Colin Meloy Quotes

An old bandit adage: A bell is a cup until it is struck.

It is better to live presently. By living thus, perhaps we can learn to understand the nature of this fragile coexistence we share with the world around us.

As she walked, she breathed a quick benediction to the patron saint of sleuthing. "Nancy Drew," she whispered, "be with me now.

You can't really come into a concept record objectively, because you immediately associate it with Yes, stuff from the 1970s that punk rock kicked against, the pretentiousness.

When you get respect from the people who are buying your music and coming to your shows, there's an expectation that you have to live up to your own standards.

I have a conflicted relationship with musicals, because I think the music itself can be so horrendous. It's an industry that relies on appealing to a mainstream culture in order to survive.

I like all sorts of things, not necessarily just Victorian. Even though I tend to read a lot of Victorian novels, I like a lot of contemporary stuff.

I think the music should definitely underscore the sentiment of the song, and it can work for or against it.

Pop music has always adopted the style of marrying upbeat melodies to dour lyrics.

I wish I had a better range, but I really have a super-limited one. Barely a tenor, dips into baritone - that's about it.

I don't feel like we're setting ourselves up to be exclusive. I don't want to set up an attitude where we're telling people 'You can't listen to our music if you don't have a college degree.

It's hard for us to talk about how we disdain file-sharing when in fact it probably has been a great resource for us.

I was in school for literature, and read so many 19th century and early 20th century novels that it was hard to break out of that and read an average Jeanette Winterson book or something.

Living in war, and being a wartime band, I don't think there's any way that can't somehow influence the songwriting.

No-one wants to hear anything spoken in earnest anymore, unless it happens to involve unrequited, teenage love.

All instruments sound fantastic in a church.

I pretty much draw the line when people want you to do original music for commercials.

It was a nice relief to be able to work on individual songs.

There's some things there that you just have to draw the line. Some people are just not going to like it. We would hope that everybody would like it.

Music has been already devalued by the consumer. There's an expectation that it should be free so the race to the bottom has already been won.

One thing about hanging out with a baby is that you can remember a little bit better what it was like to be a kid, and all the mystery that came along with it.

And I am a writer, writer of fictions I am the heart that you call home And I've written pages upon pages Trying to rid you from my bones.

I'd rather have a strong career, playing and selling records to a loyal audience, then having one record that exploded. That would be devastating.

This was all in the making, a long time ago. You had as much control over these events as a leaf does in the time of its falling.

Meditation. That's the key. Supposedly. Calming your mind ind total silence. Understanding your connection to the natural world and all that. You do that, and you can hear it. All the talking.