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I get told I’m a confessional songwriter, which gets on my tits because I think of negative connotations attached to the word “confessional”. I don’t like the idea of songwriting being therapy. I don’t want to put myself so directly in the foreground.

Beth Orton

We’re all like little ants who scurry around with the materials that are at hand right now. Each generation finds new materials. Its just evolution, isn’t it?
BETH ORTON

Generation Glowing Hands
I want it to be more universal than that – like a painter doesn’t have to explain his life story away to justify his painting.
BETH ORTON

Painting Stories Want
When I was really young I used to collect frog spawn. I made a pond out of an old sink and I loved to spend hours watching the frogs grow.
BETH ORTON

Frogs Hours Ponds
From the beginning, I wanted to make dance music with a human element to it.
BETH ORTON

Elements Human Wanted
Even when I haven’t had money, I found money to travel. It’s a luxury that’s a kind of necessity, I think.
BETH ORTON

Kind Luxury Thinking
I’m not comfortable holidaying in other people’s poverty.
BETH ORTON

Comfortable People Poverty
I get a feeling, on a guitar, and I sort of mess around until something resonates with me, and then I just find that what happens is that a melody comes, and with that, words.
BETH ORTON

Feelings Guitar Melody
Heaven is what we spend our lives trying to find.
BETH ORTON

Blown Away Heaven Trying
I’d say my greatest fear is fear itself.
BETH ORTON

Good Greatest Fear Say
The way I write, words can means lots of different things.
BETH ORTON

Different Mean Writing
I don’t believe in trouble. Because I think that trouble is sometimes good, sometimes bad. I’ve been known to be called trouble, which I think is quite a compliment. But I suppose, thinking about it, that my best and worst trouble has always had something to do with a man.
BETH ORTON

Believe Men Thinking
I don’t read music; I taught myself guitar.
BETH ORTON

Guitar Read Taught
My dad got me a chemistry book one Christmas and I burnt the garden shed down. I remember there was the most beautiful smell forever after in the remains.
BETH ORTON

Beautiful Book Dad
I was scared of the Bible – it seemed whenever I read it I got bad luck. Then I befriended a couple of Jesus’s disciples and I used to show them modern life – how to run the hot and cold taps and things like that. They seemed alright but it didn’t change my feelings about the Bible jinx.
BETH ORTON

Bible Couple Jesus Running
When I first started writing, a friend said I should be careful because I’m letting people know how to reach right in and play with my workings. And they do!
BETH ORTON

People Play Writing
I just like the child’s nightmares and therapy, once an experience has found the light of day I’m no longer under its spell, I’m free to tell it. I hope in telling honestly I can in some way help other people to do so also.
BETH ORTON

Children Helping Light Others

I get told I’m a confessional songwriter, which gets on my tits because I think of negative connotations attached to the word “confessional”. I don’t like the idea of songwriting being therapy. I don’t want to put myself so directly in the foreground.

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I get told I’m a confessional songwriter, which gets on my tits because I think of negative connotations attached to the word “confessional”. I don’t like the idea of songwriting being therapy. I don’t want to put myself so directly in the foreground.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Beth Orton Quotes