Jon Pardi Quotes

I started as a songwriter and wanted to be like Leonard Cohen. I've always seen my stories as enlarged songs.

There's a few times in the past when I wrote a song, and I put the words together, and they were very clear pictures, and I felt like I was putting together a really good story. But I don't think I was ever really able to stay on that. What I've sort of developed lyrically is more about the sound of the vocals and what they are.

The songs sort of come out spontaneously and it'll take me awhile to figure out what exactly is happening lyrically, what kind of story I'm telling. Then I start building little bridges - word bridges - to make everything go from one point to the next point to the next point until it reaches the end.

With songs I almost see the images, see the action, and then all I have to do is describe it. It's almost like watching a scene from a film, and that's what I go about trying to catch in a song.

Essentially, I'm a storyteller, and I make my living by telling stories, be they music or nonfiction or fiction.

I just love storytelling. I write music to tell stories. So when I'm done writing a song, I take it and go, 'Okay. How can I interpret these lyrics differently?' I love taking lyrics that were so close to me at a certain point in my life and then revamping them. I always want to take things to the next level.

You have only so many chances to tell stories. I didn't want to be forever wedded to one form of storytelling when there are so many out there.

To have frequent recourse to narrative betrays great want of imagination.

I was a storyteller for The Band. It was never, 'Hey guys, here's a song about what happened to me.' I was always more comfortable writing fiction.

I find it harder to write the lyrics afterwards because then you're just trying to fit them into something that's already there.

There's many, many ways to write a song. But generally, sitting down at a table and writing is not one of them.

I really, really like writing songs.

It's hard to know exactly what it sounds like to me. I'm in the studio and I write it. and that's it.

When you write a song, the goal is not to convey the details of your life. You should write a memoir or something if that's what you're going to do.

It's about the stories. If I write 14 stories that I love, then the next step is to get the environment of music around it to best envelop the story, and all kinds of sonic goodness - sonic goodies.

To be honest, I found the 3D in 'Avatar' to be inconsistent and while ground breaking in many respects, sometimes I thought it overwhelmed the storytelling. Technology aside, I wish 'Avatar' had been more original in its storytelling.

I'm always writing; my phone is full of ideas - melodies and lyrics and stuff.

As far as subject matter, I'd say most of the songs aren't that personal to me. I love making up characters and kind of having fun in a different kind of way.

When I look at the arc of my career, my focus is on lyricism, right? I own that.

Sometimes I'll write without the guitar or the piano, but most of the time I'll be playing and just improvising some words. And when I get something that sounds good, a line with a story in it, I'll try and tease it out and figure out where the story is going.

The goal is always just to write the best song that you can write. I mean, the process for writing a song is the process for writing a song. It's not something I look at it as something I need to do something different.

I've always wanted to be a songwriter and a storyteller and somebody who conveys a feeling to the listener or the viewer.

I'm definitely still putting effort into my lyrics, for them to be emotional and tell a story.

I'm working on my life story. I'm not decided if it's going to be a musical or a movie with music in it.

I found out a long time ago that if I didn't have a good story for a song, I could just make one up! Now it seems over half the stories in my show are made up. The funny thing is, those seem to be the ones that resonate the most with the audiences.