Valerie June Quotes

“I've been busy and need to slow my little tail down and sit and meditate somewhere. I do my walking meditations every day, but just to sit still. Just to be in one place and just to be quiet.”

— Valerie June

“I must stay true to myself and take my own path all the way.”

— Valerie June

“I just love music, and I absorbed what I love.”

— Valerie June

My music confuses people because they think I will sound a certain way because I look a certain way with the dreads.

— Valerie June

“I am a boring loner. I enjoy Friday nights at home in my rocking chair with no arms, rocking and relaxing. It's not uncommon for Netflix to be involved. Records are a possibility, but most of it is spent in silence.”

— Valerie June

“I am always excited about playing in front of live audiences because I really enjoy it, for the most part.”

— Valerie June

“I don't marry bandmates just to go marrying bandmates.”

— Valerie June

“I met PJ Harvey when I was in England, and the first thing I want to do when I meet a songwriter I admire is to ask them how do they receive songs.”

— Valerie June

“I try to write down every song that comes to me, even though I know that every song that comes to me isn't a song that I need to sing.”

— Valerie June

“If I have something inside me that I want to get out, I'll just beat it out on the banjo right then and there.”

— Valerie June

“When I first moved to New York, I was still returning to Tennessee every few months to perform.”

— Valerie June

“When I was teenager, Britney Spears was it - that was the pop world that was happening, and I knew I wasn't in it.”

— Valerie June

“When I was writing 'Shotgun,' it's one of the first songs that's come to me as an image.”

— Valerie June

“Every writer writes in different ways, and so some write the music first, while others write the lyrics first, and some write while they are doing other things, and it is just nice to see how other writers are writing.”

— Valerie June

I grew my dreadlocks 12 years ago because they give me the freedom to roll out of bed and not spend hours on my woolly, thick hair. I get tons of dropped jaws and compliments, so I reckon folks like them all right.

— Valerie June

“I just let the songs tell me what to do - they are my guides, and they are the boss. So I am subservient to the songs, and I let them tell me what to do. I don't judge them; I just write whatever comes to me.”

— Valerie June

“I paid my dues. I have crawled to gigs. I have served people coffee. I worked hard selling all these records out the back of my car. Girl, I'm ready to sell one the real way now.”

— Valerie June

“I was working like a dog as a housekeeper, barista, nanny, cook, so I could save enough money to really sit with my instruments. Whenever I had 20 minutes, I would practice a new chord or write a new verse.”

— Valerie June

I'm not really into alternative country - I'm into Patsy Cline, who lived down the street from where I lived, and old Dolly Parton records, Kitty Wells and that old stuff. I like country music. I also like Eric Church, who has a great new sound but also holds onto that old sound.

— Valerie June

“It is such a gift to be able to write songs in general, but when you can share it with somebody, it is just such a pleasure. It is such a happy moment when you finish a song, and you are just like, 'Wow - that was great.'”

— Valerie June

“My signature fragrance would be herbal - basil mixed with rosemary and coriander. Some big stars have got perfume lines that smell really bad. They've got it all wrong.”

— Valerie June

“My voice is who I am, who I was when I was 3, and who I am going to be when I am 90 years old. When I hit the stage and people do not know who I am, they automatically assume, before I open my mouth, I am going to sing a Bob Marley song!”

— Valerie June

One day, when we were coming back from school, we saw this big cloud of smoke coming up, and all these fire-trucks in the yard. The garage was burning down. I was 14, and we'd lost everything.

— Valerie June

“Saturdays are set for antique shops. Williamsburg in Brooklyn has some good ones. I get in there and start meddling around with dusty boxes and rickety, worn-in stuff. I like it when I find something with someone else's name on it.”

— Valerie June

“The challenge is how strange and different my voice sounds, so I have tried to sound like other people and tried to be something I wasn't. I have tried to be a soul singer because someone else thought that a good idea. Not because I did.”

— Valerie June

“When I was 15, I begged my grandfather to give me this guitar he'd always had in the back of his closet. I promised him I'd learn to play it, but I never did. Then my grandfather died, and I felt so guilty. So I started playing.”

— Valerie June

When you listen to my music, you hear that there are all these voices going on in different parts of the song. That's because I was always around so many voices in church.

— Valerie June

“There are so many different versions of "Tennessee Waltz" and they're all so good.”

— Valerie June

“I'm grateful that music has been a place where I've found freedom.”

— Valerie June

“They're all personal and self-created challenges that I think I've overcome within myself. Being confident enough to get on stage and play, things like that.”

— Valerie June

“My challenges have not been around music. My hardest thing in music was just sitting down and teaching myself how to play and believing in myself.”

— Valerie June

“I mean, roots musicians - we can get old, you know? We can get up there and wear overalls and deliver the songs, we don't have to look any certain way.”

— Valerie June

“If you want to get broken in good, put four girls on the road together in a van and tour up and down the country.”

— Valerie June

There are a lot of murder ballads out there, but most of them are about killing the woman. I was like, "We've gotta turn this around!"

— Valerie June

“I love to read things that have moral messages, and I love to hear stories where it's not just a hook, you have to follow the story, you have to listen to the message of the song, and get it and use it in your everyday life.”

— Valerie June

I feel a lot of cities are like, you go and you are trying to do your art, and there are so many other artists there who are so brilliant. And it's kind of like they stomp on the scene, and they are like, "You're not already Picasso? Get the hell out of here!" And Memphis is like, "Well, you'll get there one day!"

— Valerie June

“When I was a kid, I always wanted to go to Europe, to go to Africa, to go traveling.”

— Valerie June

“Sometimes when you're in a more fast-paced place, with more to see and do, you miss out on things like nature and beautiful, God-made things. They call it "God's country"!”

— Valerie June

“The point is to raise your voice and be heard to God. You really are just celebrating being in the presence of other people that believe the same things you believe.”

— Valerie June

“Memphis held onto me until I was far enough along in my art and then it let me go.”

— Valerie June

“If you're going to be stuck somewhere forever, you might as well be around good people!”

— Valerie June

“When I talk about music in Memphis, it's a place you can go if you are a beginning artist or anywhere in your career, and you can incubate.”

— Valerie June

“I have a lot of different collections of cards at home. It's hard to say my favorite deck, but there is a deck called the medicine cards, and it's Native American animal cards.”

— Valerie June

“I'm not religious, but I am spiritual and I am creating my own practice.”

— Valerie June

“I just have to do prayers and meditation and affirmations to myself as I go throughout the day, and that's the only way I'm able to make it through some days.”

— Valerie June

“I can't believe the ignorance there, so I don't allow it to affect my life, I don't allow it to come into my zone, and it's not in my world, really.”

— Valerie June

Even from when I was in grade school or church or wherever, I was always like: we're one, and we should respect each other and grow as one. And respect each other's diversity, of course.

— Valerie June

I've always kind of been in the middle of every room, trying to get people together, no matter what color they were.

— Valerie June

“Even though I like looking good - don't get me wrong - but if I don't want to, I don't have to.”

— Valerie June

“Whatever people are doing, they're probably going to be doing it five years from now. You have your banker, your general store runner, the principal of the school, and things of that sort. It's nice to see that, and to get old with other people.”

— Valerie June