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I think I first realized I wanted to be in country music and be an artist when I was 10. And I started dragging my parents to festivals, and fairs, and karaoke contests, and I did that for about a year before I came to Nashville for the first time. I was 11 and I had this demo CD of me singing Dixie Chicks and Leanne Rimes songs.
A man once said that the pinnacle of success Is when you've finally lost interest In money, compliments, and publicity A noble enough idea, I suppose How on earth he does this, heaven only knows I know I need a lot more of all three of those Before I ever have the nerve to turn up my nose At any money, compliments, and publicity.
If you decide you want to change your life around, it doesn't matter where you came from, what you did, if you were incarcerated or you are from the projects, if you are an uppity kid who came from a really wealthy family - and all of them do drugs and are into that life - it doesn't matter; come as you are, and God does his work.
Do you remember the church across the sands? You stood outside and planned to travel the lands, where the pilgrims go. So you packed your world up inside a canvas sack, set off down the highway with your rings and Kerouac. Someone said they saw you in Nepal a long time back. Tell me why you look away, don't you have a word to say?
I'm not proud of this at all, but I'm someone who has relied on business managers and accountants and career managers to run the whole bureaucratic side of my life for the last 16 years, so anything, from filing tax returns to paying credit card statements, is something that I feel rather fortunate to have been out of the loop on.
The ideal is to live forever, right? Or to live right now and just be grateful that I feel good. I'm definitely grateful for every second that I'm alive. At this point in my life, I definitely take time out throughout the day to just stop and be like, "Everything is cool." It's as good as it's gonna be, because it only gets worse.
If I got the option of going into outer space and hanging out there for a day and then coming back home and dying the next day, or just waiting around to see if there's any opportunity for the technology to develop so that I might experience outer space sometime in the future, I would probably take the ride today and die tomorrow.
Maybe tomorrow is counting on me To learn my lessons today I'll start by taking a step at a time And stop throwing my blessings away I'll get myself up and I'll brush myself off And take back some of the pride that I've lost 'Cause you can't always keep your feet on the ground I guess we all learn the hard way and we all fall down
I really enjoy being with the people I play with. I enjoy their company. I love the crew, the band - we just move through the country like an army. I always feel very grateful to be up there. There aren't any bad nights anymore unless I'm singing bad, but then the band will carry me. And if they're playing bad, I will carry them..
There was a kid that used to pick on me... he used to drop my food and beat me up in little corners. Nothing serious, but tease me. I remember knocking his food out of his hand one time when he in the middle of explaining something to his friends, and they all laughed, so I thought that was pretty nice. 'Well, there you go buddy.'
I would like to say in defense of the Christian religion that there are nice things about it. There really are. And Marilyn can tear up the Bible all he wants and I understand why, but... there's good things in the Bible. Good things. Like about, you know, not killing people, and... you know... not sleeping with people's husbands.
I went from having three little jobs that I strung together to being on the road full-time; having some savings that my managers told me to spend. You fly all over the country opening for these other people. You pay a publicist to get some press while you're establishing yourself and you will be solvent in this career forevermore.
I use the Clarisonic electronic skin cleansing system. It's great for removing excess oil and make-up and leaves my face feeling really smooth and clean. Then I apply Avon Anew Rejuvenate Day Revitalising Cream and Creme de la Mer Eye Concentrate. I think eye cream is so important - it keeps me looking young and prevents wrinkles.
I'd love to have a program like 'Dr. Laura.' I studied psychology at the University of Miami, and when I rode the bus home from school, perfect strangers would strike up conversations with me and end up telling me their life stories. I think they could sense that I was studying to help people. That, or I have a face like a priest.
We'll fight, not out of spite For someone must stand up for what's right 'Cause where there's a man who has no voice There ours shall go singing My hands are small I know But they're not yours, they are my own But they're not yours, they are my own I am never broken In the end only kindness matters In the end only kindness matters
God probably shook his head and said 'Oh, my goodness' many times in dealing with my father. But what God saw in my father was that he was a rock, a foundation in a lot of ways - someone people could relate to who could shine strong and was not afraid to reveal himself. I think he was a great role model to many people in that way.
We [with Rick Rubin] would focus on the ones that we did like, that felt right and sounded right. And if I didn't like the performance on that song, I would keep trying it and do take after take until it felt comfortable with me and felt that it was coming out of me and my guitar and my voice as one, that it was right for my soul.
