"I'm easily distracted by other things in the world around me"
About this Quote
A throwaway confession with the quiet swagger of someone who’s made a career out of drifting between grooves. When Boz Scaggs says, "I'm easily distracted by other things in the world around me", he’s not selling self-help vulnerability; he’s sketching the working musician’s natural habitat: curiosity as both gift and occupational hazard. The line lands because it refuses the modern performance of "focus" as virtue. In Scaggs’ world, attention isn’t a moral achievement, it’s a weather system.
The intent reads like an explanation that doubles as a defense. Artists get accused of inconsistency, of disappearing between albums, of chasing trends or side quests. Scaggs flips that charge into an aesthetic principle: the outside world keeps interrupting, and he lets it. That’s not flakiness; it’s permeability. For a singer-songwriter whose sound has always borrowed from soul, rock, R&B, and slick studio pop, distraction becomes a synonym for range. He’s telling you his ear is promiscuous, his antennae always up.
The subtext is almost pastoral: look around, life is happening. It’s a gentle resistance to the idea that ambition must be single-minded and that creative legitimacy comes from suffering in a locked room. Coming from a veteran of the album era who navigated shifting music economies and tastes, it also reads as survival strategy. Staying open to "other things" is how you keep your work from becoming a museum of yourself.
The intent reads like an explanation that doubles as a defense. Artists get accused of inconsistency, of disappearing between albums, of chasing trends or side quests. Scaggs flips that charge into an aesthetic principle: the outside world keeps interrupting, and he lets it. That’s not flakiness; it’s permeability. For a singer-songwriter whose sound has always borrowed from soul, rock, R&B, and slick studio pop, distraction becomes a synonym for range. He’s telling you his ear is promiscuous, his antennae always up.
The subtext is almost pastoral: look around, life is happening. It’s a gentle resistance to the idea that ambition must be single-minded and that creative legitimacy comes from suffering in a locked room. Coming from a veteran of the album era who navigated shifting music economies and tastes, it also reads as survival strategy. Staying open to "other things" is how you keep your work from becoming a museum of yourself.
Quote Details
| Topic | Self-Discipline |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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