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[Taylor Swift brings in] a huge group of people who are gay, and loud and proud about it, and that hasn’t been catered to yet. Not that I just want to cater to it. I just want to show them some love. Why can’t we talk about you? You’re a real person, you’re in a real relationship, and I’m tired of people acting like it’s not, just because of their religious beliefs. It’s not fair. ●
- – Kacey Musgraves.

Recognizing when you are channeling something great is an important part of the craft. It’s not always the writing itself that’s most important. Sometimes it’s something more subtle-the recognition of the wheat from the chaff. The skill of hearing which pieces have something poignant, meaningful and lasting takes time to develop. This is why sometimes you hear talented writers who don’t seem to know which songs are the keepers. It’s an actual skill that develops and it’s a skill that some people don’t nurture or even recognize. ●
- – Rod Picott on songwriting.

We try to dress [up] for the fans, to let ‘em know that we appreciate ‘em being there. … Also, through the years I’ve been playin’, [I’ve learned] if you’re not on top of your game, if you look the part, that helps a whole lot. (laughs) ●
- – Junior Sisk on dressing for success.

I love Lee Ann Womack and John Prine. That’s kind of my ideal cross point. If I can sing it like Lee Ann would and say it like John would, then I feel like I’ve gotten somewhere. ●
- – Kacey Musgraves again. Her new album is Same Trailer Different Park.

These days, Clawson’s writing less rural stuff and more of what he calls “frat boy-party-country” stuff. But country trends come and go, and Clawson writes about what he knows. “For the McGraw song, it was just us thinking back to high school or college, about picking a girl up and going to a party and getting to make out with her,” he laughed. ●
- – Songwriter Rodney Clawson, responsible for recent hits including “Feel Like a Rock Star,” “Take a Little Ride,” “Sure Be Cool If You Did,” and “Get Your Shine On.”

[Matt] Warren recalled he was working as a waiter at Chili’s when a customer asked if he’d be interested in earning $100 a day plus a $25-a-day food allowance and the chance to travel all over the country selling merchandise for a country artist. Warren said he would.
He had the choice of taking the job with Rascal Flatts or with [Gary] Allan.
“I didn’t listen to country music then,” he explained. “So I said I’ll go with the guy with one name.” ●
- – Matt Warren’s first #1 as a songwriter, the Gary Allan co-write “Every Storm (Runs Out of Rain),” started from a chance encounter at Chili’s.

He amazes me every day. He plays me new songs he’s written. I, for sure, wasn’t writing those caliber songs at 21, and I’m not writing a lot of them now at 41. He had four cuts his very first year after he got signed, with Jason Aldean, Lee Brice, Scotty McCreery and Joe Nichols. Then he got his record deal on Valory. He’s just a good boy and he’s just got that ‘it’ thing. ●
- – Rhett Akins on son Thomas Rhett.

TGIF! Meet my friend Teensi. We live for Friday afternoons, because we meet at Red Robin for lunch. I had a salad today, I swear! (OK, nevermind what I ate).
My Friday ritual got me to thinking, what do you do on Fridays? Do you enjoy a half-day? Do you have the day off? Do you get to wear jeans to work? ●
- – Taste of Country is trying to put a face on its soulless, hit-driven web presence by having one of its radio personalities do chatty, pointless personal posts. Irksome.

Is it weird that I always love to wear shorts, T-shirts and flip flops anywhere I go, no matter what temperature it is outside!? Is it because I’m bear-like? ●
- – Uh, okay. Taste of Country’s Jeremy Robinson.

Octomom, 37, filmed the video last fall during a break from her 30-day stint in rehab for her Xanax dependency. At the time, Radar Online reported that she was “extremely annoying” to everyone on the set and “her crazy laugh scared all the geese off.” ●
- – Cledus T. Judd booked the Octomom for a “Pontoon” parody music video. God help us.

I know it sounds pretty out there, but it’d be pretty awesome to collaborate with Wiz Khalifa or Lil Wayne. We just recently did a collaboration with Nelly, which was pretty neat because we’re both big fans of Nelly. ●
- – Florida Georgia Line’s Tyler Hubbard. It’d be pretty neat if he went away.

