"And it took me about 11 years to get a record deal, and I just had to work around and come to terms with the fact that what I was doing was going to be different, and I just had to wait until somebody was ready to jump on the bandwagon"
About this Quote
Eleven years is a timeline that refuses the overnight-myth the music industry sells. Lee Ann Womack frames her record deal not as a lightning strike of discovery but as an endurance test with a moving finish line. The casual rhythm of the sentence - "and... and... and" - mimics the grind itself: incremental gigs, incremental rejections, incremental self-adjustments. It reads like someone replaying the logic she had to adopt just to keep going.
The key move is "come to terms with the fact that what I was doing was going to be different". That is both self-protection and quiet defiance. She isn't claiming genius; she's acknowledging mismatch. The subtext is that the gatekeepers weren't evaluating her on talent alone, but on fit: radio trends, label appetites, the market's craving for a particular kind of country artist at a particular moment. "Different" becomes a polite stand-in for "not easily packaged."
Then she lands the sharpest truth with the friendliest phrasing: "wait until somebody was ready to jump on the bandwagon". Bandwagon suggests fashion, not conviction. It implies the industry doesn't lead; it follows. Success becomes less about winning an argument than surviving long enough for the argument to become popular. Womack's intent is to demystify the deal and, in the same breath, dignify patience: not passive waiting, but staying intact while the world catches up.
The key move is "come to terms with the fact that what I was doing was going to be different". That is both self-protection and quiet defiance. She isn't claiming genius; she's acknowledging mismatch. The subtext is that the gatekeepers weren't evaluating her on talent alone, but on fit: radio trends, label appetites, the market's craving for a particular kind of country artist at a particular moment. "Different" becomes a polite stand-in for "not easily packaged."
Then she lands the sharpest truth with the friendliest phrasing: "wait until somebody was ready to jump on the bandwagon". Bandwagon suggests fashion, not conviction. It implies the industry doesn't lead; it follows. Success becomes less about winning an argument than surviving long enough for the argument to become popular. Womack's intent is to demystify the deal and, in the same breath, dignify patience: not passive waiting, but staying intact while the world catches up.
Quote Details
| Topic | Perseverance |
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