Top 80 Jason Isbell Quotes

When I joined the Truckers, I was 21 and riding in the van with guys who were a generation older than me.

You don’t have any kind of control ultimately. Things are just going to happen as they will. And I think your best option sometimes is just to react rather than try to plan everything out in advance.

Terrible things happen all of the time, and they can happen in a second. The best thing is to be prepared to react. If you try to control every little thing, you’re going to end up miserable – and you’re going to fail.

It’s not easy to sit down and open yourself up and say, ‘This is how much I love you,’ you know? It’s scary to do that.

Any narrative, whether it’s fiction or not, you have to approach it as though it really happened to you. I think that’s the only way to get inside the characters and make the narrative work. It’s a storytelling tradition, and I think to come off as genuine then you have to really approach it that way.

I think a lot of people are scared, and I know I was scared to get sober, at least using this as an excuse; ‘I don’t want to be one of those sober people.’ And I don’t think you have to be. I think you can be one of those people who happens to be sober.

I don’t remember a lot of the good times from my days with the Truckers.

I find the ones that have the most emotional weight, the heaviest songs. For some reason, for me, they’re usually the ones I write the quickest. I put more work into uplifting material, I think, sometimes.

I have a lot of reactions to the outside world that I don’t feel like would be appropriate for songs: things I’m not interested in writing about, things I don’t want to think about any longer than 15 or 20 seconds.

You can be very honest without telling the truth, at least in art.

I’m not a big AA guy, but I’ll go every once in a while. They do tell you that going out and helping other people really helps you a lot. It seems like a simple thing to say, but it’s really true.

My dad, as much as I love him, has one of those signs – ‘The Isbell’s’ – on his front door, and he’s got the damn apostrophe in there. I haven’t strangled him yet.

The good thing about songwriting is you don’t have to delineate between what’s true and what’s fiction; records aren’t put on the shelf that way. Books are, movies are, but records aren’t.

A great story poorly told doesn’t do anybody any good at all, and nobody wants to hear it, and nobody wants to read it. The craft of it is really more important than the subject matter.

Democracy can tie your hands in a rock ‘n’ roll band, you know? It can be a great thing, but if you’ve got a certain amount of vision and you write a lot of songs, it’s sometimes better to have your own band and make your own decisions.

I like a cliche if it’s sort of turned on its head.

I think great songs appeal to people at any age. Kids love the Beatles, too. Kids love Tom T. Hall. Of course, Tom T. wrote some things that were specifically for kids. But I think kids recognize quality more than they get credit for sometimes.

A lot of people in Nashville think that the best song is the catchiest or the one that sells the most copies. They’re editing songs in a way that make them seem more consumable, I guess. I’m trying to edit them in a way that makes them more honest.

I’ve tried to be open to what’s going on and paying close attention, not letting things that inspire me to pass me by.

The idea of growing up in the South and being a man is an interesting thing; there’s a lot masculinity involved, with hunting, fishing, and playing sports that rural people take pride in, but at the same time, I grew up really not wanting to hate anybody.

I’ve spent a lot of time in a rock n’ roll band trying to fight off the fact that I was old enough to rent a car. And it’s all sort of rushed in at once now. And I like it.

Man, that Jim Lauderdale always looks good – he’s got more western suits than anybody.

What having a child – and especially a daughter – has done is lifted more of the veil for me: allowed me to see things on another level compared to how I used to see them.

Physical labor, manual labor – if you can stay close to those folks, there’s always plenty to write about, ’cause their issues are real issues.

I didn’t know what to expect when we first started touring behind ‘Southeastern’ because you don’t want to lull anybody to sleep or lose their attention. But it’s really been incredible how the crowds seem to be just as excited for the slow, sad songs as they are for the old rockers.

As you get up in your thirties, the van touring is not a possibility anymore. We can’t all be Mike Watt.

I think sometimes I write to impress my influences. Whether they’re actually acquaintances of mine, people that I think will hear the record or not, I still write – not to imitate my influences – but to write something that would live up to their standards.

Right when I started touring, there was this wariness I had of the world outside of my small town. But I’m not that person anymore, and I was never completely that person.

People love to be listened to and represented, and they love it when they feel like you have some of the same problems that they do. Everybody deals with things like romantic difficulties in relationships and death and cancer and abuse.

I just try to keep making good records, try to write songs the best way I can and take my job seriously. Like most people take their jobs.

No matter what you thought your plans were, that’s not how things are going to work out, and that’s the only way you can really, I think, live successfully.

I don’t think I’d be happy if I were satisfied. I enjoy challenge, and I wouldn’t say that I’m an ambitious person career-wise or financially, really. I would like to travel more comfortably, but that’s really about all I need.

A lot of people make records where there are a couple songs worth listening to and you skip through the rest, and I don’t want to do that because those records bore me pretty bad.

I’ve never been someone who’s very prone to boredom. I don’t know, boredom seems like something you should grow out of at about 15 or 16. There’s so much that needs to be done.

Sometimes I leave an encounter or a conversation hoping that I didn’t come off as above my raisin’ – hoping that I didn’t make somebody feel bad for not having as much as we’re fortunate to have.

For me, the things like the Confederate flag – I just don’t think that it does anybody much good, and it certainly causes a lot of people a lot of pain.

You always have a lot of time on the road, and you have to fill that time up with something.

I like to play pool. When the ball goes in the pocket, you win.

The south is very focused on family… the musical heritage of Muscle Shoals especially and the bands from the region.

At the end of the day, I’m just trying to write a song that I like, that I’m not afraid to turn loose on the world. I do read a lot. I know a lot of people who read more, but I do try to keep a book in my hand most of the time, and I think that informs any kind of output that I’m going to have.

I write when the baby is asleep or when I’m on the road I write a lot… There’s always time to do it. It’s like getting exercise.

There are definitely some nights where the show is over, and you’re on the bus or a hotel room, and it’s sort of a shock to go from being in the atmosphere of a club or a theater and be at your own show to being by yourself in a hotel room.

When I hear somebody like Hayes Carll write a song that’s touching and poignant and sad and funny all at the same time, it motivates me to step my game up and try to figure out a way to get more different emotions into one line or one song.

At some point, I’d like to make a record that’s more of a self-serving guitar album, because I really love to play. It’s not really something I’d expect a whole lot of people to buy, though.

I don’t believe all music is good. I believe some music is bad for people to listen to. I think it makes their taste worse, I think it makes their lives worse, I think it makes them worse people.

The fact that I have a Southern accent and write about a lot of rural things leads people to put me in the country category.

As my life changes, it gives me new things to write about.

When I was still drinking, I thought I was kind of in control of everything in my life and other people’s lives and realized at some point that that just wasn’t the case at all.

I’ll take a certain concern of my own or a situation and try to frame it around a fictional story, but sometimes just straight-up autobiographical songs work well, and sometimes a story is better. I like stories. I like to hear them. I don’t think there are enough of them in songs anymore.

I have modes, mental modes that I get in, and when I’m on the road, I focus very much on doing the work. On playing the show, on being good every night. And part of me just gets switched off. The part that’s very private and very personal and very intimate. That especially, that part of me gets shut off.

If you’re somebody who writes songs or writes fiction, a writer that people pay for your opinion in any way, you shouldn’t be the least bit uncomfortable giving it to them. People want songwriters to tell them how they think and how they feel. That’s what a song is. That’s what I want to hear in a song.