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I’d love to claim the title of ‘songwriter’ or ‘intellectual,’ but the truth is that anything that I ever learned how to do in conjunction with music was purely so that I would have a platform to sing from.

Brandi Carlile

I’d love to claim the title of ‘songwriter’ or ‘intellectual,’ but the truth is that anything that I ever learned how to do in conjunction with music was purely so that I would have a platform to sing from.
BRANDI CARLILE

Intellectual Titles Truth
My advice to new artists is to embrace a broader concept of timelessness than vintage or retro.
BRANDI CARLILE

Advice Artist Vintage
Privilege and complacency paralyze me with fear sometimes.
BRANDI CARLILE

Complacency Privilege Sometimes
I feel like a lot of the singer-songwriters in my genre and in my generation have gotten more and more snooty about covering other people’s songs. They believe that creativity is the intersect of expression.
BRANDI CARLILE

Believe Creativity Song
I’m not so arrogant to consider mine the only legitimate art form. I can’t in one breath make a fuss about someone compartmentalizing music into genre and then in the next accuse advertising and short film of not being art.
BRANDI CARLILE

Arrogant Art Compartmentalizing Music Next
I’m not sure I’ll ever be famous by anyone’s definition. I can only hope to be allowed by the audience to continue my life’s work.
BRANDI CARLILE

Audience Definitions Sure
I have vocal trouble from time to time associated with sleep or wine! Or from sleeping in a bunk the size of a coffin and breathing in bus air conditioning all day.
BRANDI CARLILE

Air Sleep Wine
There is a creator and a redeemer, and the purpose of it all is love.
BRANDI CARLILE

Creator Purpose Redeemer
Coffee, whiskey, and fishing poles. That’s really all you need in life.
BRANDI CARLILE

Coffee Fishing Needs
All of these lines across my face, tell you the story of who I am. So many stories of where I’ve been and how I got to where I am.
BRANDI CARLILE

Across Lines Stories
My mother’s a singer and my mother’s father is a singer, and everyone on both sides are all country-western bluegrass musicians.
BRANDI CARLILE

Country Father Mother
If I learned to play guitar it was so that I would have something to sing to, if I learned to write a song it was so that I would have something to sing. So the gut feeling you’re talking about comes from singing and communicating the lyrics and what it is that we feel.
BRANDI CARLILE

Guitar Song Writing
There are still civil rights issues. There are still people who can’t be visited by their spouse in the hospital because they’re gay. These are humanitarian issues. At the end of the day, all you want is for people to be happy in the pursuit of life, love and liberty.
BRANDI CARLILE

Gay Issues Life Love
You can’t change people, but most importantly, unless you’re their momma, you don’t even know what’s best for them.
BRANDI CARLILE

Change Momma People
I tend to feel really protective of songs, and if they aren’t sitting well in a record, I’ll pull them tight to my chest until I feel it’s a better time.
BRANDI CARLILE

Records Sitting Song
The purpose of it all is love.
BRANDI CARLILE

Love People Purpose
Bear the burdens of others, but don’t put them in your pocket too.
BRANDI CARLILE

Bears Burden Pockets
Every city has a town outside with a lake. I pull out my fishing pole and fish. I’ve been doing that for a long time.
BRANDI CARLILE

Cities Fishing Lakes
So much of the way a singer physically damages their voice could be caused by stress or nerves. I would never be so brazen as to assume that it’s the only problem but there’s got to be a reason that a martial artist can harness enough peace to smash his head through a cinder block without leaving a scratch.
BRANDI CARLILE

Artist Block Stress
I feel like the kindest thing that I do to my voice is sing.
BRANDI CARLILE

Feels Sing Voice
The oppression of women is the single most corrosive and urgent problem of our time.
BRANDI CARLILE

Oppression Problem Time
Writing is sort of putting a puzzle together halfway. Then, performing it has always been the completion of it. Once that happens, I’m feeling verbally communal with other people. It’s out there and I feel so much better about it.
BRANDI CARLILE

Communal Feelings Happen People Writing
There’s a lot of really inspiring music coming around the bend – we tend to believe that to sound classic or timeless is to sound vintage or retro. It’s a little bit dangerous, because you’ll really miss a chance to make your mark as a generation.
BRANDI CARLILE

Believe Vintage Writing
Wherever is your heart I call home.
BRANDI CARLILE

Call Heart Home
Privilege and complacency paralyze me with fear sometimes. But the less vulnerable we are because of privilege, the country we’re born in, or the security we enjoy, the more vulnerable our souls are to apathy.
BRANDI CARLILE

Complacency Country Soul
But now, with the last two years of touring and being on the road, I’ve learned that a live show should never sound like a record; a record should sound like a live show.
BRANDI CARLILE

Sound Two Years
Colorado is an oasis, an otherworldly mountain place. I’ve played so many shows in Colorado that I think I’m the Colorado house band.
BRANDI CARLILE

House Oasis Thinking

I’d love to claim the title of ‘songwriter’ or ‘intellectual,’ but the truth is that anything that I ever learned how to do in conjunction with music was purely so that I would have a platform to sing from.

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I’d love to claim the title of ‘songwriter’ or ‘intellectual,’ but the truth is that anything that I ever learned how to do in conjunction with music was purely so that I would have a platform to sing from.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Brandi Carlile Quotes