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I make the songs and part of making them is singing them. But what you hear is not me. It's the song. It's through me.
Will Oldham
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Will Oldham
Age: 53
Born: 1970
Born: December 24
Actor
Guitarist
Musician
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Songwriter
Television Actor
Louisville
Kentucky
Joseph Will Oldham
Bonnie Prince Billy
Bonnie Prince Billy
Make
Singing
Songs
Hear
Making
Song
Part
More quotes by Will Oldham
People are looking for fame or a focus, and I can't provide that.
Will Oldham
I feel like, for me, reading Thomas Merton is like “Wait a minute, this is a rabbit hole. This isn’t a gateway or a ticket to anything except itself”. When you're a ways into it, you're five pages in, 20 pages in, 30 pages in, it seems like one of the more oxymoronic undertakings you could attempt.
Will Oldham
I think that what trips up a lot of great musicians is that they become involved with too many things that aren't where their strengths lie.
Will Oldham
There's very little admirable about being a pirate. There's very little functional about a pirate. There's very little real about a pirate.
Will Oldham
I figure it's okay to make certain rules, whether or not people despise you for it at the time.
Will Oldham
I was worried before I saw the play 'The Seven Storey Mountain', thinking I don't really want to see a play about Thomas Merton. He probably wouldn't have either, ideally. Then it isn't. It's more about us and it's about our relationship to what he may or may not have thought about. It's its own thing completely.
Will Oldham
The less people present in an urgent situation that a moderately high stakes recording session can create - the less people there are in the room - the more openness there can be. These songs share that as well, in addition to just the obvious, basic starkness.
Will Oldham
I feel much more physically connected to my voice, and I like the physicality of the voice, and how the voice can physically occupy a song.
Will Oldham
Sometimes it will be for more money than I've ever been offered before. I mean, am I an idiot again for not doing that?
Will Oldham
There are a limited number of promoters out there who care about creating music. You rarely meet a promoter who's like, I want to be responsible for the best shows, I want to make sure that these are the best shows these audiences have ever seen.
Will Oldham
I have more respect for somebody who points at his ideal - in this case, the ideal of the pirate - and then becomes something that's more radical, more exciting, more subversive than a pirate could ever be.
Will Oldham
Too much emphasis is put on American roots music when people try and place me. You know, I grew up listening to punk.
Will Oldham
When I listen to little fourth-dimension artifacts, they're like they were made as time capsules in the first place. You know that when you're writing the song and recording the song, you're already sending a message to the future listener, whoever and wherever and whenever that will be.
Will Oldham
If we were making a record in Kentucky, there might be some more elements that recall a time, a place, or a relationship. Recording for the BBC you enter into this strange and wonderful, but kind of sterile, place with which you have no personal history, and that's the Maida Vale Studios at BBC in London.
Will Oldham
Frank Sinatra's never been handsome, but he's one of my favorite singers. Who needs looks when you have a voice and power?
Will Oldham
My dream many years ago would've been to continue to write and record songs in record/album form for years to come, but now records aren't what they were then - and so it doesn't actually feel very good to make a record of songs.
Will Oldham
I think that America in general is piratical. Every time we accept a paycheck for doing almost nothing, allowing us to live above the poverty line, we're engaging in piracy.
Will Oldham
Venues are all the same, all feel the same, these generic blank spaces. I like artists like Lightning Bolt-bands that go in and kind of change things every time, play on the floor, set up in the middle of the room. They go in and they reinvent the space every time, which I feel is like the kind of thing that should just be happening.
Will Oldham
It's good when someone says, Would you write a song for this purpose, or would you record a song for this purpose, or would you help me realize this song, again, for this purpose.
Will Oldham
If I give a little hint or clue as to where my voice could be going, that would [be] read. Because people can listen closely, you know, you can sit with headphones or you just concentrate on music, you can just hear, sometimes, the desires of the voice itself.
Will Oldham