Steve Earle Quotes
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My objection to the death penalty is based on the idea that this is a democracy, and in a democracy the government is me, and if the government kills somebody then I'm killing somebody.
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I was born on this mountain, this mountains my home, she holds me and keeps me from worry and woe.
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I'm one of the few people that I know that sings better than they did 20 years ago.
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Gregory Corso used to get really pissed when people called Bob Dylan a 'poet.' After writing poetry for a few years, I can understand that.
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Like most kids, I grew up singing 'This Land Is Your Land' in grammar school, but with the most radical verses neatly removed. This was before I knew it was a Woody Guthrie song.
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You see things differently at 40 than you do at 31. Especially if you got to 40 the way I did.
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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'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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At home, I'm lucky if I can write three or four hours before the phone starts ringing and the kids want to go to soccer.
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Every country that's ever been the most powerful country in the world ceases to be the most powerful country in the world at some point.
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The revolution starts now.
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When I write something simple I'm always really proud of it. When you write something that simple with that much air in it and the whole premise behind it is something pretty obvious - that everybody wants to be happy and free - the song is sort of an exercise in not forgetting that's what you really want and what you really need. We can get caught up in a lot of other stuff.
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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 have a theory that the people who cook in jails are British chefs.
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It's incredibly irresponsible to allow victims' family members to witness executions.
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New Orleans is a unique environment.
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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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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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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 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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People can try to make me into anything they want, but I think they're really throwing around language but saying the same thing.
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My politics were really radical when I was younger, and then I moderated like everyone else does when they start having kids.
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Sympathetic characters usually have a voice. They usually don't have any trouble being heard.
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Every leap forward that I make is by reaching back and firmly getting a footing in the past, and pushing forward as hard as I can.