Willie Nelson - Songs Quotes

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Sometimes you're fooling around on the guitar and suddenly you just played a piece of a new song and it wakes you up. You think, What was that? I just wrote a song. Of course, then you can't remember it.

Willie Nelson
It didn't take long for me to realize that writing, performing and singing songs was what I was meant to do, but what other people thought was an entirely different issue. If I had to break it down, I'd say about 99 percent of the people in my life were telling me I wasn't going to make it. All that adversity and lack of faith ended up just strengthening my own convictions. All that negativity really helped me in the end, because there's no better inspiration for doing something than having somebody say that you can't do it.

Willie Nelson
I have written more than 1000 songs, most of them never recorded. The timing wasn't right or whatever. The songs that became the hits don't tell the whole story. Most songs disappear without a trace. You never know how people will take to them, what will strike a chord. If you did, you'd always do it. You'd record only hits. No one can do that.

Willie Nelson
I'm a country songwriter and we write cry-in-your-beer songs. That's what we do. Something that you can slow dance to.

Willie Nelson
Bob Wills taught me how to be a bandleader and how to be a star. [...] There was no time wasted between songs. I learned from him to keep the people moving and dancing. [...] The more you keep the music going, the smoother the evening will be. Another thing he taught me was people came and paid their money to hear what they wanted to hear. Even if Bob had a mediocre band that night, the people knew his records and his radio shows and they heard what they thought Bob Wills sounded like. Whether he had a good night or a bad night, every night was a good night.

Willie Nelson
I started writing cheating songs when I was too young to have any idea what I was writing about - broken hearts and things like that. I just think it was something I already knew, something I had experienced in another lifetime.

Willie Nelson
If I had the chance to do it all over again, I'd do it exactly the same. Wrong or right, it's my life. Sounds like a song, doesn't it?

Willie Nelson
A lot of country music is sad. I think most art comes out of poverty and hard times. It applies to music. Three chords and the truth — that's what a country song is. There is a lot of heartache in the world.

Willie Nelson