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I write a song to be recorded. And to some extent to be performed, but definitely more to be recorded than performed, because the recording will last longer than a performance.

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
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Lasts
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Write
Extent
Writing
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Definitely

More quotes by Will Oldham

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I have a mantra that kind of explains my feelings on this subject, which is, The past is the present is the future. When you're recording something, you're making something that will exist in the future.
Will Oldham
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I was really looking forward to doing the thing that I do - I basically appear just at the beginning and at the end of the 'The Glory of the World' play - but when I got to opening night, I started to get really sad that that was the last time I was going to see the play as a spectator without actually being in it.
Will Oldham
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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
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My hope has always been that each record could have its own audience. Of course, it's awesome to have a cumulative audience for more than one record, but I like the idea that there could be a record that an individual might like.
Will Oldham
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At the same time, you don't want to be blindsided at some point because you've taken too much comfort from knowing nothing. So you try to keep a little store of practical knowledge. At a certain point you have to pretend that something is true in order to have a relationship with the world.
Will Oldham
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To me, the best purpose of an interview would be to illuminate some things about how somebody works for the benefit of somebody else who wants to do those things. And that's not where most interviews go at all, so to me, they seem like strange exercises in small talk and wasted air.
Will Oldham
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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
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I don't like going to cities. I don't mind maybe being in a city sometimes for a few hours, but I pretty much don't like cities. I don't even like passing through them.
Will Oldham
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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
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In the United States the government has become less important. So, it's democracy, but as each year passes it seems that the government plays less of a role in people's lives, and so they're living in whatever situation their employment imposes upon them more than they're living in a grand political system.
Will Oldham
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I don't think that word - the word pirate - has any real meaning. Or it's something that's had meaning imposed on it.
Will Oldham
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Making money is awesome and fun as hell, but they're saying, Well, you're offered a whole lot of money to do this, and it's like, well, I do want the money, but I don't really do that - like headline a big festival or something like that. I could go there and do that, but it isn't really what I do. It feels weird to me.
Will Oldham
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It's O.K. to accept good fortune.
Will Oldham
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I still make music. I still write music and I record music, I just don't trust music promotion [and] distribution right now enough to record a new set of diligently worked-upon compositions. I do trust the audience and the audiences very much.
Will Oldham
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We always keep things very, very simple. We can make a respectable living playing a smaller room that somebody else couldn't, because they're spending a lot of money. If we can't get a show up and deliver with what we almost intrinsically have in our brains and our pockets, then I don't really want to do it.
Will Oldham
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I do an opening in 'The Glory of the World' play at BAM, and then I go up to the high balcony in the back and watch the bulk of the play, but then I have to leave my seat about seven to 10 minutes before the end of that final big scene...and it's a bummer.
Will Oldham
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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
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One thing that the Internet has created is the sense that information is at your fingertips, when it's really only a very, very limited, specific, and slanted kind of information.
Will Oldham
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I don't usually read reviews. I usually read the interviews, just because I figure it's a good way to try to do them better if I ever have to do them again.
Will Oldham
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The first music I bought when I was nine or 10 was pop music from the '50s and '60s, like The Everly Bros., Elvis, Del Shannon, The Flamingos, The Platters, whatever I could get my hands on. And then some musical things, like Camelot, Singing in the Rain and Hair.
Will Oldham