Cass McCombs Quotes

It's hard to make out the difference between insults and bad advice.

I've always been interested in an idea of boundless love - an impersonal, big love.

I've always thought about myself as somewhat of a folk musician. I just write words. I don't think I'm even a musician. I don't play a lot of instruments, not really a soloist or anything.

I don't care much about politics. That kind of witchcraft I stay away from because people end up dead. I'd rather die for music.

Once biographical information contaminates your consciousness, it's impossible to erase it and look at someone's work the same way again.

I want to make something that's useful to someone, somewhere.

This is rock'n'roll, not classical music. It's about people working together.

I grew up in the suburbs and was raised on rap radio, so it took me a long time to stumble upon the acoustic guitar as a resource for anything.

It's just a joy to be able to work with a lot of different musicians. When you play with great musicians, whether they're schooled or self-taught, they keep you on your toes.

Musicians wake up and create a more loving community by creating heavier music.

Folk art has never been much about politics; it's about action and utility.

Music is the marriage of the feelings of the living to the wisdom of the dead.

I was just a folk singer. I cut my teeth on the streets, you know.

I don't need to control anything. Even with romantic partnerships, I don't need to control anyone.

I believe in littering. Waste should not be hidden, but seen.

People expect not just songwriters but all personalities to pontificate about their egos - they just wanna see someone talking about themselves constantly. I'm not interested in that.

Opinions only carry weight in the second or third person.

I've always littered my songs with jokes. You might need to dig a little deeper to find the humor, but I would totally object to being some kind of distraught personality. I've never tried to attach myself to that.

Thank God we don't know a lot about Shakespeare or Moses or Homer or Lautreamont. These are the best guys we got, and their art is powerful because they're mysterious.

A baseball team is like a band. Because, conceptually, there are no heroes in baseball - there's just the team.

Sometimes I feel like I finish a song, and there's another song that I have to write in response to that song. Each is like its own separate feeling, its own separate universe.

I'm making music with my friends. It's fun. It should be fun. You shouldn't make music if it isn't fun.

Making music and art is about expressing something that's universally human, maybe even beyond human, at best.

I don't think I'm a particularly somber human being.

Lyrics are my racket; music is play - the fluff stuff.

I just write songs whenever I feel like it, whenever they come to me.

A lot of religious texts make for good reading. That's why they hold up.

If it's possible to have an enemy without making it personal or moral, then that's what I'm trying to do.

When I was young, I used to go to Baha'i camp, and they taught me a lot about the equality of religions.