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Writing songs is a profession so it's not an attempt to take things from my interactions with other people and for some reason give them to a total stranger to listen to. I find it offensive to hear other people do that.
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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More quotes by Will Oldham
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
Cities are made for enemies to destroy.
Will Oldham
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
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 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
I figure it's okay to make certain rules, whether or not people despise you for it at the time.
Will Oldham
I'd like my records to reach as many people as possible, but I'm also thinking in terms of how I can keep from getting jaded or unhappy with the process.
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
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
The ideal is to put on shows where, if you go into the same space again, you don't remember ever having been there before, because where you were was a space that only existed that one time, created by the music.
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 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
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
A record is something that isn't real or true. It's like cinema. It's a construction of something hyper-real and surreal and unreal all at the same time. You make a space that doesn't really exist. One of the big joys of being in this line of work is building the recorded versions of the songs.
Will Oldham
You're hoping that it's going to be an extraordinary experience any time you create and/or listen to music with other people. I guess what I've been saying over the past few minutes is that it's hard to do that, to create that.
Will Oldham
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
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
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
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
Sometimes the ensemble 'Eighth Blackbird' will have performances and invite me to be a featured soloist. I think that is what they call it in that world-featured soloist.
Will Oldham