Guitarists From The United States

"In my skeptical days, people who wanted to appear very spiritual were always telling me to forget my questions, to shove them under the rug and go on in "faith." In fact, some of my friends thought my questions were my own devices to dodge the "real issues." They thought I must be morally decadent to voice such questions. -Appalachian Melody."

"A lot of times I wonder what Adam would have written songs about. -Appalachian Melody."

"Most Christians would say that the music should in some way glorify God. Obviously, one assortment of notes on the scale can't glorify God more than another. Neither can certain assortments of words. -Appalachian Melody."

"Maybe I'm just a selfish maniac who is wasting his time trying to transfer feelings which perhaps no one cares about onto a fretboard and a piece of magnetic tape. Maybe it's the modern petroglyph, or the modern way to write on the wall of your cave: "I was here." Maybe it is a cry to God about how much I hate the bad things and how much I love the good things."

"I guess it will always be that way until the Church learns how to take lessons from culture and from history, and stops... putting labels of "spiritual" and "unspiritual" on things which God never labeled. -Appalachian Melody."

"I must at least tell somebody, even only God and myself, what I have seen and felt."

"Maybe those inclined towards the arts are so spiritually retarded to a degree that we must go through the whole process of cathartic expression just to discover how we really feel."

"Trying to avoid clichés helps life become fresh again, helps us remember what life is about in the first place. -Fingerprint."

"I don't believe God wants every Christian who plays an instrument to try and form a ministry from it. After all, you don't expect a tire salesman to form a ministry with his expertise on tread design as the basis. -Appalachian Melody."

"Artistic expression might be seen as a Darwinian protection device for the psyche of fragile individuals, for whom sensuous contact with the outside world is too much to bear, and is repressed, and must be brought up and thrust out into the open from time to time at great effort in order for them to simply survive emotionally."

"I have heard people say that reason leads to agnosticism, but I don't think that is necessarily the case. It was the other way around for me - it led to faith. -Appalachian Melody."

"When you can see through the fog for an instant, and you understand haltingly and briefly what good is, and how God is connected with that, it cannot help but put a hell of a perspective on things you perceive as problems, and help you discover multiple ways in which you have been numb. For that brief moment you feel that God's in His heaven and all's right with the world."

"Perhaps we have more in common by virtue of our common humanity than we have differences by virtue of our religions."

"But the music business is no more about truth on the outside of the Christian ghetto than it is on the inside."

"Music is a solace for me now. As I age, contrary to common sense, I am more and more drawn into it and apt to spend more of my waking and some of my sleeping hours thinking about it, or just feeling about it. It is my escape."

"Why pray to a god who would rather speak through say, a stone? Too bad that God made so many people who are interested in music and so few stones who are."

"After a ten minute prayer, the gist of which was, "Oh Lord, just sing through Mark tonight and keep him out of the picture altogether," I considered the prospect of lining up a great number of such concerts, then staying at home and sending a cardboard likeness of myself for God to sing through."

"It's terribly demeaning to write something that tells its story in its own way and be told it fails because it might scare somebody. My God, must we speak with all the candor of a wax Elvis?"

"I'm not sure what ministry really is, and that whatever it is, God seems to be kind enough to wrap it into our efforts and sometimes wise enough to bestow it in spite of them."

"We were recording a song called "I Don't Ever Want To Be Without You." The same Christian record company radio guy called me and asked me if we could change the song's title and lyrics. when I asked why, he said, "Because there are two negative words in the title-don't and without … I'd like some positive ones; can you call the song, 'I Always Want To Be With You?"'"

"I am increasingly irresponsible, it seems, in that I take on the mantle of Peter Pan and follow the second star to the right directly between a pair of speakers, or to the case that holds my mandolin."

"I told him I just want to write some more songs and put them on tape. I figure the content of the songs and how I choose to answer for myself is my business. He says he is sorry, even cut to the heart, but he cannot and will not sign me, as, alas, I cannot say the things he wanted to hear. I say I am sorry he cannot hear the things I'm trying to say."

