Takin' the Country Back: Country Wisdom

Takin' the Country Back, a web site devoted to traditional country and classic country music

, 2004

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Country Wisdom

We have compiled this list of quotations about country music from various sources. If you have a quotation not listed on this page that you think belongs here, please let us know!

"The thing about California country, and even the great Texas/Oklahoma stuff like Waylon and Willie and Ernest Tubb, is that it was far enough from Nashville that it didn't get caught up in the business. None of those folks were second guessing what would work; they were making music for its own sake, music they felt, music that would connect with the fans...it's strong." ~ Gary Allan
"I started playing music because it meant something to me, because it fulfilled me. The awards, all that, have never been the motivation. And they don't mean [anything] unless you're happy with yourself." ~ Mary Chapin Carpenter (Twang! The Ultimate Book of Country Music Quotations)
"In the face of the adversities, I still maintain that nothing matters but the music. You know, if I weren't getting paid, I'd probably still be fighting to do it." ~ Clint Black (Twang! The Ultimate Book of Country Music Quotations)
"I am the proverbial square peg. I don't know how to be anything else. I can't play the games. Music can't be put in a bottle. I can't have it turned into something I don't feel." ~ Charlie Daniels
"There is a pulse of the people and what they want. I trust the people; I really do. I think if good music is made available to them, they will be drawn to it." ~ Emmylou Harris (Twang! The Ultimate Book of Country Music Quotations)
"I don't care anything about being a superstar; I just want to make country music." ~ Wade Hayes
"I'll tell you, here's the best way to describe my situation. Some people have their music. My music's got me." ~ Waylon Jennings (Twang! The Ultimate Book of Country Music Quotations)
"I love country music, and it's my life. It's the only thing I ever cared for, and it's the only thing I ever will care for. I guess I care for it too much, more than the wives and personal things, but it's very important to me. And that's the way it is." ~ George Jones (Twang! The Ultimate Book of Country Music Quotations)
"I want to stay in bluegrass. It's what I love; it's what I know. The whole reason we play music is that we enjoy the music we play. Changing that for commercial success would be an awful crime." ~ Alison Krauss
"Don't play any music you don't believe in because it will definitely come back to haunt you." ~ Marty Stuart (Twang! The Ultimate Book of Country Music Quotations)
"When music gets inside of you and gets a part of your heart and a part of your being and a part of your soul, for those who experience it at that depth, there's nothing quite like it." ~ Eddie Stubbs
"I'm in music because it's what I am. I will always cut albums. I'll always sing. I'll always play. If it ever gets to be really big, then that's cool. If it stays just like it is, I've got enough." ~ Joy Lynn White (Twang! The Ultimate Book of Country Music Quotations)

"I can remember hearing songs on the jukebox, even at three or four years old, and I had an understanding of something I'd never been able to understand before. That's part of what country music does. It can make you feel right at home, or it can take you a thousand miles away." ~ Mark Collie (Twang! The Ultimate Book of Country Music Quotations)
"Country music was like our religion. We were country fans first and then we were Baptists." ~ Ronnie Dunn
"It is as fundamental as sunshine and rain, snow and wind and the light of the moon peeping through the trees. Some folks like it, and some dislike it very much, but it'll be there long after you and I have passed out of this picture for the next one." ~ George D. Hay (Twang! The Ultimate Book of Country Music Quotations)
"Country music is white blues. I mean, to me, Ray Charles is the father of [modern] black blues, and George Jones is the country singer of the white blues. It's that sound. They're completely different, but they strike the same kind of chord." ~ Emmylou Harris (Twang! The Ultimate Book of Country Music Quotations)
"I think [country music] feeds us in a way that we desperately need. I believe that music is a real, positive, life-changing thing that is as necessary to the quality of life as things like food and shelter." ~ Emmylou Harris (Twang! The Ultimate Book of Country Music Quotations)
"Country music is the music that looks at real life with an honest eye." ~ Bill Ivey (Twang! The Ultimate Book of Country Music Quotations)
"Country music is simply three chords and the truth. ~ Hal Ketchum (Twang! The Ultimate Book of Country Music Quotations)
"Country music has always been about real life." ~ Patty Loveless (Twang! The Ultimate Book of Country Music Quotations)
"My name may be in big lights, but it's still spelled country." ~ Loretta Lynn (Twang! The Ultimate Book of Country Music Quotations)
"I think anybody should be able to make any kind of music they want to make--it's a free country. But if you're going to label it country, it better be that somehow. And you know and I know when something's not." ~ Brad Paisley
"If you talk about country, it's like saying bad things about my momma. Them's fightin' words." ~ Dolly Parton (Twang! The Ultimate Book of Country Music Quotations)
"Country music speaks emotional truth....Country is soul for white people, and people always return to soul music, because that's where the feeling is." ~ Paul Shaffer (Twang! The Ultimate Book of Country Music Quotations)
"The truth of country music, the real stuff, will prevail...generation after generation." ~ Marty Stuart
"Twang is good, and so is treble." ~ Eddie Stubbs
"'Twang' is real simple. 'Twang' is a square-dance caller. 'Twang' is Dwight Yoakam on a jukebox in a pool hall. 'Twang' is Roy Acuff singing 'The Great Speckled Bird." So simple that even the smartest person in the world can understand it." ~ Pam Tillis (Twang! The Ultimate Book of Country Music Quotations)

