Craig Finn Quotes

People make maps of all the places I've mentioned. I knew that those people were out there. I wanted to create something for them.

When people hit on feeling a certain melancholy or elation, it's a really exciting moment. I think making that connection is the goal, and what makes something great.

I'm able to draw outside my own personal experiences. No one wants to hear the song about what I really did today, which is go get coffee and clean my apartment.

I really like narrative songs, but I wonder if that's a thing for some people. Once they've heard the story, do they really need to hear the story again?

There are nights when I think that Sal Paradise was right / Boys and Girls in America / Have such a sad time together.

Sometimes things reveal themselves to you a little bit. I think it was Joan Didion that said, "We write to find out what we're thinking." And sometimes that happens.

Being on a microphone nightly has made me better at what I do, made me better able to sing a little bit, but also more confident at trying it.

When you get into rock 'n' roll myths, like that Rod Stewart blew his whole band and had to get his stomach pumped, it's ridiculous, but everyone's heard it.

At forty-one, now I think it would be really cool to have an A&R guy say, "You know what? I don't think you've got this album sequenced right."

My style of lyric-writing is very specific and has a lot of details, and I think people react most to that.

The idea of anyone collecting compact discs just seems bizarre to me.

The point of being in a band, for instance, isn't to get big; it's about enjoying playing shows.

As a writer, if you have something on a page, you can start moving it around and get something you like. But if you have a blank page, it's just gonna be a blank page.

An album doesn't mean as much to a lot of people now, compared to just songs.

There's a lot of ways to be honest that don't necessarily involve absolute facts being true. I think that's something I absolutely try to do.

You can think of a number of bands where the first record is by far their biggest record. And that must be hard for people to recapture. Hard for people to live with.

I think the other thing that shaped me a little bit is that I really didn't have any success in music until my early to mid-30s.

The reality is that the shows kind of disconnect from the songs a little bit. You're playing the songs, but they take on a life of their own.

I guess the drinking and the drugs are interesting to me because the way we use them and our society uses them, we kind of manufacture highs and lows.

I don't really pursue writing songs for other people. I guess one of the things I always think about is a good line in a song should be something I can hear myself saying.

If I'm stuck, I'll sit down and read. That's a big thing.

A conversation with you is a different thing than projecting to a couple hundred people. It's bigger and more animated and it's on a bigger scope, but still in the heart, it's honestly me.

There's somewhat of a real fascination with American bands and American mythology in London.

The more you release records, in some ways it takes pressure off you.

I definitely hope to continue to release records at an accelerated pace.

You can either go to the gym because you want to lose weight, or you can go to the gym because you like how it makes you feel when you're running.

You can't get every girl; you get the ones you love the best.

I would never talk to a girl in a bar, like a pick-up thing. But I could talk to anyone if they wore a t-shirt of a band I like.

If you wait four or five years between records, it better be a masterpiece, you know? And if you keep putting them out, you're saying, 'Hey, here's 10 more songs'.

Just looking into something kind of analytically can give a lot of ideas.

People think of songwriting as a very personal thing: A guy gets up there with an acoustic guitar and he sings his heart out, bares his soul.

One of the things is my process requires a lot of repetition. I can probably drive people crazy because I'm interested in playing a song twenty times in a row.

One of the things you do in a band is the more you stay together, the more you play to your strengths.

Ironically, when I was playing in my first band, I would deliberately not write down any lyrics. I have a really good memory and I would just keep them in my head.

If we enjoy what we're doing, we shouldn't really need a break.

I was really obsessed with age. I kept saying it was a record about trying to age gracefully.

One thing I have a tendency to do is not write choruses, or write choruses that have different words. The first chorus will have different words than the second chorus.

I've written a lot about drugs and alcohol. I wouldn't say it's because we've gotten bigger or anything, but I kind of feel a little bit done with it. There are other things to talk about.

I think making the songs is to put strength in the community in some way.

I can still sing most Eagles songs, even though I never bought a record and never liked the band.

My wife is very happy about me keeping all my music in my pocket.

I'm not only a songwriter but I'm a massive music fan and I love going to shows. It's different than reading a book.

In the end, when you're writing a really good song, it strikes the right tone.

I don't have a problem rhyming "bar" with "car" - I do it all the time - but sometimes it doesn't feel right.

I am a really obsessive music listener, and I would look for clues.

Some people will totally get restless, since you can make demos pretty easy. It's not unreasonable for someone to say, "All right, can you just record this and go home and work on it?"

I think when you are doing a song you're trying to give people enough details that they connect.

I think you want to write a song that's like the songs you are into.

Words and music together create powerful, powerful things.