Everybody can relate to feeling hopeless, at some point in their life, and everybody can relate to fighting for something that's worth fighting for, and everybody can relate to a person in their life that makes them go, "I don't know why you're here right now," but then, at the end of the day, realizing you'd do anything for them.
I suppose in some ways doing some of the songs in the show felt a bit like I was doing cover versions. I was covering myself. Not that they didn't feel like my songs, but the way I was approaching them was from a place so outside where they were written. The fact that these songs were in the context of a live show was a new thing.
Johnny Cash's legacy, I think if it was one word, it would be 'integrity.' He was the original wild man and grew from that guy that was doing all the crazy things that you read that rock n' rollers do to being someone who was like the father of our country, you know. He was a guest at the White House. He was Billy Graham's friend.
I do support artists standing by their beliefs and walking with integrity. We have to find a better way to commercially exploit music while giving artists their proper respect. This cannot be done while taking their contributions for granted or trying to control the scope of their growth and power through threats and fear tactics.
I'm very much about the environment, I'm very much about health, about being able to, at the very least, eat organic, whole foods that are healthy for us. And then, of course, everyone being able to eat and at least have a humane way to live. There's enough for everybody, but unfortunately, there's a lot of greed and a lot of ego.
You can do anything you want to [ in ashram] if you can find the time. It's a very rigorous day. It starts at 2:30 in the morning and often doesn't end until midnight, so if you can actually find a moment to have a drink or a smoke, you're quite welcome to, as long as it doesn't interfere with your capacity to follow the schedule.
I was never appalled by myself. I felt a little bit uneasy about certain things. But honestly I've learned to love myself and to see that in the midst of all my ambition and desire to succeed and my search for approval, I do give things to people. I bring some sort of happiness to their lives. So I'm not so hard on myself anymore.
Obviously, my tastes and my priorities have changed. But I'm still asking the question 'Why?' Just because I'm a mother doesn't mean I'm not still a rebel and that I don't want to go in the face of convention and challenge the system. I never wanted to think in a robotic way, and I don't want my children to think that way, either.
So as long as I'm a human being and I'm not perfect, I'm able to say I'm having some growing pains. Because in order to sustain where you are once you made such a breakthrough that everyone is looking at you, now everyone is like, 'Ooh, is she gonna make a mistake?' Yes, I'm going to make a mistake. Yes, I'm still gonna do things.
I saw my first two Broadway shows when I was 4 years old, 'The Lion King' and 'Beauty and the Beast,' and after both of them I came home and reenacted the entirety of the shows on my living room table for my family and friends. I started doing that after every show I saw until I actually did my first youth production when I was 5.
Lately I've been falling asleep listening to 'Common One' by Van Morrison, specifically the song 'Summertime in England.' It's 15 minutes long, so to make it through the entire song is a real task unto itself, but Van has that emotional payoff that makes even his most tiresome songs more powerful than most people's entire catalog.
I've gone to normal clubs, straight clubs, and I've gone to gay clubs to party with my friends and fans. There's no difference. I have nothing to prove. I'm very comfortable in my own skin, and I'm thankful to have as many close gay friends as I have, people who have been so supportive in my life and have always been there for me.
A lot of the times, at least for men, we have a radar so to speak, and I rate a girl's personality, who she is, how outgoing she is, on the type of fun we're going to have. There are some girls where you can take them to things that are cool like the pier, and they'll actually enjoy that more than going to an expensive restaurant.
The great thing about Priest, in all the years that we've been making heavy metal music, is that we've always kind of carried this metal flag, if you will - this beacon of hope that, no matter what you may be going through in life, there's always a sense of overcoming difficulties, a sense of winning, a sense of coming out on top.
I don't advocate Stalinist monolithic state structures any more than I advocate capitalistic monoliths. Unfortunately, human society tends to the monolithic, whether you go to the left or right, everybody in leathers, or everybody holding Chairman Mao's book, and if everybody goes to one end of the pitch, I always go to the other.
Recording in Nashville was absolutely essential to get the sound, the musicians, the atmosphere, the warmth... There are just cult places like that in the world, like Chicago for the blues or New York for jazz. Nothing sounds the same in Nashville as it does elsewhere. Nashville is the Mecca of country music and everyone knows it.
