Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
If you've got a good melody and a good story married together, that's a good sign for hit-song material.
That's what we grew up with - the good songs, the good lyrics, the good big-band stuff. I miss that era.
We didn't have electricity when I was a kid. We had to watch TV by candlelight. No, that's a silly joke.
Do everything according to God, and be nice, and treat other people the way you would like to be treated.
I just tell you, the Lord's been good to me. Even if I was a rounder, He's been really, really nice to me.
I know it was raw in some places, and I was a jerk in some places, but that's the way I was, and I was stupid.
Our dad taught us not to be a loafer and a slough-off, that you don't blame somebody else for your misfortunes.
Great stories start with great opening lines. 'I'm a lineman for the county' - what a great way to start a song.
I was very candid in my book because I want people to know the truth... and that people can change for the better.
There's been a load of compromising, on the road to my horizon, but I'm gonna be where the lights are shining on me.
With the first money I got, I built my parents a house back home, gave them a string of credit cards, and said 'Go.'
I got to play with the big guys, the Wrecking Crew. They just blew me away. I learned a lot of stuff from those guys.
'True Grit' was fun to do, but I wasn't cut out to be an actor. I made John Wayne look so good, he won his only Oscar.
When I did 'Wichita Lineman,' it was as good as I could do it, so I keep doing it that way. It's such a haunting song.
I needed a capo - a clamp to hold down the strings - so my daddy made me one out of a corn on the cob and a rubber band.
I listened to a battery radio, old country and pop stuff. Because I was singing all the time, my dad bought me a $7.50 guitar.
What I try to do is live with myself and please me. If I can't do that, I can't please anybody else or live with anybody else.
I miss him already. He was a unique person and a dear friend. If a record came on the radio, you'd know it was Waylon Jennings.
I don't remember not singing. I started when I was, I don't know how - what, two years old or a year old or something like that.
I don't remember not singing. I started when I was, I don't know how - what, two years old, or a year old or something like that.
I still love making music. And I still love performing for my fans. I'd like to thank them for sticking with me through thick and thin.
Daddy - I remember when he first let me drive the cultivator for him, you know... He eased you into the hard work that you had to do later.
I learned it was crucial to play right on the edge of the beat... It makes you drive the song more. You're ahead of the beat, but you're not.
I used to be just a total jazz freak. People used to say, 'Where's the melody? Is there a melody in there anywhere?' Now I let the music follow the song.
They could never put me in a slot. They couldn't say Glen was 'country,' 'pop' or 'rock.' I'm crock, OK? A cross between country and rock. Call me crock.
I'm a take-me-as-l-am person, and all the rest is water under the bridge. You can't change yesterday any more than you can predict what's gonna happen tomorrow.
It was Dec. 22, 1981. I figured I had messed up enough, and I decided to have a little faith and let God take over. It definitely straightened my act up in a hurry.
Perhaps I've found the secret for an unhappy private life. Every three years, I go and marry a girl who doesn't love me, and then she proceeds to take all my money.
All my records - 'By the Time I Get to Phoenix,' 'Wichita Lineman,' 'Galveston,' 'Rhinestone Cowboy,' 'Dreams of the Everyday Housewife' - they all had strings on them.
I played on a lot of Sinatra sessions. He was simply awesome. He liked to laugh, and he could be one of the boys when he wanted. But he was also a very serious performer.
With the TV shows, you get eight zillion people watching you. I was really surprised at the way everything went. I knew television was powerful, but that was just... wow.
I realize you are going to make mistakes through life. Just don't make any bad ones, you know. Like all of my records are perfect records, but I did make mistakes on them.
I can think of only two or three songs out of hundreds I've recorded that I performed as originally written. I like to become intimate with the material and change it to suit me.
There ought to be a hall of fame for mamas / Creation's most unique and precious pearl / And heaven help us always to remember / That the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world
You don't play around with a good song. You try to just say it right in the proper place, and if you get the music and voice in tune, you'll be all right. That's always worked for me.
I'll tell you, my dad played and sang, and it didn't take me long to figure out that playing a guitar was a whole lot better than getting ahold of a hoe handle or chopping cotton, man.
Ah, the Wrecking Crew! They played on everything that came out of L.A. Oh, that was a good band. You really enjoyed going to work. You played for everyone; it didn't matter what it was.
I've often asked myself, how much information can the brain actually hold? There'll probably come a day when you're able to download it; that's what you have to do when the machine's full.
We lived on the farm, and our mode of transportation was wagon and team. No electricity. I'm the seventh son of 12 kids - eight boys and four girls. Mom and Dad handled that very well. But I wanted to get out.
I don't miss television. It's too much hurry up and sit around, wait till they do this and do that, and get the lighting just right. I'd much rather go out on a stage anywhere and just play and sing for an hour.
Some people have said that I can 'hear' a hit song, meaning that I can tell the first time a song is played for me if it has potential. I have been able to hear some of the hits that way, but I can also 'feel' one.
Roger Miller opened a lot of people's eyes to the possibilities of country music, and it's making more impact now because it's earthy material: stories and things that happen to everyday people. I call it 'people music.'
I just wanted to do a music show, with the whole realm of music from Ella Fitzgerald to rock bands like Cream to Kenny Rogers. We had a lot of country, but we did every kind of music. The Monkees were on, and so was Johnny Cash.
You've got to try a little kindness, yes show a little kindness Just shine your light for everyone to see. And if you try a little kindness, Then you'll overlook the blindness Of narrow-minded people on the narrow-minded streets.
If I get a song - a good song - I just sing it the way I hear it in my head. If anybody else wanted to add whistles and bells and chains rattling, that's fine. Just not too much. I actually just do things as straight ahead as possible.