"Life is much more of a compromise than I ever imagined."

"That's what music is about, and those are the types of experiences I value most in looking for the visceral and unidentifiable thing it is that makes music music, and not something else."

"I much prefer making music to talking about it. There's something visceral about instruments and voices that transcends words."

"Sounds are indeed like colors, and my hunger for a truer palette of colors grows day to day."

"I am apt to hire musicians sometimes because I know they will have some good jokes to tell."

"I wish sometimes that I just didn't have to think about any of this, and could drone away my life. It would be easier."

"Writing brings about a catharsis of my own terror and pity. It is something I have to do."

"Tupac is taking the message to black kids and a lot of white kids, going "This shit's happening on the streets." Well, I'm from a different part of the black community. Why is Orleans Woods in Charleston, South Carolina, less "valid" than Compton?"

"Rucker sings of loss and despair as if they've left him shell-shocked. But Hootie -- born at frat parties and still a bar band at heart -- know how to deliver beers-and-tears material, and the occasional anti-racist slam, with a smile. The same sly grin crept into songs of frustration -- country writer Radney Foster's "A Fine Line" and the Who's "I Can't Explain." But Rucker is no more Charley Pride than Bryan is Pete Townshend."

"It shouldn't be a Republican or Democratic issue whether we take care of the environment. That should be a human issue."

"My goal has not ever been to change minds, my goal is to open minds."

"I think after 9/11, when we were in our moment of greatest sadness as a nation... this small group of neo-conservatives used our pain in order to set their agenda on their course."

"A lot of times we look at the whole world and think, 'it's so daunting, how can we change the whole world?' and you don't need to do that, what you need to do is change your world a little bit, and see if you can, through example, inspire others to do the same thing."

"I've never really been into flags of any kind, cause flags can bring people together, but they always bring people together against other people, and I don't really consider myself to be a patriot in the sense that I say, 'okay, this is my nation,' I consider myself to be a child of this whole planet."

"People ask me a lot, 'what can one person do,' and I say 'I'm not really sure what one person can due except come together with other people.'"

"The human interest, and the natural interest, and the spiritual interest of this planet need to begin to take a priority over the corporate interest, the military interest, and the materialistic interests."

"Those who start wars never fight them, and those who fight wars never like them."

"Every bit of land is a holy land, and every drop of water is a holy water, and every single child is a son or a daughter of the one earth mama, and the one earth papa."

"You say you're a Christian, cause God made you, you say you're a Muslim cause God made you, you say you're a Hindu and the next man a Jew, but then we all kill each other cause God told us to? Naw!"

"I'm glad Bush is coming out so strongly against gay marriage, because I think it's time in this country for people to wake up... If your partner happens to be the same sex as you, I don't have a problem with that and I don't think anyone else should. We're not doing a service to our kids by cloistering them from reality. It's better to discuss reality."

"The harder they hit us, the louder we become, kind of like the skin on a drum."

"Don't fear the nighttime, cause the monsters know that you're divine. Don't fear the sunshine, cause everything's better in the summertime"

"Sometimes, I feel like I can do anything, and, sometimes, I'm so alive, sometimes, I feel like I could zoom across the sky and, sometimes, I wanna cry."

"We can bomb the world to pieces, but we can't bomb it into peace."

"Life is too short to make just one decision, music is too loud for just one station, love is too big for just one nation, and God is too big for just one religion!"

"The promise in her smile shames the mountains tall She can bring the sun to shining. She can tell the rain to fall. It's been a long time, Mama, since I heard you call my name, Ah, been a long time since I heard you call my name I got to see my Colorado girl again Be there tomorrow, Mama, don't you cry"

"You have to blow off your family. You have to blow off comfort. You have to blow off money.... You have to blow off your ego. You have to blow off everything except your guitar."

"The name she gave was Caroline Daughter of a miner Her ways were free It seemed to me That sunshine walked beside her"