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" When I became sober, I was 27 and struggling as an artist. "
Shawn Colvin
Became
Sober
Struggling
Related Quotes:
" One of the dumber things my manager said was, Stick to the melody. But I can't. "
Shawn Colvin
Stick
Manager
Melody
" I think the thing that has made it possible for me to write personal songs and sing them year after year is the sensibility for good writing. Just opening your veins all over the paper is not necessarily going to be interesting. I wanted to speak to people. "
Shawn Colvin
Writing
Think
Speak
" With my songs, the question is always, 'Can you pull it off live, alone on just an acoustic guitar?' That's the litmus test. If I can, then it's a song I ought to record. If I can't, it's probably not good enough. "
Shawn Colvin
Good
Live
Not Good Enough
" I don't support Trump. We'll put that right out there. "
Shawn Colvin
Trump
Support
Right
" I've had a prolonged adolescence, like a lot of my generation. "
Shawn Colvin
Generation
Adolescence
Lot
" When I'm writing with John Leventhal, the music that he's written mostly comes first. And I'll write the lyrics and the melody. "
Shawn Colvin
Writing
Music
Lyrics
" When you get into recovery, you have to relearn a lot of perceptions, attitudes, and self-awareness if you want to stay clean. You really do change. "
Shawn Colvin
Stay
Want
Change
" I can perform easily; I don't mind getting up in front of people at all. I've always sung and felt confident about that, and guitar playing isn't a stretch, but songwriting is. We all have our challenges in what we do, and that's mine. "
Shawn Colvin
Mind
Challenges
Guitar
" I always wanted to be a songwriter, and it took a while. "
Shawn Colvin
While
Songwriter
Always
" I get a lot of joy out of covering other people's songs, and, at my best, I think I bring something a little new to a lot of them. "
Shawn Colvin
People
Best
Bring
" As a kid, I was depressed and riddled with anxiety. The bottom dropped out when I was 19. "
Shawn Colvin
Out
Kid
Depressed
" I'm not gay - everybody thinks I am - but I dig 'The L Word.' "
Shawn Colvin
Thinks
Dig
Word
" I'd like to think I've overcome. I was not a person that was supposed to survive New York City, that was ever going to write my own songs or have children. "
Shawn Colvin
My Own
Children
City
" I would say my whole first record, 'Steady On,' had a lot to do with healing. "
Shawn Colvin
First
Steady
Whole
" When you know part of the industry thinks of you as a one-hit wonder, that's painful. "
Shawn Colvin
Industry
You
Wonder
" I wasn't creative when I was depressed. When my depression got treated, I was creative again. "
Shawn Colvin
Depression
Got
Again
" I'm not a go-out-with-a-band artist. I'm an intimate, storytelling folk artist. It guides the writing and makes for a concert that I'm proud of. "
Shawn Colvin
Artist
Writing
Storytelling
" Put me in a room with a songwriter, and I just clam up. I get shy. "
Shawn Colvin
Just
Me
Up
" Cynicism is tough. A cynic's point of view is really pitiful. I derive pleasure out of a lot of things in life. As long as I'm fairly healthy, it's hard to stay dismal for very long. "
Shawn Colvin
Tough
View
Hard
" When I made 'A Few Small Repairs' and it did well, I followed that up with having a baby, and that was not received well at my record company. I was written off, and that had a bearing on my career. "
Shawn Colvin
Baby
Career
Well
" There were bars that began to have acoustic musicians play, it was 1970: Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, America, The Eagles, all that kind of stuff was popular. It was very easy for me to just kind of move in and be noticed. "
Shawn Colvin
Play
America
Easy
" For a long time, I felt like I failed myself, my career, and my record company. "
Shawn Colvin
Myself
Time
Career
" It was a beauty contest in the '80s. If they played two women back to back on the radio, it was almost a scandal. "
Shawn Colvin
Radio
Almost
Back
" I consider myself as a singer first, but something that really helped me come into my own is that there's not a separation between me singing and me playing the guitar. The two fed off the other. "
Shawn Colvin
Guitar
Singing
Separation
" My music is basically perceived as folk or softer rock. "
Shawn Colvin
Folk
Softer
Rock
" I'm a touring musician. I don't watch the charts. I had the kind of success I'd hoped for. I won Grammys for a folk record, and that was magic. "
Shawn Colvin
Folk
Kind
Magic
" I was a cover artist for years. I didn't start writing songs until I was in my mid-twenties. I wrote them with John Leventhal, and they were pretty bad. I was in my late twenties when I wrote the first song with him that made any sense to me about what I was rooted in and what spoke for me as an artist. That was 'Diamond in the Rough.' "
Shawn Colvin
Start
Late
Artist
" I have yet to have a successful outcome of sitting in a room with someone and trying to write a song. The way that I generally co-write is that someone else writes the music or part of the music. "
Shawn Colvin
Music
Successful
Trying
" Change doesn't happen often, but to a certain extent in some way, I think when you get into recovery and you stay there, you change. "
Shawn Colvin
Stay
Change
Recovery