Kelly Joe Phelps on shoes, cars, and wheelbarrows, 2001

A friend of mine who is a great songwriter studied poetry in college, and one of her teachers said when you write, you should be able to pick up the page and shake it and have all this stuff fall off of it. Things, you know, shoes, cars, wheelbarrows, windows, cigarettes, ashtrays, whatever--things should be in there. When you put those kinds of things in, it makes a better picture; there’s more stuff to grab onto. The message itself might be abstract--you may not even understand in the end what the heck the song is about, but there is a lot of stuff you have taken away and put in your pocket. Whereas with other songs, you can follow it completely, one word after the other, but by the time you get done, it’s just a piece of stale bread.

From the book The Complete Singer-Songwriter: A Troubadour's Guide to Writing, Performing, Recording, and Business

Peter Mulvey on finding your voice, 1999

When I was 19, I just wanted to be Leo Kottke. But the thing is, I don’t have either the strength or the speed and never will. And also I’m not him. There’s that glaring flaw, that gaping hole in the plan, that I am not, in fact, Leo Kottke.

I think all you do as an artist is you hear things that you think are cool, and you go out and you try to do them and you fail. And that failure produces your own art--hallelujah.

From the book The Complete Singer-Songwriter: A Troubadour's Guide to Writing, Performing, Recording, and Business

Robyn Hitchcock on John Lennon, 2004

Lennon is now my favorite rock singer of all time. He could sing those planing Beach Boys druggy ballads like "Sun King," and then he could do really harsh stuff like "Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey." He had that voice that would just connect with you. I suppose Bob Dylan’s does too--they’re both talented men with big noses who had a cruel streak but could also be very funny and very tender.

Outtake from John Lennon cover story in Acoustic Guitar magazine