Top 17 Quotes & Sayings by Iron & Wine

I put my energy into writing songs. I have to carve out a living somehow doing this, and licensing is one way. It's hard to register what's "too much" for other people. I don't watch TV, so it's tough for me to gauge. I just take it as it comes, and don't put a whole lot of thought into it.

I'm kind of interested in visual communication. For me it's more about suggesting than arguing a point.

I like writing in an illustrative, descriptive way. I prefer describing to rather than explaining.

We all assume the worst the best we can.

It's fun to be able to revisit a song and do something that doesn't really illustrate the song but works tangentially or runs parallel to the song in some way.

Pop culture, commercials. You only come across a commercial if you're watching a TV all the time. I've never been all that upset. I like hearing the songs. I guess I've never been all that caught up in it.

Do I start with the lyrics? No. Quite honestly, it's the opposite. I generally get the melody first - I kinda fiddle around on the guitar and work out a melody. The lyrics are there to flesh out the tone of the music. I've tried before to do things the other way around, but it never seems to work. Obviously, I spend a lot of time on my lyrics, I take them very seriously, but they're kinda secondary. Well, equal, maybe. I think sometimes that if you write a poem, it should remain as just a poem, just... words.

I'm one of those people who sort of feeds on music.

The song succeeds or fails just based on whether you argue your point successfully.

I just try to use my own life to build a human song: something that people can relate to in some way. It's not like the psychiatrist's couch or anything.

There are good places to play and bad places.

It sort of depends on the song. Some of them are pretty easy to write, and others take a while. I do a lot of writing in the morning.

There are things that drift away like our endless, numbered days

I had all these songs lying around. They had all these woman characters, and I thought the idea of the Woman King would be a good way to tie them all together.

We play some smaller songs larger than they are the record, and vice versa. It took me a while to get used to playing live.

The song succeeds or fails just based on whether you argue your point successfully. I like throwing images together, which create meaning if you listen to it one time, but if you listen to it another time you might get a different meaning.

In some songs, like propaganda songs-and don't get me wrong, I love some propaganda songs. They're some of my favorite songs in the world. It's just that I don't enjoy writing it.