Jackson Browne Quotes

My identity started developing through the songs I was writing.

I don’t have a problem baring my emotions in music. That’s one of the reasons I’m glad to have music in my life. I’m pretty resilient as far as being a human being. A lot of songs write themselves.

Each time I write, each time the authentic words break through, I am changed. The older order that I was collapses and dies. I lose control. I do not know exactly what words will appear on the page. I follow language. I follow the sound of the words, and I am surprised and transformed by what I record.

Music is like a mirror in front of you. You're exposing everything, but surely that's better than suppressing. You have to dig deep and that can be hard for anybody, no matter what profession. I feel that I need to actually push myself to the limit to feel happy with the end result.

I’m a writer, and everything I write is both a confession and a struggle to understand things about myself and this world in which I live. This is what everyone’s work should be-whether you dance or paint or sing. It is a confession, a baring of your soul, your faults, those things you simply cannot or will not understand or accept. You stumble forward, confused, and you share. If you’re lucky, you learn something.

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.

You don’t need help to write a song. You just need to get over this experience that bummed you out so bad. The relationship you were in is over, it was over a long time ago, and you need to move on.

I write songs, and I sing them. I never formulated a plan; I can't tell anyone else how to do this. But it feels right, so I just kind of enjoy it and get on with it.

I can't play anything until I find something that connects to my life, something I can carry as my secret map or code for the character.

But at this phase of my life, I want to write and not have to think about whether a song is going to be a hit. I want to explore the music that inspires me, and I don't want to ape myself.

If it has something of substance and a platform that makes sense, I can share my story. You can get a little more into my life, and I can mesh my singing with things I love to do and writing for others and telling my story in hopes of helping someone. I'm all for it.

Joni Mitchell's someone who has tried to make sense of her own world, sometimes painfully, through song.

I think songwriting was the biggest way that I found my identity.

You can be whoever you want to be when you are writing songs.

A lot of my music is inspired by personal situations in my life.

I think all of my songs are either based on personal experience or will be based on personal experience, because I do write a lot of songs prophetically.

I'm not sure if the next song I write is going to be about love or a song about a tree.

Writing songs, that's what gets me going. Not the drugs or the sex or the rock'n'roll behaviour, it's the music.

Writing, for me, means humility. It’s a process that involves fear and doubt, especially if you’re writing honestly.

I'm not here to write a song for you, I'm here to help you write a song for yourself.

I started to write songs. And I started to like what I was writing. I think it's a new way for me to express things that are closer to myself than when I play a role, because, of course, it's really not me. I'm finding a new way. I don't know what it's going to be. But I know that I will need to give it to people one day.

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?

I'm not one of these people who sits down and writes to say I'm gonna write a song about this or that, or a specific subject. The songs actually kind of write themselves.

When I write, I make discoveries about my feelings.

Your vivid, exciting companionship in the office must not be your audience, you must find your own quiet center of life, and write from that to the world.