Top 99 Quotes & Sayings by Samuel Ervin Beam

Music is one of those things that if you play it safe, it can be incredibly boring.

I went to art school, wanting to be a painter and then I got into photography. Then it was movies, and I liked the images. One of the things that interested me in film was that I was communicating in images. That was something I did intuitively and could not even talk about until I started having to do interviews.

I was raised in the suburbs. I wasn't on a plantation or anything.

I keep trying to make different records each time.

I always liked American Analog Set.

I recognized that a lot in my writing I'm trying to show both sides of the coin - the sour and sweet. Iron & Wine seemed to fit with that duality and I thought it would be more interesting to call the project that rather than use Sam Beam.

I don't like to be doing the same thing over and over again, so I keep trying other things.

I like to make things. When you make something, you work it and you work it until it's done, and then you say 'Look, here's what I made.'

All my songs usually borrow from my own life but pull from fantasy or other people's stories that you hear, or something you read. It's fun as a writer to pull from all those different places, and to connect them. But also, I don't have an interesting enough life to strictly pull from that.

I certainly don't want to make the same record twice. That's no fun.

I am not interested in political writing, because it's limited in its scope. I try to write general, human kinds of songs, which suggest more than they explain. You can take a lot of different meanings, but hopefully everyone feels some kind of recognition.

I'm not religious. But I grew up religious in the Bible Belt.

Whenever you're ready to go and have studio time, that's when we start to record.

I live in Texas, man. It's hard to be a vegetarian down here.

I remember 'The Shepherd's Dog' record being not necessarily a political record, but a reaction to socio-political situations in America. And it didn't manifest itself as protest or propaganda songs, but there's a lot of surreal imagery that was born out of really me being surprised Bush got re-elected in '04.

You have high school photos and stuff, but to have a recording of your voice and your work from 20 years ago, it's a kick in the head to hear how you've changed and what you were interested in at the time and how it's either changed or stayed the same.

I change things each time we go into making a record, like the personnel playing on it, the types of music.

I don't necessarily enjoy playing concerts, although that has gotten more fun with a band. But the one thing I always have enjoyed is making records and being in that creative environment. And that has become a lot more enjoyable having other people involved.

You cannot predict public taste. That's why I always just trusted mine.

Back in '98 or so when I was in film school I was working on lighting for a movie in Georgia, out in the middle of nowhere at a gas station. Inside the gas station they had a bunch of old home remedies like castor oil, and one of them was a protein supplement called Beef, Iron & Wine. I just dropped the Beef part.

You can't predict what people are going to like. You have to stay true to your enthusiasm and obsessions.

Music is definitely cheaper and more immediate. But part of the draw of film to me is the multidisciplinary aspect. I always enjoyed film writing.

I like writing in an illustrative, descriptive way. I prefer describing to rather than explaining. One, I rarely have anything to say. It's much more interesting for me to discover some meaning that you didn't know that you could create.

As far as American directors, Terrence Malick is probably my very favorite.

Sometimes I teach script writing.

I try to write humanistic songs.

Like anyone who records music or writes a song, I thought, 'Wouldn't that be cool if someday I were able to do this for a living?' But it was such a fluke, and it really all took me by surprise and I just held on for dear life. I really wasn't prepared. I really went into it naively with no experience.

It's a funny thing having a recording be part of your career. It means you can go back and revisit yourself, in a way most people don't.

Anytime you go back and listen to old material, there's always the threat of being surprised.

My wife is a midwife, and there's only so many states where you can do that. Texas is a place where she can work.

People always say, 'Why don't you play more sets in Texas?' and I say, 'Dude, why don't you come babysit?'

As a listener, I like shorter records, because you can really absorb the songs.

Making sad music, it's not for me. I don't find that interesting.

I like good melodies and a great song.

At the end of the day, I can't sit down and write a song to sell.

I make music and hope people enjoy it - but when they do it's always a surprise. A nice surprise, but not one that I expect to always be there.

I learn something with each record and take that into the next one.

I try to use a poetic language more than talk about my feelings, but it is married to the music.

Yeah, I've always liked Barbara Crane's stuff.

Religion is a huge part of our consciousness. I grew up in the Bible Belt, so it's our mythology. Those are the stories we learn as little kids at Sunday school. I'm not afraid to use the metaphors, because I think the stories are beautiful.

I went to an art school and you learn very quickly there that you're only as good as your next idea, not so much what you've got going on at the moment. And so I embraced that. It sunk in at an early point.

I was just writing songs in my spare time, and recording because it's fun to do, and Sub Pop called me and said they wanted to put some stuff out. I had to weigh whether I wanted to put the time into it because it's a commitment. But, in the end, it seemed too good to pass up.

I like to keep working and keep changing. It's a hopeful, optimistic thing to think and sit about what you could do next. Maybe it's blind optimism.

I'm pretty easy going. I can be anyway. I definitely have my moments. You can ask my kids. But I try to be nice.

When I put out a record I don't really like to do covers as much, but I don't mind playing them. I do them mostly for my friends. When a friend's like, 'Man I really like that song,' I go 'hahaha' and I go home and I record it.

I like Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, but some of the older ones it's hard for me to sit down with - when I sit down to read some poetry, I usually read more contemporary stuff.

Oh yeah, I love Peter Gabriel's stuff. I mean, I even have the Genesis records. He's incredible.

I like to make fun records. Contrary to popular belief.

I've always liked string sections. I'm a sucker for melody, so it's fun to have strings add more layer of melody in the arrangement.

I like ones that pertain to the music they make. Talking Heads does that somehow. More often than not band names are just a quirky joke that doesn't really stay funny for very long. It's like Homer Simpson's barbershop quartet, the Be Sharps. At first you're like, 'That's funny!' Then you're like, 'It's not that funny.'

What's fascinating about facial hair? It's more fascinating that people shave it off every day.

I would love to be able to do the pace that people used to do decades ago, where you'd make a record a year, or something was wrong with you.

I don't sit and write records from start to finish. I write all the time, and when it's time to record you just look and see what songs you've got that could work together as a group thematically.

I love to sell records, but that's not what I'm into.

Me, I'm a lazy bum, so I don't shave.

I don't want to single anyone out. I'll just say that there are a lot of not good band names out there.

I was born in 1974, so I grew up listening to what was on the radio - my mom's car sounded like Fleetwood Mac, because that was what was on the radio.

I have a hard time saying I'm going to make a whole record of just rock-out songs, because that gets boring, you know? And my voice doesn't scream very well.

I'm very flattered the press wants to write about me.

Contradictions are fun.