Creativity Quote by Tennessee Ernie Ford

There’s a bracing humility in Ford’s line, a refusal to romanticize the hit-making machine even as he benefited from it. “Rummaging around” is the tell: it’s domestic, almost unglamorous, the opposite of the myth that great songs arrive like lightning bolts. He’s painting the artist as a working stiff digging through demos, scraps, old standards, half-remembered melodies, trusting craft and instinct more than prophecy.

Then comes the hard boundary: you can choose what you love, but you can’t choose what the crowd will canonize. That second clause quietly punctures the industry’s favorite illusion - that success is a formula waiting to be solved by the right producer, the right hook, the right marketing spend. Ford isn’t denying taste or effort; he’s denying control. The subtext is both liberating and cruel: if a song flops, it’s not always because you failed; if it explodes, it’s not always because you deserved it.

Context matters here. Ford’s career bridged radio, records, television, and the mid-century churn of Tin Pan Alley professionalism into Nashville’s more industrialized pipeline. A phenomenon like “Sixteen Tons” could feel inevitable in hindsight, but Ford is reminding you that inevitability is a story we tell after the fact. Hits are where timing, distribution, cultural mood, and sheer accident intersect with a good song. His intent is practical wisdom: do the digging, pick with conviction, and let go of the fantasy that anyone - artist or executive - can reliably predict what people will carry with them.