Creativity Quote by Mose Allison

Mose Allison is admitting to a kind of low-level larceny: the musician as pickpocket, quietly lifting language from daily life and slipping it into a future tune. The line sounds casual, almost domestic, but it reveals a disciplined way of moving through the world. “Always” is the tell. He’s not waiting for inspiration to strike; he’s living in a permanent state of readiness, treating conversation, headlines, and passing thoughts as raw material.

That posture fits Allison’s whole aesthetic. His songs often hinge on a conversational phrase sharpened into a punchline, a gripe, a sly confession. By framing ideas as “things” to be “stored away,” he demystifies songwriting without cheapening it. Craft replaces mythology. The subtext is that originality isn’t a lightning bolt; it’s attention, filtration, and timing. You don’t invent a voice out of nothing-you curate it from what you notice and what you choose to keep.

There’s also a quiet skepticism baked in. If phrases are stockpiled, then meaning is provisional: today’s throwaway remark might become tomorrow’s chorus, recontextualized until it lands differently. That’s especially resonant in jazz and blues, where standards, riffs, and familiar sentiments are constantly repurposed. Allison isn’t just collecting; he’s preparing to transform the everyday into something that swings, bites, and lasts three minutes. The quote is a mission statement for the songwriter as listener first, performer second.