Jason Molina Quotations

From a guy that still doesn't have his foot in the world, I feel pretty grounded as long as I have music.

I always lived by railroads, and I would find places to just look at the horizon, and I always expected there was something somewhere else. And sometimes I think that's more a metaphysical somewhere else rather than just to get out of the town.

I write about eight hours a day, and I throw away most of what I write.

When I write a record, I don't even touch a computer. I don't even bring my cell phone.

We don't try to make a specifically commercially approachable kind of record. We're just trying to make the music we normally play and these are the audio choices that we have made for how to present the record.

I try to do collaborations with as many artists as possible. It's really excellent and fun to actually work with another songwriter.

I try to be of the world, rather than just observing it.

These people who have everything at their disposal as far as cash and connections, I think they just get so mired in the business side of things that they don't just sit at home and record records. Anybody can do that.

As a city, Chicago really affords me an environment that I am really happy creating in. It's an easy place to live in a lot of ways; it's a great community to be making music in.

At times, I will get in the studio and force myself to just write an entire front-to-back record, and 'Let Me Go' is one of these.

I'm noticing again and again and again, they're saying this is a good living room record. It's not a good radio record.

I like people that can strap on a guitar and don't sweat the fact that you have to come up with a song in an hour. I want to work with someone who won't feel like they have to play along with Jason Molina. I want them to just have the confidence.

In songwriting, I needed language. And I always believed in singing about what I do.

I really started hearing a sound for the band for the first time instead of just hearing a sound for the record. So I started trying to put together a specific band that could record with me and also tour with me. And I felt that it was enough of a change in approach to warrant to a change of the name.

I really enjoy recording right after a tour. We're tired, but the songs are really lived in by then.

My heart is sick / and I didn’t make it out.

There's so much more subtlety to this new recording. There's a subtlety in the playing. There's also a subtlety in the way I approached the singing. The band was able to really capture the feeling of the songs and not really trade anything that we had sort of arranged for the live presentation, but the songs just aren't as loud.

Being in love means you are completely broken, then put back together. The one piece that was yours is beating in your lover's breast. She says the same thing about hers.

I love what I know about passion, I love what I know about mercy, I love what I know about patience, I love what I know about soul, and I know you.

I feel a lot of guilt about the freedom that being an artist provides. I ask myself, 'Why am I not the guy emptying the trash, why am I the guy who is watching the guy empty the trash?'

I don't listen to a lot of music; I write more music than I listen to, for sure.

I believe in doing vinyl. As long as vinyl can still be made into a high-quality standard, I'm going to still make all my records as a side A and a side B because that's how I grew up listening to music.

The consistency - either the theme from record to record, or the band, the different musicians - it really varies. So if I get criticism, I don't worry about that, because I'm still being creative.