Glen Hansard
The moment of drifting into thought has been so clipped by modern technology. Our lives are filled with distraction with smartphones and all the rest. People are so locked into not being present.Collection: Technology
Our imagination just needs space. It's all it needs, that moment where you just sort of stare into the distance where your brain gets to sort of somehow rise up.Collection: Imagination
The muse holds no appointments. You can never call on it. I don't understand people who get up at 9 o'clock in the morning, put on the coffee and sit down to write.Collection: Morning
And for some reason, when I'm sad, I do listen to Leonard Cohen, I do listen to Joni Mitchell. I do find myself going to the music that's actually reflecting my mood, as opposed to sticking on Motown, which might actually bring my mood up.Collection: Sad
As a busker, one thing that does not work is self-consciousness. A busker needs to be working. A busker needs to shed all ego and get down to work. Play your songs, play them well, earn your money, and don't get in people's way.
My dad was quiet, angry, shut down. So my thing is: I express everything that's there. I want to get it all out.
You know, when I was a kid waiting on the bus, I remember that was when I imagined my life. I imagined everything that I was gonna be when I grew up and I imagined all of these amazing journeys and amazing people I'd meet. Of course, all of it has kind of come to fruition.
Sadness is a very interesting idea, this idea of sadness being some kind of default setting that artists will go into. And then I started thinking about this idea of sadness and happiness, and the idea that sadness is very loud, and happiness is quiet.
I only ever really take out my guitar when I'm miserable, which isn't necessarily a very good time to do it.
This weird thing that musicians have... it's got something to do with approval, and not feeling good enough, and therefore going out and being great somehow makes your life valid.
And I've always loved playing solo.
I guess in a way I just feel blessed to be able to make music.
A song is like a saddle: you ride it for a while, and if it's the right kind of song you can sing it for the rest of your life.
Do I create conflicts for myself? Sure I do.
I've always felt that if I ever got cynical, I would have to stop making music because I'd just be poisoning the air.
I choose to believe that there is good in people and that everything is a lesson. Our place on Earth is to go deeper, to somehow get wiser. To have spirit.
Sometimes travelling really intensely for a long time is like having a continuous nervous breakdown.
My life at home is super simple. My local bar with my mates, cooking for my mother, making tables, planting vegetables: It's the classic idea of the artistic existence.
If you don't mark your successes, the day your ship comes in could be just another day at the office, and there's no poetry in that.
There are people who can sit down and write a song about any given subject, and they can do it really, really well.
What happens to us all, I think, when we pick up a pen, is that we just become snobs.
I busked from the age of 13 until I was 18.
Well, playing a guy who writes songs and busks on Grafton Street in Dublin and falls in love with Marketa Irglova wasn't very difficult for me. There was very little acting going on.
I won't say I've closed the door on acting.
You know, albums are a funny thing. They're not like an intellectual decision. It's a collection of your kind of musings.
I've realized, you know, having turned 40, that rest is just as important as work. In fact, it's equally as important.
Well, everything about singing, I learned from busking. Everything I learned about songwriting, I learned from busking.
If you stand still in any city long enough, you see everyone pass you by. So you're in Chicago. If you stand on the corner of Belmont and Clark, and you do that for three years, you'll pretty much have seen everybody in Chicago pass that junction.
In Irish law, busking is considered vagrancy - you can be arrested for it. It's risky asking people for money in public. So it's not like it's a high-art job. And people who do it as a high-art job make very little money.
I love the idea of leaving some of the original abstract thought in, because the problem is that when you pick up a pen you become a snob, your own worse critic. You edit yourself in a way that is non-creative.
Keeping the pen out of your hand as much as possible is the best way to write a song, in my estimation. But the pen must come in to tighten it up.
I pick up my guitar and play. Something might come, and then the pen comes out. Then an edit, until something comes out that you're actually satisfied with.
Sometimes you give birth to something or you're part of a team that gives birth to an idea, and it grows and has a whole life of its own, and you feel grateful. It's just so humbling.
We saw too much beauty to be cynical, felt too much joy to be dismissive, climbed too many mountains to be quitters, kissed too many girls to be deceivers, saw too many sunrises not to be believers, broke too many strings to be pro's and gave too much love to be concerned where it goes.Collection: Girl
Our imagination it is our greatest ally . . . Imagination is a very, very powerful thing. It literally invents the path before you.Collection: Powerful
I think inside every rock journalist, there's somebody who wishes they had the courage to live the life that they're not, and that they're writing about. But at the same time, inside every songwriter, I guess there's a wish for happiness.Collection: Live Life
Certain songs have a life, and certain songs don't. A song is like a saddle: you ride it for a while, and if it's the right kind of song you can sing it for the rest of your life. And then other songs are only really important for certain periods of your life, and you move on from them and find yourself not necessarily needing to sing them anymore.Collection: Song
I think it's very interesting, people who can't stand people who whinge and whine. It seems almost like a class issue. Because you think about who is the most positive, who's the most redemptive songwriter that's ever existed in your lifetime?Collection: Thinking
I grew up wearing black arm-bands when the hunger strikers died. I went on those marches. I grew up basically a Provo, though I never obviously got into any activities. I was writing 'IRA, Brits out' on walls all over where I grew up, but that was a false sense of Irishness.Collection: Wall
Everything about singing, I learned from busking. Everything I learned about songwriting, I learned from busking. Busking, you learn people, you learn about reading people. You learn about reading the atmosphere of the street. If you stand still in any city long enough, you see everyone pass you by. It's almost like you get to know personality types, just by watching people walk past. You get a sense for things.Collection: Reading
You know, albums are a funny thing. They're not like an intellectual decision. It's a collection of your kind of musings. Like it's a collection of your diary entries and you pick which one's gonna make the most sense together and you put out a record and you sort of live it.Collection: Funny Things
I just didn't realize, being a young person, that if you sign up to make a film, a certain portion of your soul is forever gone. From there on, you are that character to everybody you'll ever meet again.Collection: Character
There's this unspoken thing that you have to wear a tux and some kind of nice dress. There are all these ethical rules, but I'm sure if you came to the Oscars in ripped jeans and a t-shirt they wouldn't throw you out. You would just look like a fool.Collection: Nice
I absolutely adore the alchemy of a bit of an idea.Collection: Ideas
I'm not an actor, and I'll never call myself an actor. I've never thought of it as part of my life. I'll always be a singer, in my eyes.Collection: Eye
I've always loved playing solo. I guess in a way I just feel blessed to be able to make music. My favorite thing is usually whatever I'm doing right there and then.Collection: Blessed
Relationships can be about yourself, they can be about you and your god, you and your people, you and your family. It can be about a lot of different stuff. And it is.Collection: People
I think ultimately, people are selfish in that department [blues], in a good way - the reason we're attracted to art is because it somehow reflects us. And I think, ultimately, we're a tribal people by nature. We're not individualistic. We almost like to hear that there's other people in a worse state than us. Sometimes even more than we like hearing there are people in better states than us.Collection: Art
You know, when I was a kid waiting on the bus, I remember that was when I imagined my life. I imagined everything that I was gonna be when I grew up and I imagined all of these amazing journeys and amazing people Id meet. Of course, all of it has kind of come to fruition.Collection: Kids