Will Oldham > Quotes

“It is more rewarding to be complicit with scarcity than excess.”
― Will Oldham

“When you think like a hermit, you forget what you know.”
― Will Oldham

“Stay here while I get a
curse
To give him a goat head
Make him watch me take
his place
Night has brought him
something worse”
― Will Oldham

“Why can't I be loved as what I am?
A wolf among wolves
And not as a man among men?”
― Will Oldham, Songs of Love and Horror: Collected Lyrics of Will Oldham

“Always choose the noise of music...
always end the day in singing!”
― Will Oldham, Songs of Love and Horror: Collected Lyrics of Will Oldham

“Don't go to bed
if you know that something's waiting
to grab you in the night and throttle hope from your heart.”
― Will Oldham, Songs of Love and Horror: Collected Lyrics of Will Oldham

“If you’re careful, you can be welcomed into natural systems, ecosystems, societal systems. But it sometimes feels like it would be more rewarding to be destroyed by a natural ecosystem than it would to be destroyed by a societal system…if you’re going to be destroyed.”
― Will Oldham, Will Oldham on Bonnie "Prince" Billy

“Today was another day full of dread,
But I never said I was afraid.
Dread and fear should not be confused;
By dread I'm inspired, by fear I'm amused.”
― Will Oldham, Songs of Love and Horror: Collected Lyrics of Will Oldham

“we have a power
all animals do
when faced with your fire
I will surrender to you”
― Will Oldham, Songs of Love and Horror: Collected Lyrics of Will Oldham

“And quiet eluded me, and keeps from me still, though I need my own bed and its solace.
Day's noises steal in and copper my will, and I face the evils that follow us.”
― Will Oldham, Songs of Love and Horror: Collected Lyrics of Will Oldham

“I was drunk at the pulpit, I knew it was wrong.
And I left in mid-sermon, tempted by a bar-house song.
The pews they creaked and shifted as they turned to watch me leave,
And I pulled a little bottle from the pocket in my sleeve.”
― Will Oldham, Songs of Love and Horror: Collected Lyrics of Will Oldham

“There is hate in my heart
This is how my day starts
There is blood on my hands
From the murder of a man
And this is how I start another day in my kingdom”
― Will Oldham, Songs of Love and Horror: Collected Lyrics of Will Oldham

“I am drinking again
I'm on my seventh cold glass of gin

Life is a tribute to you
And so is dying
And drinking in this way
To die is what I'm trying

I am drinking again
I'm on my ninth cold glass of gin”
― Will Oldham, Songs of Love and Horror: Collected Lyrics of Will Oldham

“If you love wind,
Or morning or night,
If you are kind,
And get lit up by light
Then you're bound to be put down at any cost.
And if you listen to me
You are lost.”
― Will Oldham, Songs of Love and Horror: Collected Lyrics of Will Oldham

“This is the last song of its kind.
Now you can be.
Now you can be all that all your weakest love can find
Ain't it the best?
Ain't it the best?”
― Will Oldham, Songs of Love and Horror: Collected Lyrics of Will Oldham

“In sleep you’re protected by the fact that you’re asleep and, for the most part, alone, no matter how close somebody else might be to you physically. For the most part you’re asleep and alone, and it’s all . . . up to you.”
― Will Oldham, Will Oldham on Bonnie "Prince" Billy

“Have you thought that you could waste away?
You don't care much for yourself
There are circles deep beneath your eyes
Why do you do this to yourself?
If you like, we two could take a ride
I would love to take you down
We could watch a blue heron in flight
We could see the sights in town”
― Will Oldham, Songs of Love and Horror: Collected Lyrics of Will Oldham

“nothing is better
nothing is best
we are unhappy
we are unblessed

we are unhappy”
― Will Oldham, Songs of Love and Horror: Collected Lyrics of Will Oldham

“sing
only when you're strong
to others only all night long
and close your mouth and eyes
otherwise”
― Will Oldham, Songs of Love and Horror: Collected Lyrics of Will Oldham

“Make a future dream be ours
Through your eyes I swallow flowers
And disdain the winter showers
Choosing then to bathe in you”
― Will Oldham, Songs of Love and Horror: Collected Lyrics of Will Oldham

“We could drive down to another beach...
Even tanned, your skin seems white.
All our friends have gone away from here
So let's disappear from sight”
― Will Oldham, Songs of Love and Horror: Collected Lyrics of Will Oldham