John Darnielle Quotes

Some of us get a feeling when we hear music and we feel music, and you want to figure out how to continue to feel that.

I love learning how people hear my music because everyone has different references.

I think everybody reacts to entertainment with a different kind of visceral way, probably mostly based on their own personal experiences.

I think that music is still a mystery to most people. It kind of goes through most people without a specific thought. They feel the music, which is what's supposed to happen. They're not supposed to be curious about who wrote the music; they're supposed to feel what the show is trying to get them to feel. So if I help get that feeling across, that's good enough for me.

I think it's always interesting how music means different things to different people, and people who overthink it are looking to in some ways show off with music, versus people who just respond to a song and decide to sing it.

I've always been able to get inside a song really easily, and if it's my song, I can make it seem honest.

It's better for the listener to interpret their own meanings to the music.

Different people get different things out of the images. It doesn't matter what it's about, all that matters is how it makes you feel.

Art is basically communication, and I think everyone who's a music lover has had that experience where a record or a recording has kept you company when no one else is around. And I think that is what I'm hoping that people get out of my music.

Music is subjective to everyone's unique experience.

Music's something you feel. You have to feel it first before you hear it.

I would love for people to enjoy our music and have feelings from it. That's all I can hope for.

Music is very abstract. When we talk about music, we're not discussing the music itself but rather how we react to it.

That's my favorite part about songwriting, the way you write a song, and someone else might hear it a different way.

It's difficult to explain exactly how I react to music, but if it makes me feel anything at all, then I'll have some kind of emotional relationship to it. That's what defines good music to me - if it makes me truly feel something.

That's why I fell in love with country music: it made me feel something.

The most incredible part of seeing people embrace and recognize my music is experiencing the lives of people when they are powerfully affected, encouraged, and personally impacted.

My favorites are songs that I get an emotional charge from, whatever genre they're in.

Few people will appreciate the music if I just show them the notes. Most of us need to [hear it].

You can't tell people how to feel when they read your work. You can only hope to connect.

To me, music is emotion and if when you're listening to it and it doesn't make you feel that, then it's not music.

Music gets us in touch with our emotions in a way that's more intimate than any other art form.

What matters is how I feel about it, cause if I feel good or bad about it, then the audience will feel good or bad about it and that's just sorta the job.

My work is never intellectual. I never make a negative unless emotionally moved by my subject.

It's just a sound, and a feeling that's in the music. And you either hear it and appreciate it, or you don't.