Creativity Quote by John Oates

John Oates reduces creative mythology to a plain three-step truth: sometimes you’re in the room, sometimes you’re not, and either way the work still has to happen. Coming from a musician best known for one of pop’s most frictionless partnerships, the line reads like a gentle correction to the “lone genius” story and an equally pointed pushback against the fantasy of permanent harmony in collaboration. It’s almost comically obvious on the surface, which is the point: the music industry loves to romanticize process, so Oates answers with process-as-logistics.

The subtext is boundary-setting. “We collaborate together” acknowledges the chemistry people project onto Hall & Oates, the idea that great songs are born from two minds finishing each other’s sentences. “We work with other people” widens the lens to the unglamorous reality of pop: producers, engineers, session players, co-writers, label notes. Hits are often committee-built, and pretending otherwise is branding. Then the quiet kicker: “We work by ourselves.” That’s where craft lives - the private hours, the stubborn rewrites, the self-editing that no partnership can outsource.

In context, it also reads like survival advice for long careers. Duos fracture, scenes change, trends move on. A sustainable artist toggles between intimacy and autonomy without treating either as betrayal. Oates isn’t offering poetry; he’s offering a durable model of authorship: relationships matter, networks matter, solitude matters - and none of them are optional if you want the song to outlast the moment.