"I think [country music today] is a little off its work. I'd like to see it go back to a little bit more traditional stuff. That's my favorite stuff. I'd love to see it have more soul." ~ Gary Allan
"Today the record companies tell the artists who they are instead of the artists telling the record companies who they are. When I was starting out, if you didn't have your own style, forget it. Today, it's just the opposite." ~ Bill Anderson
"I hate to see country music going uptown because it's the wrong uptown. We're about to lose our identity and get all mixed up with other music...music dies when it becomes a parody of itself." ~ Chet Atkins (Twang! The Ultimate Book of Country Music Quotations)
"These days, I have to start closing the door on what I'm listening to. These days, country radio isn't quite what it was when I was young. So the way I want to keep my own style in mind is to reach back to the traditionalists." ~ David Ball
"It just don't seem like it's the music that matters anymore. It seems like it's everything but the music that matters. A lot of people go out and buy tickets just because somebody looks good in a pair of Wranglers®--they'll buy tickets just to see how he dances or see how he shakes his hips." ~ Mark Chesnutt (Twang! The Ultimate Book of Country Music Quotations)
"It seems like music is...about television. Used to be music was about music. Now, all you hear is a soundtrack of a video. The mood of the record used to carry the whole weight of the performance." ~ Merle Haggard (Twang! The Ultimate Book of Country Music Quotations)
"['Country' music] has too much of a formula; it's too controlled. Some of these boys now are great little singers, but there's also some of the luckiest people I ever met in the business right now. Like Jessi [Colter, Waylon's wife] says, they've let a bunch of mules in with the thoroughbreds." ~ Waylon Jennings
"[Today's country music is] all running together. It's all vanilla as far as I'm concerned." ~ Waylon Jennings (Twang! The Ultimate Book of Country Music Quotations)
"You turn on CMT, and everybody looks the same and sounds the same. The music's become like wallpaper; the individuality seems to have disappeared." ~ Ken Levitan (Twang! The Ultimate Book of Country Music Quotations)
"It was frustrating when we first got to Nashville in the early '90's. There were all these great players around, and they weren't into traditional country. They were trying to write songs for what was hot at the time, which was really '70's rock." ~ Smilin' Jay McDowell, formerly of BR549
"Mix country and rock and you have crock." ~ Roger Miller
"I'll be honest with you on this, and you can quote me. It's sickening. That's right, it's sickening. [Country music] is not an art of the heart anymore. Now there are a few acts who are really talented and their hearts are in the right place and they want to record music that's real country. And I'm happy for them. Then there are those newcomers who do not have talent or even a background singing country music, and it's sickening to me to watch the way this business attempts to sell the music recorded by these untalented newcomers." ~ Lorrie Morgan
"I'm just kind of hoping things really get back to country because there's so many of us who want to get back to singing the real traditional country music and radio won't let them." ~ Lorrie Morgan
"The fact that they can smooth out singers that sing flat and sharp with a machine is kinda strange, but they can't do that in the live performance. ~ Ray Price
"I can take country radio in 15-minute doses and then I get heartbroken. I know how great country music is." ~ Marty Stuart

"When we lose our country music tradition, which is us old dinosaurs, then we've lost a lot." ~ Johnny Cash

"The good news is I still believe there's room for hardcore honky tonk. The fans let me know it every night; they just can't get it a lot of places, and they're starved for it, so I'd like to fill that void." ~ Gary Allan
"The first single got off to a great start, and then people were like, 'I don't know about this; it's a little too country.' I'm trying to make sense of that. Can you imagine telling the Rolling Stones, 'Don't play that--it rocks too hard'?" ~ Vince Gill
"I bring out the banjo to scare people. Folks think your IQ drops when they see you with a banjo." ~ Vince Gill
"I'm not going to leave country radio. I will never record music that could be played on a pop station. There will be so much fiddle and steel that pop stations won't be able to justify playing my music." ~ Brad Paisley
"How long can we make commerce and not art?" ~ Brad Paisley