Lucinda Williams Quotes

It's easier to write songs when you're single.

Above all, the listener should be able to understand the poem or the song, not be forced to unravel a complicated, self-indulgent puzzle. Offer your art up to the whole world, not just an elite few.

I am trying to get right with God. I'm sort of making a statement about the excessiveness.

I have to try different things to see what works best. Other people get impatient with that.

I'm always writing ideas down and then I stick em in my pocket and put em in that folder so I don't lose them. Like, somebody might say something, and I'll go, oh that's a good line, and that goes in the folder, too. It's kind of an ongoing process for me.

I usually don't write about my life right when it happens. I process it, and I store it away. Then, when I get in the mood I pull the stuff back out.

I guess you could write a good song if your heart hadn't been broken, but I don't know of anyone whose heart hasn't been broken.

I feel like it's really kind of a sit-down album, much in the same way I imagine Billie Holiday or someone sitting down in the studio and singing.

I don't mean to complain. I wouldn't trade my life for anything.

I'm going to have my moody times.

I'm an artist first and foremost. So things are gonna go up and down and sideways and whichever way all through life.

I'm polite. I guess that's the dichotomy within me. I don't like to piss people off just for the sake of pissing them off. I pick my battles.

I love Emmylou Harris's version of my song, 'Sweet Old World.' Her intonation is great.

It's really about living in your head ... just looking out at the world, then going back into your head and tossing around a lot of ideas and coming out with something interesting to say.

People seemed to think, you get to a certain age or you get married or you, you're comfortable. And so now there's nothing to write about: that angst is gone. The youthful angst. And that just hasn't happened with me.

Any time there's a major change, whether it's going into a relationship, getting out of a relationship, moving to a new city, a death - that usually provides a catalyst for an explosion of creativity.

I didn't grow up in a mom-and-pop, Ozzie and Harriet type of environment, but who did.

It's just the more you do it the better you get, or at least that's how I feel in my case. I think it's a combination of confidence and just having done it this long and just learning. I'm always learning. I'm still honing my craft.

When I started out playing guitar and singing, I was about twelve, going on thirteen. The role models for me back then were the folk singers. They all had these high, really nice voices and ranges, like Judy Collins and Joan Baez, and then later, of course, Joni Mitchell and Linda Ronstadt. I decided early on that I was going to learn how to write songs really, really well, because I didn't want to have to compete as a singer. I didn't feel that it was my strong point.

The thing about Alzheimer's is that it's ... it's sort of like all these little, small deaths along the way, before they actually physically die.

I started writing more with my voice in mind.

I'm not just a doormat. I'm not just being stepped on all over the place. If you look at the bulk of my material, it's about trying to find some strength through that.

As it turns out, now is the moment you've been waiting for

I just broke up with my boyfriend, and I've been spending more time alone than I'd like.

Just because I'm talking about something that might have been a sad or painful situation doesn't mean that I'm sad or tortured 24 hours a day any more than anybody else is.

I certainly had my God-can-you-just-take-me-now-I've-just-had-it-I'm-checking-out-let-me-off-the-train-I'm-done kind of thing. But, you know, I would never actually do it. I just can't imagine what it would take to do that.

I write the songs, go in and record them, then I listen to everything and decide how it all fits together.

Of course, I'm older now. I'm in a different place in my life than when I wrote the songs for 'Car Wheels' or 'Essence' or whatever. Different things were going on.

I write first for myself as a therapeutic process, to get stuff out and to deal with it.

Believe it or not, people went so far as to suggest that I might not be able to write songs anymore because now I am married. I tried to explain again that there are other things to write about besides boy meets girl, girl meets boy, boy breaks up with girl, girl is sad.

I have had to come to terms with wearing glasses.

Sade's stuff is real deceptive. She's got stuff about prostitutes, poverty and people on the streets.

I can speak for most songwriters - those breakup love songs are so easy to write, as far as the inspiration and all that.

I would worry if I wasn't coming up with ideas, if I wasn't inspired.

Sometimes I dream song ideas. I write a song in my dream, the melody and everything. But then sometimes I can't remember them. I think later on, I probably do.

When the muse hits me, or the mood, or whatever it is, I get my guitar out and I empty it out. I just start going through things to see what's going to happen.

There's this whole idea that you've got the blues and you're going to write. Bullshit. When I feel really bad, all I want to do is sit in front of the TV with the remote control and check out.

The man I lived with is a Christian, so I would talk to him about it. What would this person do in the Bible? What's the story around this person? Generally, when people talk about characters in the Bible, there's one thing they're known for, like Job.

First thing, I throw on some jeans, a T-shirt and my Keds sneakers and make coffee. That is actually my favorite time of day. That is when I do my songwriting, when I am in writing mode.

I feel a lot more comfortable being me these days. I'm constantly told that my work is good. A lot of fans and a lot of other artists say my songs and albums mean a lot to them. Isn't that what's important?

I started writing songs, I guess, when I was about 13 or 14, but I didn't know if they were good enough yet or anything.

I grew up in a very literate, very independent household where people spoke their ideas and were very supportive of helping each other find their own way.

I have a folder of scraps and pieces of paper with stuff, ideas for songs from the last 25 years; just little things, maybe early songs that I finished, but didn't think they were good enough.

You should put time into learning your craft. It seems like people want success so quickly, way before they're ready.

I started writing little short stories and poems as soon as I learned to read and write. I think I was six years old. And then when I got to be eleven, twelve, and into my teens, I was just listening to records all the time, and I got a guitar. I started to take guitar lessons when I was twelve.

People let their own hang-ups become the obstacles between them and personal happiness.

The way I look at life, whatever I'm doing at that time in my life is going to be reflected in my songs, for the most part.

We just did a few takes of a song and just picked the best one. It was real organic and genuine.

I grew up around poets and novelists and my dad wrote poems about everything - from a cat sleeping in a window to a car wreck he passed on the highway. I learned not to censor myself: that was one of things I learned in my apprenticeship, my creative-writing apprenticeship with my dad.

I was immediately taken with Geoff Muldaur's rich soulful voice, masterful phrasing and guitar playing when I first heard him.

I have such a great band. We had played all this material on the road. I just wanted to let it fly.

I'm trying to get out of my own way.

I'm trying to learn how to tap into the power of my own being. I know it sounds corny.