Quote

I suspect by the time the Beatles were writing the White Album, they didn't go, 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand!' I wanna play that! It's like if somebody asked you to put on the clothes you wore in high school. Well, no. No!

John Darnielle

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

John Darnielle
Age: 57
Born: 1967
Born: March 16
Composer
Musician
Singer-Songwriter
Bloomington
Indiana
Time
White
Album
Like
Didn
Albums
Hands
Asked
School
Clothes
Beatles
Wells
Hold
Wore
Well
Somebody
Suspect
Play
Hand
Suspects
Writing
High
Wanna

More quotes by John Darnielle

Image
Every place on earth has a frequency. It's not good or bad, it's just the way it is, and if you can attune yourself to that frequency, then you can find comfort in that.
John Darnielle
Image
It's impossible to be content all the time - you have to learn to be content in places where you're unhappy and owning your emotions, whatever they are.
John Darnielle
Image
I enjoy hearing people who are good at their instruments and who've found a distinctive voice.
John Darnielle
Image
The moment where you know the thing you want is ridiculous and pompous and a terrible thing to want anyway. The direction in which you're headed is not the direction you want to go, yet you're going to head that way a while longer cause that's just the kind of person you are.
John Darnielle
Image
I'm not really a goal-oriented guy. I started doing the Mountain Goats just for the sheer hell of it.
John Darnielle
Image
I don't celebrate milestones and I don't do anniversary editions. It's not my style to reflect on accomplishments.
John Darnielle
Image
It makes me envious of anybody who can say truly that they don't care what anybody thinks of what they do, because I care a lot about the people who like my stuff.
John Darnielle
Image
I just started writing stuff to kill time on summer evenings. This is why I'm always telling people who ask me what they need to do to succeed to give up, do something else.
John Darnielle
Image
May we all emerge from winter with our strength renewed and any unwanted pieces left under the ice.
John Darnielle
Image
You can get into anything if you are determined. I always thought that with music, too.
John Darnielle
Image
I'm kind of a hermit. Left to my own devices, I won't submerge myself in anything further afield than the driveway.
John Darnielle
Image
Back in the 90s, if you did mail order in music, you could make a good living doing it if you could hustle.
John Darnielle
Image
This is why people cry at the movies: because everybody’s doomed. No one in a movie can help themselves in any way. Their fate has already staked its claim on them from the moment they appear onscreen.
John Darnielle
Image
While writing is a mystical process, it's also work. If you show up to work five days in a row, nobody's going to pat you on the back - everyone does that. Well, do that with your writing. Just show up. Be there for it. When you get an idea, write it down somewhere and then be a steward of that idea.
John Darnielle
Image
Over the past 40 years, the tradition of Southern progressivism has been somewhat successfully erased by right-wing revisionist historians.
John Darnielle
Image
Conservative forces in the South have a lot of power - almost dynastic - dating back many years.
John Darnielle
Image
I think it's a misconception that metal's about anger, obviously.
John Darnielle
Image
There is something fierce and starved about first ideas.
John Darnielle
Image
I grew up around some people whose parents toured a lot: tough on the marriage, tough on the kids.
John Darnielle
Image
From a very young age, I was the kind of kid you can just put anywhere and I'd still find stuff to be stoked about.
John Darnielle