I mainly read non-fiction, and that's probably because I have a huge amount of insecurity about my lack of education and the things I don't know.
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I love baseball. I'll probably end up one of those old farts who go to spring training in Florida every year and drive from game to game all day.
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I'm not a racist, but I do have to work at not being a racist, because of where I grew up.