Time & Perspective Quote by Iris DeMent

DeMent’s line lands like a porch-light truth: plainspoken, stubborn, and a little bruised. Coming from a songwriter steeped in American folk and country traditions, “since time began” isn’t a literal claim so much as a move of authority. It borrows the cadence of scripture and front-porch wisdom to make suffering feel less like a personal malfunction and more like an old toll road everyone eventually pays.

The intent is double-edged. On the surface, it’s craft advice: worthwhile work costs something. Underneath, it’s a permission slip for heartbreak and effort to count as evidence, not embarrassment. DeMent isn’t glorifying pain for its own sake; she’s naming the way “true” art (and true living) often emerges from friction: grief that won’t tidy itself up, relationships that demand humility, a voice you keep using even when it shakes. “Worthwhile and true” is a paired standard that matters: worthwhile suggests value in the public world; true suggests integrity in the private one. The suffering she’s talking about is the price of holding both at once.

In the cultural context of music, the quote pushes back against the myth of effortless authenticity and the marketplace’s demand for constant output. It argues that depth has a cost in time, in exposure, in the willingness to be uncomfortable on record. It also quietly challenges a modern self-care shorthand that treats hardship as automatically toxic. DeMent’s subtext is tougher: some pain is not a sign you’re doing it wrong; it’s the proof you’re refusing the easy lie.