When I was younger - in elementary school - my parents are both teachers, so we moved around a lot. For the most part we always lived, before we settled south of Dallas, we always lived in the outskirts of city suburbs, kind of in these weird, desolate neighborhoods. Very brown and flat settings. I love Texas, I love the openness.
I really feel like civilisation's already over. It's not ending but it's already done. We're all addicted to the concept that humanity equals civilisation and that's not the case. We need a global conversation to be able to decipher how we can live from this point forward. We have to redefine our relationship with our environment.
I catch as much hell from the hard-core conservative people as I do the far left. The only difference is that the far right don't bring the hate to the table that the far left does. And that's my party. They just deal in so much hate. I mean the far left, not the Democrats, the far left really deal in hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.
In the years that Ive seen concerts, when Ive paid to see somebody I want to see, there would be a certain amount of songs Id want to hear. So whether its stuff I want to play every night or not - or stuff Ive been playing for years or stuff you get tired of playing - you have to play what people pay for and make it fair for them.
My first job was in a Bohemian polka band, the Rejcek family polka band in Abbott. The old man in the band had another blacksmith shop in Abbott, but he liked me. All he had was horns and drums, and I was set up over there with my little guitar with no amps or nothing. I would play as loud as I wanted to, and nobody could hear me.
I see a lot of young female performers who do not call themselves feminist, but would certainly believe in their own right to self-determination, and wouldn't want anybody to stop them from becoming themselves. They just refuse to recognize the relationship between their lives and those of other women, or feel any solidarity there.
It's the ground that we walk on, it's where we sit, it's the language that we use. It's a difficult undertaking, but I think without healing that and creating more of a balance between the sexes, we will never have balance globally. I feel like I am going deeper and deeper into this space where I came from that I barely understood.
That's a spiritual lifestyle, being willing to admit that you don't know everything and that you were wrong about some things. It's about making a list of all the people you've harmed, either emotionally or physically or financially, and going back and making amends. That's a spiritual lifestyle. It's not a fluffy ethereal concept.
It's weird, I was such a survivor and so wanted to be a part of life while I was trying to snuff out the life that was inside of me. I had this duality of trying to kill myself with drugs, then eating really good food and exercising and going swimming and trying to be a part of life. I was always going back and forth on some level.
Performing alone - it's a very solitary experience. When you're in a band, when something amazing happens on stage you can look at each other, "Yeah! we're so locked in." Or if something goes wrong, you can look at each other and shrug and say, "Oops." If you're doing it by yourself, you reflect on it in a completely different way.
The anti-nuke movement has important and far-reaching implications for grassroots organizing. It can unite kids and musicians, everybody, whether they're leftist or rightist, or radical, or Republican, because energy is energy. But in fact, it is a real political struggle - it shows people that it's big business against the people.
Before I got famous, I was like a rake. When I was a teenager, I lived on nervous energy. And I always forgot to eat. It was not something I was obsessed with. And then suddenly I got famous, people started taking me out to fancy joints. And the pounds pile on. So I'm much more conscious now about when I eat. How I eat. What I eat.
Mortal City was really influenced by geography. [The song] "The Ocean" is the Pacific Northwest. Southern California and New York also figure into songs, and Iowa. "February" is very much about New England. "Mortal City" is Philadelphia. The whole album is this anthropomorphized landscape where the metaphors live in this geography.
I just believed in 1979 that prog rock was finished. I just saw the handwriting on the wall. And I believed that if we continued in that direction, our career would be finished. So I kind of led the band to making 'Cornerstone,' which is an album from my point of view which was not trying to be necessarily softer, but more natural.
My plan was always to leave school and live in a flat with some friends, have a 9 to 5 job, and try to get as many gigs as I could. I wanted to keep writing and then eventually, in my twenties, head to a record label and hope they'd sit down and listen to my book of songs, sign me as a songwriter and maybe an artist in development.
I just go in the studio and do what I love to do. People will be people, they'll come and go, they'll like you then not like you, I just try to stay true to myself first and that's what most important because that way when you are successful you can stand up and say look, I did it my way and I did it the way that I wanted to do it.
I was an absolute idiot, wearing polo-necks, reading Kerouac, watching Woody Allen movies, and jazz fitted right into all of that. My interest in that whole world became very genuine, but perhaps started off a bit affected - a mixture of right and wrong reasons. I was always drawn to non-commercial music, perhaps pathologically so.