Alan Jackson Song Quotations

A country song is a song about life.

I like to write sad songs. They're much easier to write and you get a lot more emotion into them. But people don't want to hear them as much. And radio definitely doesn't; they want that positive, uptempo thing.

He's written some great songs. I thought that "Blues Man" was a perfect song for me to do as a tribute.

I've always said that if you have songs on the radio and get played, you've got to have a tour to support that.

I've had several working-man songs that I like.

A lot of times when songwriters get together and write a song... somebody will come in with a hook and a lot of times they come out with something that sounds a little crafty.

'After 17' is a song I wrote when my first daughter went to college, so that's kind of where I'm at in that part of my life. If you listen to that song and knew anything about me, you'd say, 'Oh yeah, he wrote that about his daughter,' but I try not to write them that they are so specific that they wouldn't apply to anybody that has a child.

I could have done a hundred songs, really. It was hard to narrow them down, because I tried to pick songs for the most part that actually did have some effect on me or influenced me in the past.

I don't write all my stuff. Everybody always thinks that. But in just about every album I've ever had has been about 50-50 songs I've written or co-written and other people's songs.

I think I've always approached making albums pretty much the same way. I'm just looking for a mixture of songs and topics that aren't the same thing over and over.

Probably some of the songs I never even really listened to the lyrics. Half of them I'd hear off the radio and was probably singing the wrong words and didn't even know it.

After 17' is a song I wrote when my first daughter went to college, so that's kind of where I'm at in that part of my life. If you listen to that song and knew anything about me, you'd say, 'Oh yeah, he wrote that about his daughter,' but I try not to write them that they are so specific that they wouldn't apply to anybody that has a child.

To me, songwriting is the backbone of Nashville. Looks can go, fads can go, but a good song lasts forever.