Before he reached Nashville, he made his first pitch — literally — through an open window of Linda Ronstadt’s tour bus in 1976 when it was parked at Greensboro Coliseum. [He] doesn’t know if Ronstadt ever heard his tape, but it was one of his first “stunts” to get his music heard. ●
- – From a Winston-Salem Journal article on “Fool Hearted Memory” songwriter Byron Hill.

I don’t know if we get wiser, but we have more experiences under our belt, and I think maybe your sense of humor gets more intense as you look at the world from a little bit of a distance. I’m just too busy living every day to really spend a lot of time thinking, “Am I old?” I’m this age. I am in this moment and in this life. One of the great things about dogs, they are totally in the moment, and I think that’s a very difficult thing for humans to do. We’re cursed with self-consciousness. We can’t get away from ourselves. You asked me if I have any regrets? I regret that it took me all that time to figure out I could have a dog on the road. ●
- – Emmylou Harris, brilliantly, on aging. From an especially worthwhile interview by Joan Anderman for the New York Times.

Excuse me? A mainstream-sounding country song with a chorus suggesting I roll up a joint and kiss people of my same gender? As a country-music fan, I must admit this is a fresher vision of personal freedom than beer, beach vacations and firearms. ●
- – NPR’s Will Hermes on Kacey Musgraves’ “Follow Your Arrow.”

The more ups the better. For this next album we’re really focusing on getting radio play, and uptempo stuff seems to do a little better in that environment. In the last year I’ve [had] lots of success whether it was sales or awards shows, but I’ve never had that radio hit. And that’s my focus now. ●
- – Heads up: Scotty McCreery will be getting even boring-er.

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We’re in an industry where it’s 999 nos for every one yes. They say you have to develop a thick skin. We all develop ways to pretend we have a thick skin. I mean, I’ve been doing this for longer than 30 years. I sent a batch of songs the other day to the powers-that-be, and I didn’t get a response. I’m heartbroken. It’s like, “I guess I suck.” You never develop a thick skin. ●
- – Gary Burr, hit songwriter and one-third of the Blue Sky Riders.

Maybe they can just see in my eyes and voice that there’s an oldness in me, and a passion for music that other people with that same passion can see. ●
- – Ashley Monroe on her habit of attracting heavyweight collaborators like Vince Gill and Guy Clark.

A lot of times it goes back to who you are and what you did first. You can do that as an adult. You can do all those different things and kind of morph your musicianship, but there really is an element of ‘who are you?’ and ‘where did you come from?’ And what meant everything to you musically when you were 15 years old?
It’s never going to go away and that’s at the core of your musical self. Even as a professional musician, you can never re-create that feeling you get as a teenager that captivates you and sets you on the path. Even if you’re not a musician, if music just meant that much to you as a listener, if it ever grabs you in those formative years, what you are during that time will always be there. It’s a well that you can always return to. ●
- – Grascals banjoist Kristin Scott Benson on the persistence of formative influences.

I think your shelf life as a songwriter is longer in Nashville than it is in L.A. A lot of the top songwriters right now are mid-50s and up, and I like that, being 44 years old. I was like, ‘How long am I going to want to be playing the pop game in L.A?’ I don’t want to be 50 and wearing increasingly silly tennis shoes, and saying, ‘Dude, dope beat.’ ●
- – Better Than Ezra’s Kevin Griffin on finding a home in Nashville. He co-wrote “Stuck Like Glue.”

But I always try to put a sunny outlook on things even when it seems impossible. That’s the basis of a lot of blues songs. You’re purging your soul, but you’re hoping for better times. People can relate to that. The world isn’t always win-win, falling in love and having a big family. Sometimes you go through several pairs of shoes before you find the right one that fits you. ●
- – Wayne Hancock to CMT’s Chris Parton.

I’ve never had a wreck but I kind of bump into things a lot. My husband has had backup cameras installed on my car. I had to get him to replace the bumper because I backed into a telephone pole. ●
- – Maybe Carrie Underwood should let Jesus drive.

The idea of putting on all those sequins and walking out onstage and rebooting my singing voice—that seemed exciting. There’s something really great, once you hit 40, about taking on something that genuinely, fully flexes new and different muscles. Because, man, is it scary. It’s more than twice as scary as when you do it when you’re 20. ●
- – Connie Britton on the challenge of portraying Rayna Jaymes on “Nashville.”

