J. J. Cale Quotes

I think if you're writing from the heart, very often, the subject matter will adjust as you age... but you try to write the best song you can possibly write. For us, we have the same basic elements that make up the America sound.

One of the greatest things about being an artist is, as you get older, if you keep working hard in relationship to what you want the world to be and how you want it to become, there is a history of interesting growth that resonates with different moments in your life.

When you research prolific songwriters, it is usually later in their career they write songs that they distance themselves from, or it's about other people.

Artists in general never stay in the same place; we keep growing. It's still you: you still have that core that you always had, but you work with new people and hear new things.

There was a stage in my career when I started to have problems with the vanity aspect of the subject. I got frustrated and bored with it. Then I thought, actually, how does it feel to be photographed? That's when I started to photograph myself. That was an incredibly important moment, and it opened up my work tremendously.

I think 'Hamilton' has made me look at myself deeper as an artist and what I'm looking for as an artist.

You can't write the same book twice. Though I've been in historical musical situations, I can't go back and do that again. And though I run into artistic crises, they keep my life interesting.

A young painter who cannot liberate himself from the influence of past generations is digging his own grave.

I had a visit from an artist friend who basically said, "Your paintings are wonderful. Now stop." It did resonate with me. It hit on the percolating need for change that was already there. I got a little push. I did a group of the paintings early on that were among the best. It was sort of beginner's luck with these.

I think in my late 20s, I was starting to enter that realm of complacency, which is the most terrifying place I can imagine as an artist. I felt time creeping up on me.

I'm glad I wrote them when I did because I think if I were to write my first novel now, it would be a different book, and it may not be the book that everybody wants to read. But if I were given a red pen now, and I went back... I'd take that thing apart.

Traffic' was an album that had a significant amount of songs. It was not complete and I felt didn't fully represent me as a person or as the artist I want to be and so when I started the writing process for 'The Autobiography' I was really turning a corner in my life.

As an artist, you keep learning. You draw out different parts of you.

I was 23 when I wrote 'Neighbors,' and I definitely look back at it now and cringe a little bit. I was trying to understand what drama was.

I know some people are like, 'I'm depressed, and I'm a struggling artist,' and that really works for some people, but that doesn't work for me. I have to be really happy, even when I'm writing my depressing songs; I have to come through that stage before I can write.

I have a lot of sketches and ideas, but when you don't use them, they get stale.

I started singing to this one John Legend record; it was called 'Each Day Gets Better,' or something like that. I started to realize, 'Wow, I really sound like this dude. If I keep doing this, maybe I can sound dope like John Legend and still rap.'

If I had to pick an artist that I look up to and am inspired by, it's Matisse because of how many times he would paint the same idea until he felt like he maybe got it right, and I try to do the same thing with my writing.

I think the music that I'm writing and the stuff I'm going to do as I age will age.

There's never been a moment where I sat down at my drawing board and thought, 'I'm a pro!'

I struggled with a lot of doubts around my songwriting and around what I was and what my purpose and mission were.

You spend so much time in a studio writing for other people, you forget you sing, you know?

The reason why everything I do is so different is not because I'm trying to be provocative; it's simply a reflection of whatever was happening to me at the time I wrote that particular record.

The late 80s was quite a difficult time for me as an artist because I'd almost become a parody of myself. All people wanted was pink hair and for me to sing 'I Want to Be Free.' There's nothing wrong with either of those but people need to see you as a person for you to be an artist.

I would wake up really early and go into the hotel bathroom, put a towel over the toilet, and put my laptop there. I'd put my headphones on and just write. And so now when I do writing sessions, and I am stuck on a part, or I can't figure out a chorus, I'm just like, 'Give me a second,' and I'll go to that bathroom.