Quotes About Music

I admire Elliott Carter endlessly. But I have no ambitions to emulate him.

I have loved Elliott Carter's music for many years.

For one person, Haydn is most exciting. Or Bach is the most exciting. For another, it's Carter or Strauss. For me - and for any musician - all of the music is exciting. And if you don't approach it with excitement, we can't be musicians.

I have some songs on 'Tha Carter V,' but if I hear a song five times, I don't like it no more.

There's nothing purer than Janette Carter with an autoharp.

I always knew I would make the record that I made in 'Carter Girl.'

There are a whole lot of Carter Family songs.

Seeing Rush the first time was huge for me. That was my favorite band and I couldn't believe they were actually in the same building as me. I was totally freaking out when the show started and when they started to play it was almost like cartoon characters coming to life. I couldn't get my head around the fact that it was really them.

When the band first started, it was so much about carving out some space for myself and our audience and our songs.

I think in most cases, when you're writing a song, you're just making up a little story, and you're not really thinking about making a point one way or another about it. You're just coming up with a little scenario and seeing it through, and that's it.

The pressure is all self-imposed, and it's to live up to the expectations of people who are going to shell out their hard-earned cash to listen to the music. It's actually more than that, though. I wouldn't want to make a record that didn't live up to my expectations.

I don't bash Cash Money, Birdman, or none of them.

All throughout Cash Money, I never abandoned the SP 1200. At the end of the day, I still use my SP 1200 'cause I like the way the drums sound.

We still have money issues. We will always have them as long as Cash Money is selling anything that has Mannie Fresh on it.

When I got my deal with Cash Money, it changed my whole life.

Sometimes we'd just play acoustic guitar and try out the parts and make a library. We'd use a double cassette player and make little edits.

When I write songs, it's just me and a cassette player - or at least it used to be before smartphones - to quickly record a basic idea.

You know, there have been a lot of casualties in rock-n-roll.

Anyway, Cat Stevens is never going to make much money out of us.

That's one of my favorite Matador records: Cat Power, 'You Are Free.'

I just want to leave this world with a massive catalog of songs.

As a child, I was this record collector/listener that would sit in a room and listen to the entire Beatles catalog alone, over and over and over again.

The band couldn't have happened anywhere else in the world but New York. That was the catalyst.

It takes an astronaut so long to get to space - that's how long it takes to catch up on my music.