When she comes back I never know what’s going to be in the car. I can tell you — I’m not kidding when I say 20, maybe 25, maybe 30 times — she’s come home from the grocery store and there will either be a dog or a cat in her car. And they’re not always puppies, it might be a big a** pitbull in there and I’m going, ‘What the hell, you can’t just …’ ‘Well, it licked me so it was nice,’ and I say ‘Yeah, but you don’t know if it has rabies or what.’ ●
- – Blake Shelton on Miranda’s habit of bringing home strays.

I think it’s crazy the way people try to label our genre. My Dad always said, ‘There’s an ass for every seat.’ That just means there’s something out there for everybody. Not everyone goes into the store and buys vanilla ice cream. Some people like chocolate chip, some people like chocolate mint, some people like Rocky Road. It’s still ice cream though. You can find what you want. I think people start labeling what is and what isn’t country, or what is and what isn’t rock and roll, or why this is a sell-out sort of a town, or whatever. Everybody has their own path. ●
- – Jake Owen. On the other hand, it’d be pretty disappointing if your favorite ice cream shop suddenly refused to serve anything but spaghetti, all the while continuing to tout their ice cream-making bona fides.

I did indeed, and I’d like to think it was the Fonz who wrote me back months later. I’m sure it was an underling at ABC. But it was in the heyday of “Happy Days.” Somebody at my school bought this book that had the addresses of all the celebrities. I did get a response and I’ll leave it at that. But I will tell you that everything I’ve done since then has been in response to that letter and what that letter told me to do. ●
- – Bruce Robison on writing a fan letter to Henry Winkler.

This apparent puritanism, not shared by the rootsier country styles grouped under the alt heading of Americana, is perhaps better understood as a highly developed sense of genre formula. Musgraves likes to point out that in real small towns people do in fact get pierced, curse, surf Internet porn and indulge in a wide variety of stimulants and sexual relations their pastors might not approve of. The country-music establishment knows this, of course, but it has invested heavily in the notion that its loyal listeners would rather spend time in a richly idealized alternate universe where such things are referenced only obliquely, if at all, and many of the cultural battles of the 1960s and after have been magically unfought. To judge by the videos the industry cranks out, misbehavior in this genre utopia doesn’t get much racier than beer-and-bonfire jams attended by models decked out in designer versions of working-class attire. ●
- – From an excellent New York Times Magazine feature on Kacey Musgraves by Carlo Rotella.

She’s like, ‘My friends are gonna hear you say these things,’ and I’m like, ‘Nana, it’s my career to mess up.’ And not to be rude, but she’s not my demographic. ●
- – Musgraves on her grandma’s reaction to “It Is What It Is,” known colloquially as “the slut song.” From the New York Times feature.

What’s so great about Buddy is his taste. He’s not a pushy guy. But he sets the standard in the studio. We were going for feel. Nothing else mattered. Buddy gets that almost instantly and everybody goes along with it. You don’t get that from anybody except Buddy. ●
- – Bobby Bare is a big Buddy Miller fan. (Shakespeare, incidentally? Still a big George Jones fan.)

Rick [Rubin] in his current incarnation is such a minimalist – it’s what we love about him. But we also knew that to accommodate all of the goals that we had, the best producer was Dann Huff. ●
- – Kimberly Perry on thinking better of the original plan to have Rick Rubin produce The Band Perry’s sophomore album.

Who would say no to that? If the reasons were the same as they were this time, I think we’d do it. But if this record is a success, as it seems to be, it could be that we’d be too self-conscious because of that. I’ve always said self-consciousness is the enemy of great art. If you somehow come into it with no designs and nothing to prove — hat in hand and heart wide open — you’ve got a good chance of making something worthwhile. So we’ll see. ●
- – Rodney Crowell on the possibility of a sequel to Old Yellow Moon, his duet album with Emmylou Harris.

Q: What direction would you like to see music go in?
A: Better lyrics. I don’t care if it’s punk rock or folk music or traditional country, as long as it’s good lyrics. ●
- – Guy Clark.