Art & Creativity Quote by Kathy Mattea

"You have to write badly to write at all. If it's crappy, I will rewrite it later. But it will be mine. You can hear the resonance of an artist who goes into herself"

Kathy Mattea, Musician

About this Quote

Kathy Mattea is giving permission to make a mess, and that’s the point. “You have to write badly to write at all” rejects the fantasy version of creativity where inspiration arrives polished and camera-ready. For a working musician, that myth is especially toxic: the industry rewards the finished hook, the clean lyric, the three-minute emotional arc. Mattea’s line insists that the real labor happens earlier, in the awkward drafts nobody applauds.

The subtext is a fight against perfectionism dressed up as professionalism. “If it’s crappy, I will rewrite it later” is pragmatic, almost blue-collar: show up, do the work, trust revision. She’s not romanticizing suffering; she’s demystifying craft. The bluntness of “crappy” matters. It punctures the self-seriousness that can freeze artists into silence, and it frames drafting as a necessary sacrifice to momentum.

“But it will be mine” is the quiet thesis. She’s drawing a line between imitation and ownership, between a song that merely fits a genre and one that carries a fingerprint. That’s where the last sentence lands: “the resonance of an artist who goes into herself.” Mattea isn’t preaching isolation so much as authenticity. The “resonance” suggests sound you can’t fake, a vibration that comes from private, unmarketable honesty before it becomes public product. In a culture that rewards quick output and algorithm-friendly sameness, her advice is radical: protect the ugly first draft because it’s the doorway to a voice.

Quote Details

Topic	Writing
Source	Help us find the source
Cite

More Quotes by Kathy Add to List

About the Author

Kathy Mattea (born June 21, 1959) is a Musician from USA.

27 more quotes available

View Profile

Similar Quotes

"I don't think you can write - at least not well - if you don't love stories, love the written word"

Nora Roberts, Author

Nora Roberts

"You know, as a writer, I'm more of a listener than a writer, cuz if I hear something, I will write it down"

Jimmy Buffett, Musician

Jimmy Buffett

"As a writer, no one's gonna tell me how to write, I'm gonna write the way I wanna write!"

Jacqueline Susann, Author

"If you wish to be a writer, write"

Epictetus, Philosopher

Epictetus

"Seventy percent of what I write, I throw out. I can write very easily, but writing original things is the hard bit"

Mike Rutherford, Musician

"I really didn't think about song writing"

Adam Rich, Actor

"I think that there are fiction writers for whom that works well. I could never do it. I feel as if, by the time I see that it's a poem, it's almost written in my head somewhere"

Sharon Olds, Poet

"I think it takes about a million words to make a writer. I mean that you're going to throw away"

Jerry Pournelle, Journalist

"If you really want to write, then shut yourself in a room, close the door, and WRITE. If you don't want to write, do something else. It's as simple as that"

Mary Garden

"The inspiration to write? Perhaps it's not so much inspiration as a need to write. I get itchy and guilty and dissatisfied when I haven't written for a while. Ideas come to me and need to be written down"

Eric Brown, Writer

"When you're playing such brilliant music every day, then the last thing you ever want to do is try to write something of your own that's crude and not as good"

Regina Spektor, Musician

"I think all good writing is a struggle. To write as well as you feel you can has to be a struggle, almost by definition, because you could always improve"

Jane Asher, Actress

"Perhaps it would be better not to be a writer, but if you must, then write"

J.B. Priestley, Writer

J.B. Priestley

"I think the thing that has made it possible for me to write personal songs and sing them year after year is the sensibility for good writing. Just opening your veins all over the paper is not necessarily going to be interesting. I wanted to speak to people"

Shawn Colvin, Artist

"I don't think you get to good writing unless you expose yourself and your feelings. Deep songs don't come from the surface; they come from the deep down. The poetry and the songs that you are suppose to write, I believe are in your heart"

Judy Collins, Musician

"All I'm writing is just what I feel, that's all. I just keep it almost naked. And probably the words are so bland"

Jimi Hendrix, Musician

Jimi Hendrix

"When I start to write, words have become physical presence. It was to see if I could bring that private world to life that found its first expression through reading. I really dislike the romantic notion of the artist"

John McGahern, Writer

"When I sit down to write, I don't think about writing about an idea or a given message. I just try to write a story which is hard enough"

Jhumpa Lahiri, Author

"I just don't write musically, but lyrically, yeah I write"

Tom Araya, Musician

"I just want to be written about as a normal artist"

Robert Mapplethorpe, Photographer

Robert Mapplethorpe