Cass McCombs Quotes

It's hard to make out the difference between insults and bad advice.

I think I prefer singing in falsetto. I like the way it sounds. It doesn't sound like my natural voice. It sounds like a character.

Try to keep your mind. Try not to eat bad, try not to wake up with too bad of a hangover.

If you've ever sang in falsetto, you know that your throat is between your voice and your mouth. In a standard voice, you sing from your belly. And when you sing in a falsetto, you're blocking that. It gives it a filter. It gives it a character. It's less revealing.

Opinions only carry weight in the second or third person.

I project love, music and love, and I pray for peace. A good song cuts straight to the heart; sometimes it doesn't need to be too many lines - of course, I do love a good story.

That's what I mean by "Western morality," is the lack of morality. There is none. People are out for themselves, and they'll stab you in the back.

I do like the word timeless. That's a great word.

Thank god we don't know a lot about William Shakespeare or Moses or Homer or Lautréamont. These are the best guys we got, and their art is powerful because they're mysterious. Once biographical information contaminates your consciousness, it's impossible to erase it and look at someone's work the same way again.

I think a master craftsman is someone who is unpretentious. He has a physical object in front of him and, while he works with a higher aim, he doesn't let his personality get in the way of his art. It's simply about the task at hand and to make it as functional and necessary to the world as he can.

Usually there's no specific reason for loneliness - it's a broad feeling.

It's just a joy to be able to work with a lot of different musicians. When you play with great musicians, whether they're schooled or self-taught, they keep you on your toes.

I think I try to do a lot of things to weed out casual fans.

I've always thought about myself as somewhat of a folk musician. I just write words.

This is a transitory world, we're all spirits just looking for love and finding it, and holding on. Even if it's a moment it's true love, true love doesn't mean that it goes on for eternity. Eternity is a terrible concept.

I don't think I'm even a musician. I don't play a lot of instruments, not really a soloist or anything.

With death comes a choice. And death is a choice.

All these biopics and biographies and people gossiping about so-and-so's drug abuse or who's sleeping with who, it's just a bunch of nonsense.

Bringing the individual into it music only distracts from the universal and makes it trivial. And then it's easy to wash your hands of it because you might not be from their background, or you might disagree with their personal perspective. So you discount it and go back into your corner instead of coming out and engaging with everything.

Making music and art is about expressing something that's universally human, maybe even beyond human, at best. To make it about the artist and to dwell upon biographical information can only make it singular, and I am really, really disgusted by that.

Beggars can't be choosers. We don't have all the money in the world. So anyone who wants to be in the band and be broke - that's their own death wish.

I took piano lessons when I was a little kid, but even before that, you're singing in the classroom and wherever. Gosh, children are always singing. But I took music lessons, some choir and things like that at school. I learned how to play the guitar when I was about 13... ancient history.

I don't think music is my job - I don't think about it that way, because I don't really get paid. There's not paycheck at the end; it's more of a "whatever is left over" kind of situation. Also, it keeps me from thinking about my creativity as a business, which it is not. It should remain pure; that's one of the reasons I made music in the first place.

I don't like going to the studio. It just seems too cold. There's no crowd to react to, or share anything with; it's just talking into a microphone that's going into a computer.

A lot of religious texts make for good reading. That's why they hold up.

People take things a little too personal. I write these songs, and they're experiments with thoughts. That's it. I'm not a teacher.

If it's possible to have an enemy without making it personal or moral, then that's what I'm trying to do.

I've always been interested in an idea of boundless love - an impersonal, big love.

Making music and art is about expressing something that's universally human, maybe even beyond human, at best.

It's not my way to talk about my feelings. They're impudent to myself, so it wouldn't make any sense if I tried to explain them to anyone else. I've never been to therapy - not interested in it.

You can't just explain a joke. Either it isn't funny, or the person just totally missed the punchline.

When I was young, I used to go to Baha'i camp, and they taught me a lot about the equality of religions.

I'm not trying to write for the masses. I don't care.

When I'm trying to write a song for someone else, you can only see anything through your own eyes.

As it turns out, it's really expensive to make movies, much more than records.

I have been singing as long as I can remember. I used to be in choir; I used to do musical theater. I'd prefer not to sing my own songs, but there you have it.

I hate my voice. I've never been comfortable singing.

I wouldn't claim to know what another person is thinking. I can imagine it, but it's my interpretation, and I try to make that clear. It's my vision of what I think their life is. I don't think there are empirical truths in that regard.

Loneliness is the most compelling force in the universe.

Even if I'm writing music, it's with a lyric in mind, to communicate some kind of feeling.

Lyrics are my racket; music is play - the fluff stuff.

Musicians wake up and create a more loving community by creating heavier music.

I don't like the word "happy." I wouldn't want to use it that context. I enjoy writing songs, it's a really good challenge, it tickles me. It's a wonderful way to engage with your surroundings, through poetry and songs.

Music is the marriage of the feelings of the living to the wisdom of the dead.

I don't think music is my job - I don't think about it that way, because I don't really get paid. There's no paycheck at the end; it's more of a 'whatever is left over' kind of situation.

I miss working. It's real, you know? But I don't know anything but songwriting, and I don't even know that. I didn't go to school; the only thing I know how to do is this. The only thing that I know is that I know nothing.

I write for myself, and I write for my friends and people who I have a connection with. I try to give some dignity to peoples' lifestyles that tend to be ignored.

A baseball team is like a band. Because, conceptually, there are no heroes in baseball - there's just the team.

People expect not just songwriters but all personalities to pontificate about their egos.

People just wanna see someone talking about themselves constantly. I'm not interested in that.