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Politics has always been in my music. Anybody who doesn't understand how political Copperhead Road is isn't listening very well.

Steve Earle

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Steve Earle
Age: 69
Born: 1955
Born: January 17
Actor
Guitarist
Mandolinist
Peace Activist
Radio Personality
Record Producer
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Fort Monroe National Monument
Stephen Fain Earle
Wells
Road
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Anybody
Always
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Politics
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More quotes by Steve Earle

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We're Americans. I don't consider us to be evil, I just don't think we know any better. We're a really young culture. We're hillbillies, and the rest of the world sees us that way. I travel all over the world, and probably the only worse rednecks than us are the Australians. And they're an even younger country.
Steve Earle
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I still write more songs about girls than anything else.
Steve Earle
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I don't think I'm a political songwriter as much as I am just a political person. I think it's in my fabric.
Steve Earle
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Or you can be like the Soviet Union, start out with ideals, and end up ceasing to exist.
Steve Earle
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I'm a very disciplined person when it comes to my work, but discipline can't save m from being a drug addict.
Steve Earle
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Greg Trooper writes great songs, including one of my very favorite songs in the world, Little Sister. On top of all that, there's his voice - an instrument I have coveted for 15 years.
Steve Earle
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I don't really think in terms of obstacles. My biggest obstacle is always myself.
Steve Earle
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Critics are notoriously liberal with their use of the term 'genius'.
Steve Earle
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By the time I wrote those first three songs for his new CD ... I wanted to push the poetics as hard as I could push them, and not decide the songs were finished until I committed them to whatever the recording format was. I went through drafts right up until I recorded every single one of them.
Steve Earle
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I was comparatively late in understanding Bob Dylan's overwhelming importance as a songwriter. Everybody who does my job exists in the shadow of Bob Dylan. There are two categories: Dylan and everybody else. It's as simple as that. And it's going to be that way until he dies.
Steve Earle
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I wasn't raised to not write about issues, and I'm just living in really politically charged times. You know, I'd rather write songs about girls, but it's just hard to do right now.
Steve Earle
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The stupidest thing that a writer can do is write a memoir I think, unless it's right before you die -- maybe.
Steve Earle
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You make decisions, and that's what separates art from some other pop music. It doesn't mean that you can't make an embarrassing amount of money, for a borderline Marxist, doing something that you love, but it does mean that this huge pool of money that was out there when I started making records in the '80s is gone.
Steve Earle
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I'm not a Democrat I'm something well to the left of a Democrat, but I'm just realistic about the system.
Steve Earle
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I don't spend a lot of time feeling sorry for myself, trying to compare how many records I've sold or how much money I've made.
Steve Earle
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Sympathetic characters usually have a voice. They usually don't have any trouble being heard.
Steve Earle
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The singer-songwriter has always played music that was stylistically rooted in the '30s and the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. But the fact of the matter is that none of us remember the Depression firsthand.
Steve Earle
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Like most kids, I grew up singing 'This Land Is Your Land' in grammar school, but with the most radical verses neatly removed. This was before I knew it was a Woody Guthrie song.
Steve Earle
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I'm not a racist, but I do have to work at not being a racist, because of where I grew up.
Steve Earle
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Every day on Earth is another chance to get it right.
Steve Earle