Justin Townes Earle Song Quotations

I think a lot of men are afraid of pretty things, and I'm not, I like pretty songs.

I heard Nirvana, and discovered that songs could be like poetry, but a little bit more refined: you didn't have to have 20 verses to get your point across.

You have to live what you write, or you have to know it. There are exceptions, like story songs, where you just have to have your facts straight. But I think you don't have to live a hard life to be a good or interesting songwriter.

I discovered the same thing Gram Parsons did, that soul music and country music are practically identical. Based off of the same chord structures, and the songs are of heartache and loss. The main connection is they both came up in church.

What I'm doing is basically the same as Bob Dylan did with folk songs and Woody Guthrie songs, the same as folk music's always done. I'm not going to sing about ploughing, but I'll write a song that sounds like it should be about ploughing.

All my records have been written to be records, rather than writing a group of songs and seeing if they fit together.

I've never been good at rock'n'roll songs, anyway; either I'm blessed or I'm cursed, but whatever I write comes out sounding old.