A Quote by Johnny Cash

Sam Phillips responded most to a song of mine called, "Hey Porter," which was on the first record. — © Johnny Cash
Sam Phillips responded most to a song of mine called, "Hey Porter," which was on the first record.
Sam [Phillips] wanted I Walk The Line up - you know, up-tempo. And I put paper in the strings of my guitar to get that (vocalizing) sound, and with the bass and the lead guitar, there it was. Bare and stark, that song was when it was released. And I heard it on the radio and I really didn't like it, and I called Sam Phillips and asked him please not to send out any more records of that song.
Sam Phillips asked me to go write a love song, or maybe a bitter weeper. So I wrote a song called, "Cry Cry Cry," went back in and recorded that for the other side of the record.
Sam Phillips always encouraged me to do it my way, to use whatever other influences I wanted, but never to copy...if there hadn't been a Sam Phillips, I might still be working in a cotton field.
It just took the right time. I was fully confident that I was going to see Sam Phillips and to record for him that when I called him, I thought, I'm going to get on Sun Records. So I called him and he turned me down flat. Then two weeks later, I got turned down again. He told me over the phone that he couldn't sell gospel music so - as it was independent, not a lot of money.
The first song I learned on the guitar was a Kenny Chesney song called 'What I Need to Do'; it was just an easy song to play... and it was really cool to see that come full-circle a few years later and have him record a song that I was part of.
Here's the way the licensing works ... If you write a song, nobody can record your song before you do without your permission. But, once the song is recorded, they can get what's called a 'compulsory license', and they can record the tune, but they have to pay you royalties.
There's a song called 'All We'd Ever Need,' which is actually the first song that the three of us wrote together on our first album, and when we wrote that song I didn't have any real experience to pull from.
The first time I ever had a song play on a legit radio station, I think I was about 13. It was a song of mine that I had written called 'Young Blood.'
When I was growing up, you would put on a KISS record or a UFO or Aerosmith record and listen to it from the first song through the last song. It's been so long since a band has put out a record like that.
I was just fooling around with the piano and Todd [Phillips] was like, 'Hey there's a great spot in the movie [The Hangover] where we need a little bit of a breath in the narrative. You should write a song and stick it in there.' And I was like, 'Well, what should the song be about?' And he said, 'The tiger.' 'Oh, okay.' So I went off and I wrote this song. I came back and Todd and I tinkered with it a little more and then we shot it right then. It all happened in a day.
Even though we didn't actually record it as the Move I had already written a song called 'Dear Elaine,' which I subsequently put on the Boulders album. I thought at the time that was probably the best song I'd written.
Even though we didn't actually record it as the Move I had already written a song called 'Dear Elaine', which I subsequently put on the Boulders album. I thought at the time that was probably the best song I'd written.
The very first time I ever heard anything of mine on the radio, I was in New Jersey, and I was in my teens. I did my first record, which was an old standard called 'My Mother's Eyes.' It was the old Georgie Jessel theme. I heard it on local radio out of Newark. And it was very exciting!
Right away, I knew I didn't want to have that look of other guys with long hair and bell-bottom pants, because everybody else had that look. I kind of adopted my boarding-school look, which made me stand out. Then the next thing you know, the first song on my first record is a song called "School Days." It's about going to the boarding school I went to. So then I just started to write about myself. The very first song I ever wrote was about a guy I met in a boatyard that we were working in. So I've always had this thing about sticking to more or less what I knew.
Patrick started driving really fast, and just before we got to the tunnel. Sam stood up, and the wind turned her dress into ocean waves. When we hit the tunnel, all the sound got scooped up into a vacuum, and it was replaced by a song on the tape player. A beautiful song called “Landslide.” When we got out of the tunnel, Sam screamed this really fun scream, and there it was. Downtown. Lights on buildings and everything that makes you wonder. Sam sat down and started laughing. Patrick started laughing. I started laughing. And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.
The first time I heard Sam Cooke was in the 'Malcom X' film. I was with my father, and that's the first time I heard his song. I remember my father telling me the story of Sam Cooke.
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