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The Great Gatsby
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The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Sturgill Simpson Quotes

Both my grandfathers and my mother’s brother were musicians.

– Sturgill Simpson

I love tape. It’s another member of the band, the way it settles and blankets everything.

– Sturgill Simpson

I tried to make a honky-tonk country record – rough-hewn, cut fast, and all analog – like I wasn’t hearing anymore.

– Sturgill Simpson

Elvis was a way bigger influence than Waylon Jennings, but you don’t wanna tell people, ‘I never really listened to Waylon.’

– Sturgill Simpson

I worked for Union Pacific. I started out as a conductor at an intermodal switching facility outside of Salt Lake City. We’d pull in trains from all over the country, break them apart, consolidate the freight, and build other trains. It was great until I screwed up and took a management position. Then it became no fun very quickly.

– Sturgill Simpson

I used to play a lot of electric guitar. I don’t really consider myself a guitar player anymore. Then I got really into how the pickups work. And winding and de-winding Telecaster pickups. And then building Telecasters. And I became more fascinated with making them than I was with actually playing them. So it’s a slippery slope.

– Sturgill Simpson

The art is what can’t be put on a timeline. You can’t say, ‘Well, I’m going to make a record in May because that’s when the producer has a window.’ So just recording and getting things out is paramount for me.

– Sturgill Simpson

I didn’t graduate from college, so I might as well be on Atlantic Records, right?

– Sturgill Simpson

Anything that I’m naturally curious about, I get really into. Maybe it’s O.C.D. I get really consumed by something until I absorb it, then I’m done with it.

– Sturgill Simpson

You can embrace nostalgia and history and tradition at the same time – it has to progress or it can’t survive.

– Sturgill Simpson

Willie Nelson, Marty Robbins, Merle Haggard and Keith Whitley – guys like that were huge influences.

– Sturgill Simpson

I thought it was hilarious when ‘Brace for Impact’ was released, and people said I had abandoned country, even though the song is dripping with pedal steel. If anything, that tells me I’m making progress.

– Sturgill Simpson

I’m grateful to all the non-risk-takers.

– Sturgill Simpson

I knew I wanted to make a concept record in song-cycle form, like my favorite Marvin Gaye records where everything just continuously flows.

– Sturgill Simpson

I’ve been reading about the idea of cyclical lives – it matches up to the idea of string theory and a multiverse. So I wanted to write a record about that instead of another song about broken hearts and drinking.

– Sturgill Simpson

It’s a long road, so we are just trying to stay focused and grounded and keep moving forward. I’ll take it, though.

– Sturgill Simpson

Back home, playing music is never anything you imagine you can do for a living. It’s what you do after work.

– Sturgill Simpson

You spend all this time reading or thinking or praying or searching or exploring.Maybe there’s an Omega Point of love.

– Sturgill Simpson

Country music especially can get very formulaic – you know, you have to have your verses and a bridge and a chorus, and a lot of the songs are written as just plain and simple poetry on the road.

– Sturgill Simpson

There have been many socially conscious concept albums. I wanted to make a ‘social consciousness’ concept album disguised as a country record.

– Sturgill Simpson

I’d love to make short film videos pushing the conventional standards of what a country music video can be.

– Sturgill Simpson

Some people will say, and have said, that I’m trying to run from country, but I’m never going to make anything other than a country record.

– Sturgill Simpson

I could go back to the railroad. I liked that job.

– Sturgill Simpson

I had a great job with the railroad, a good salary.

– Sturgill Simpson

You make a little noise, and you can sell out your local hometown club. But then you drive an hour down the road to the next town, and there might be eight people there.

– Sturgill Simpson

I walked in, looked around, and the navy recruiter was a really hot brunette, so I signed up with her.

– Sturgill Simpson

I’m interested in exploring various forms of newer media that might allow those who otherwise don’t listen to country to find and connect with my music.

– Sturgill Simpson

Saviours get crucified.

– Sturgill Simpson

I lived in Japan when I was younger for about two years. I spent my time equally between religiously studying Aikido in Shinjuku by day and hard partying in Shibuya and Roppongi by night.

– Sturgill Simpson

I knew I loved playing bluegrass, so I’d end up down there on Sunday nights at the bluegrass jam.

– Sturgill Simpson

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