Tom T. Hall Quotes

Nashville is one of the greatest places for the best songwriters in the world. It's been fantastic to live there and to raise our family there. It's a great town.

If you had told me when I was starting out that I would be coming down to Nashville, kind of weaving in and out of the country scene, I never would've thought that in a million years.

Man, I live in Nashville. I know how good other songwriters and singers are around here. There's a wealth of talent in this town, not to mention the people who shoot in for a week or two to try their hand on lower Broad or the other venues around town.

I had no idea when I moved to Nashville people just were songwriters. I had no idea. So I guess I was selling myself as a singer when I first moved here. But then right after I first moved, I started writing a lot.

I'm from Tullahoma, TN which is an hour south of Nashville, and I grew up and wanted to be like Garth Brooks, so I moved to Nashville when I was 18 to chase a dream.

One of the great reasons to be in Nashville is, you get guys like Shane McAnally to write songs with.

I thought, when I came to Nashville, I was going to hook up with some of the top country writers in town and write some country tunes.

Most of the time in Nashville, you're so replaceable. Anybody can get another nice-looking guy to sing a country song.

When I started out, I was what they called corny. After a week in Nashville they were calling me hillbilly.

Because Olivia Newton-John wasn't from Nashville, they didn't like her winning our awards. I've got no complaints.

It was just like a dream. I could have ended up with an album that's not all that different from anything else coming out of Nashville. Mutt made the difference. He took these songs, my attitude, my creativity, and colored them in a way that is unique.

I was sort of in denial about doing country for awhile but I sort of grew up and realized who I was, what I wanted to say. I think country music is the best music in the world and I'm glad to be doing a country album. I hope people will love it as much as I loved making it.

I did enjoy Nashville a lot of the time, because I made really good friends who were really good songwriters, and they would be a joy to hang out with.

As a songwriter, you respect and appreciate the writings of other people, and I often get asked, are there songs out there I wish I'd written? Yes. There's many of them!

I like this town, it's really great. They've put me in The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. This town is about music. It's about the kind of music I like.

The best thing is when you hear somebody take your song and make something great of it.

I like to sing. I write music. Country songs. You have to if you're in Nashville. It's part of the lease. You sign a lease that says, I will write country songs and pay my rent on time.

I think there are a lot of artists that are very traditional. I think someone can be a fan of someone like Josh Turner and then turn around and be a big fan of someone like Taylor Swift because, at the end of the day, it's all about those songs. I feel like country music has the best songwriting and the best songs of any genre.

I probably had the most fun recording For Richer For Poorer in Nashville.

As corny as it may sound, my true goal was to crack the Americana market.

That's what I love about Nashville and the music community - seeing kids around acoustic music and bluegrass picking parties is the best.

Lets be clear, Dolly Parton is a rapper. Somewhere before all the country, I don't know what happens up there in the mountains when you're growing up, but she has been spitting rhymes for a very long time - 50 years I'd say.

The thing I like about 'Nashville,' it just happens to be about musicians, and all the music is practical, meaning it's performed at a concert or during a rehearsal.

I remember in the '80s, Randy Travis was my guy. He's the reason I moved to Nashville, and I just loved him. But at some point when he was winning everything, you find yourself pulling for other people.

If you can't play guitar and sing in Nashville, you might as well just be a construction worker.