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" I teach songwriting a lot, and I always tell my students, 'You gotta write the little songs sometimes to get to the next big song in the chute.' You gotta write 'em to get to it. You never know what's going to be a little song or a big song. "

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" The belief when your mother gives you away is that there's something deeply wrong. Mothers don't give babies away. There's something wrong with me, something unlovable, something seriously flawed in me. It's a fundamental thing; it's precognitive. You feel it rather than think it. How could you not? "

Mary Gauthier

Mother

You

Think

" War is hell. Sending young people to conflicts that are unwinnable and unresolvable - it puts them in a position where they're going to suffer. And yet their experience is that they're proud of their service, and they should be. Service freely rendered is a noble thing. "

" There's such a thing as a tribe - and family of choice. "

" Once I got my life sorted and started to get healthy, then I was able to focus on writing. "

" I came to music and knowing a little bit about life, and I came to music knowing a lot about business - and that's a real advantage. By the time I came to music, I had purchased real estate, opened restaurants, and been in the business world, so the music business didn't blindside me. "

" By the time I got to songwriting, I had been faced with a lot of troubles as a result of my own collective of trauma. I was someone who instinctively figured out that writing songs about the struggle helps you with the struggle. "

" Songs, especially lyrics, have always been really important to me. "

" In my early years, I couldn't find a community. I couldn't find anybody like me. I felt so isolated. There was nothing but shame and loneliness. "

Mary Gauthier

Early

Loneliness

" I don't know who my dad is. "

" If somebody in a family is in service, the whole family is in service. I didn't know that. I didn't know our veterans were being deployed seven, eight, nine, 10 times. It's inhumane. "

" A lot of songwriters have written about soldiers and war, but very few have written with them. "

" We can't see ourselves very clearly. This I learned as a songwriter. I'm forever trying to figure out what my own truth is. "

" I have such a good life. It's something I couldn't have imagined in my wildest dreams. "

" Art, when done well, creates empathy. "

" I think having near-death experiences, they sure made me free. "

" I'm a big fan of Lou Reed, and I do a lot of talking through songs. It's more effective with my vocal limitations and also more powerful to slightly sing sometimes. It depends on the emotion, but I'm never going to try to compete with great singers. "

" I'm from New Orleans, and I have a French last name - although I have no real relationship with my last name because it's not my name. I don't know my name. "

" I would make a terrible soldier, because I don't follow orders. "

Mary Gauthier

Because

Terrible

" Songs have been my greatest teachers and continue to be really important in my life. "

" A lot of time, if you spend too much time in Nashville, songwriters get caught up in charts and numbers and the music business politics. "

Mary Gauthier

You

Time

" I think Bob Dylan showed us that songs can rise to the level of literature, and he proved it over and over again. That's why they keep trying to get him a Nobel Prize for literature: because there is no Nobel Prize for songwriting. "

" I've learned our soldiers are so much like everybody else. They're just put into an extreme situation. "

Mary Gauthier

Just

Much

" There's an ocean of misunderstanding. It's called the civilian-military divide. I had a lot to learn about our military - who they are, what burdens they carry. "

" Fundamentally, our job as songwriters is to sit down and listen. "

" A song is an emotional lightning bolt - a good one, anyway. "

" I guess I find it easier to talk when I have a guitar in front of me. "

Mary Gauthier

Guitar

Find

" When I finally got sober, I moved towards what I might have been if I hadn't been destroying myself when I was young. "

" I think we're very much in a mystery here in this life and that artists try to pierce the mystery with their art. "

" There's a lot of vulnerability in songs - I'm not talking about pop songs - from people that are in the art of songwriting more than the commercial enterprise of it. "

Mary Gauthier

Art

People

" When I first got sober, I hadn't read anything for six or seven years. I didn't have even that much focus. "