Creativity Quote by Lee Hazlewood

There is something almost mischievous about how Lee Hazlewood drops that line: a shrug disguised as a compliment, a curtain call delivered in a drawl. “So anyway” is the tell. It’s conversational, even dismissive, like he’s swatting away the myth-making that tends to gather around cult artists. Hazlewood spent a career being treated as larger-than-life (the baritone, the cowboy noir, the auteur behind Nancy Sinatra’s biggest moments), and here he chooses the language of someone changing the subject at a diner counter.

That anti-climax is the point. Saying “I really enjoyed the European audiences” could be the standard overseas-validation trope: America overlooks you, Europe “gets” you. Hazlewood is aware of that narrative and refuses to oversell it. He doesn’t claim reverence, or salvation, or artistic rebirth. He just “enjoyed” them. It’s modest on the surface, quietly sharp underneath: a way of implying that the most honest relationship between performer and crowd might be pleasure, not canonization.

The subtext also nods to his late-career reappraisal. By the time Hazlewood was being rediscovered, European crowds often did provide the kind of attentive, irony-friendly reception his off-kilter songwriting invites. Yet the line keeps the power dynamic in his favor. He’s not grateful for rescue; he’s choosing what to take from it.

It’s Hazlewood in miniature: deadpan, self-protective, allergic to sentimentality, and slyly aware that the coolest way to accept praise is to act like it’s barely worth mentioning.