Quotes About Artistry

The only thing I want to be known as is a country singer. I want people to hear it and go, 'That's country!'

Everyone loathes his own country and countrymen if he is any sort of artist.

But I think it's hard for me to only put out one record a year. Because I get too antsy. But it's good I'm learning to do that, because each record counts. And you should make it count.

There's only one reason for my whole life, and that's art. Nothing else counts; nothing else gives me pleasure; nothing else gives me satisfaction.

Bergman was courageous in choosing people to do things that they themselves might not expect to play.

I've never tried to do couture, because it's a whole different beast.

I have a very haute couture way of working.

Couture has a power that ready-to-wear can never have; the attention of les petites mains as they sew; all that love and belief goes into the cloth. That's what you feel when you wear it.

I even do my ready-to-wear samples like couture.

Being a cover artist is not like being a real artist. That's just copying what someone else did.

When you're in your 20s, there's maybe a little room for you to not be at the top of your artistic game, if you look good on a magazine cover. When you're not on the cover of the magazines anymore, then you realize that the work has to be great.

There are so many songs out there in the world that - if I know we have to come up with a new cover, then I'll just sit in my room and sing song after song and figure out which one I can kind of sing the best.

It's pretty crazy the amount of people that have covered my songs.

I've always covered some Dylan songs. I do one or two. And I do them because they're great songs. You know some people cover songs they wish they could have written, not me. I like to cover songs I know I could not have ever written.

I get a lot of joy out of covering other people's songs, and, at my best, I think I bring something a little new to a lot of them.

I'm happy that I don't have to do covers anymore, because that's not what I do.

I wanted to write songs that were as good as the covers.

I always sang Leona Lewis covers, and if you know her songs, she's not just singing your average easy song; she's going off the majority of the time.

Some bands don't do covers. I love music. I've done the '40s, the '50s, 'the '60s, the '70s, the '80s, the '90s, the '00s, and I'm working on the '10s.

When I was in Baltimore, I played in several different bands, doing four sets a night, two sets of originals, two sets of covers, that kind of thing.

The thing about doing mashups and covers is it's great, but a part of you never gets to really showcase what your original sound is like or what your writing voice is like.

I would love to take a crack at 'Long Day's Journey Into Night.'

I don't even listen to peoples' music... I'm really in-tune with my craft, I listen to me all day long.

Gay guys know how to craft, and they craft really well. Straight guys, forget it.