Johnny Cash Quotes

I would say, you can never do enough gigs and you can never do enough songs. Make sure that every opportunity you can, play a show and every opportunity you can, write a song.

We went down [Folsom Prison] and there's a rodeo at all these shows that the prisoners have there. And in between the rodeo things, they asked me to set up and do two or three songs. So that was what I did. I did "Folsom Prison Blues," which they thought was their song - you know? - and "I Walk The Line," "Hey Porter," "Cry, Cry, Cry." And then the word got around on the grapevine that Johnny Cash is all right and that you ought to see him.

I started to write the song. And I was in Gladewater, Texas, one night with Carl Perkins and I said, I've got a good idea for a song. And I sang him the first verse that I had written, and I said it's called "Because You're Mine." And he said, "I Walk The Line" is a better title, so I changed it to "I Walk The Line."

When I was growing up, Nashville was the place to go if you had songs to sell and thought you had talent and wanted to tour and be on Grand Ole Opry [radio show]. It was the big deal back in those days to play the Grand Ole Opry. And you could travel around the world saying, "Hi, I'm Willie from the Grand Ole Opry".

I see myself as a serious artist, but yeah, when people come to my shows, they want to hear 'What Was I Thinkin',' 'Drunk on a Plane,' and lots of up-tempo, fun songs.

I went on tour with Ricky Skaggs and his wife, Sharon White, and the White Family in 2015. It was fantastic. They're all the greatest singers of that country stuff, traditional country up into bluegrass.

I taught myself to play guitar and sing. I ended up writing a lot of music and had a band and was playing in bars and pubs all around Sydney, going on tour. I played with some pretty big bands in Australia.

My goal was to play 350-capacity rooms in the U.K. and, if I was lucky, 100-capacity rooms in Europe. I just wanted to play music and make money off it.

Through the '80s, nobody cared about Johnny Cash.

I got a chance to meet and hang out with Sam Hunt. He's actually a pretty cool dude.

I was driving to school at Reseda High School - I was a junior, and it was early 1956. I had a '49 Ford. I was listening to the country station, and 'Folsom Prison Blues' comes on... It didn't sound like the stuff I was hearing on the pop stations.

For 'The Lobster Kings,' I listened to a lot of Johnny Cash. And it makes its way into the book.

I want to play the Grand Ole Opry for sure. And I want to meet and play with people like Emmylou Harris and Vince Gill.

There's something magical that happens to every three-year-old that hears 'Ring of Fire.' That's usually where it starts for most people. They immediately want to put on a black shirt, grab a guitar and sing 'Ring of Fire.'

I'm a big-time Johnny Cash fan.

Any young, aspiring musicians out there, if music is what you want to do, if music is what you love and your passion. It doesn't take a fragrance, it's not about the tabloids, it's about you putting in the work, practicing every day, practicing your vocals, practicing your instrument, practicing songwriting. Hopefully one day you write the song the whole world wants to get down to. I promise you, if you go out there and sing and you put your heart and soul into it and you follow your dream, one day you're going to be sitting next to Ellen DeGeneres talking about how you broke records and rocked the Super Bowl.

Practice? I never practice. I just write songs and take solos.

I would love to hear someone write a song like 'He Stopped Loving Her Today' rather than 'You're hot. I'm hot. We're in a truck.' It's just mind-numbing to me.

Besides, going on tour and playing songs and arranging things, going to practice, it's all I know to be productive.

When you go on tour and see everyone, you're like, "Oh my god. This is actually real life." That inspires me to write more songs.

I like myself better when I'm writing regularly. ... I was influenced a lot by those around me-there was a lot of singing that went on in the cotton fields. ... 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...I never gave up on country music because I knew what I was doing was not that bad. ... Most of the stuff I've read about me has been true.

I'm making records, my fans they can't wait. They write me letters, tell me I'm great.

I remember people would talk about Country Music like it was this sexist, lame thing. Well, no, because Dolly Parton is writing songs and playing her guitar and producing. She's doing it all and she's got hits on the radio.

If you're a songwriter, you want to write a song like "Oh Yeah" that radically shifts everything. You can definitely retire on that song. You want to have something you can put in your songbook that everybody can recognize, whether it's a good or bad thing.

Sometimes performing someone else's song is more difficult than writing your own.