Mat Kearney Quotes

I think that, when you're writing your songs, there's always a debate about whether, is that you in the song? Is it not you in the song?

If I found out some gal was trying to steal my guy, I'd want to give her a black eye! Instead, I wrote this song. At the time I was writing each song [on this album], you could figure out the frame of mind I was in by listening closely. With every song I've ever recorded, I'm in it. I wouldn't write about it if I wasn't in it.

Writing a song doesn't heal things. Even if the song comes up with a solution, it's still only a theory. Going out and living my lyrics is a whole other deal. That takes courage.

I write songs about my own experiences. You can't lie to yourself. You can't pose to yourself.

I'm not afraid to use my personal experiences and put them into a song. I think that's when you get the best stuff anyway, when it's real emotion.

Songs are my diaries; they always have been. You have to put your trust in everyone because putting down those real, personal details and thoughts that make a song authentic also opens you right up. I am constantly misunderstood; a lot of people just don't get me.

Nobody can tell you you're wrong for writing a song about how you feel - even if you don't really feel that way.

I'm not afraid to write my feelings in songs.

Yeah, 'Mine' was inspired by a person, but it became much deeper than that. I obviously pulled lyrics... from stuff I was actually saying to this person and feeling about this person, but it was for people. I didn't want to make that song to impress that girl; I wanted to make that song to make people feel better.

Coming off 'Reflection,' what we really wanted to do was be more vulnerable.

If something happens to me, you're going to hear about it. I only know how to write songs about my life.

But I never want to get to the point where I write a safe song or one that represents my sense of a subject in order to appear civilized.

Art is a personal act of courage.

You know that I can make hits. You know I can do all these rap records. So, I'm going to start opening up and letting you know my struggles.

Sometimes I was in a mood to write a song as if I was writing in my journal and reveal certain parts of me that I was ready to reveal.

I would feel really dishonest writing a song that was really sassy, or really confident, because I'm not a supremely confident being. I think that's what people find interesting about what I do; it's very different lyrically.

I always seem to write personal songs; that's always been my go-to thing, to write about what I'm experiencing.

The whole point about vision is that it's very individual, it's very personal, and it has to be confessional. It has to be something which hurts - the pulling out of it and putting it on the page hurts. Art can be about the individual writer's response to his or her condition, and if that response comes out of a predigested belief about what the audience wants to hear about the writer's condition, then it has no truth, it has no validity. You either write with your own blood or nobody's. Otherwise it's just ink.

You do try to write songs that you feel like people can relate to and you try to be as honest as you can so that people hear your records and they feel like, "Oh, my god. This is exactly how I feel. I went through this."

There's a lot of risk in putting what you suspect you really are into your music.

I think most of my songs are based on an emotion and in every song I write, there's at least a partial truth.

I write songs from the heart, and I don't hold back.

The songs come from a vulnerable place, but expressing that part of yourself can also make you feel fearless.

Maybe I could have been good as a drawer if I had done it as much as I did writing, but it's more scary to draw. It's more revealing. You can't disguise yourself in drawing.

I feel, as a songwriter, it's one of the hardest things to do - to sit down and say how you feel.