In 1970, Linda Ronstadt was releasing her second solo album, Silk Purse. She’d started breaking through with her previous debut, Hand Sown…Home Grown, and her star was on the rise. During an interview with Country Song Roundup, however, she made a contradictory statement about her then-up-and-coming career.
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When asked what part of her career she enjoyed the most, Ronstadt surprisingly replied, “I hate music.” She continued, “I think I spend some of my most miserable hours on stage performing.” There was more to it, however, as she then said, “but I’ve also spent my best ones.”
“Anything that’s going to be an extreme experience in one direction will be the most vulnerable to go in the other direction as badly,” Ronstadt explained. “I’ve had some great recording sessions I dug. I’ve had some that were just grim. I just couldn’t wait to get home and put a bullet in my brain.”
For Linda Ronstadt, at the time, making music had two conflicting sides. It could be difficult and miserable, but it could also be inspiring, vulnerable, and expressive.
“I think the best of the best is performing,” she elaborated. Live performing, that is. Ronstadt denounced performing on television, saying, “Television is like a laboratory condition. It’s just like test tube babies. It’s sort of like we’re pretending to communicate, it’s kind of hard to convince yourself that there’s going to be real people looking at you.”
Linda Ronstadt on Hating the Way Her Voice Sounds
While Linda Ronstadt shared that she enjoyed performing live, she also revealed that she disliked the way her voice sounded when recorded. When asked if she had a favorite among her own records, she replied vehemently,
“I hate them all. I don’t particularly care for the sound of my voice.” She continued, “I’m delighted when anybody likes it and I always try my best. I generally feel a song when I’m singing it but I just don’t like to hear it back.”
She explained that, with recordings, she felt there was always something that “fell apart” or felt off. “With anything I sing there’s always something that fell apart, either a track I didn’t like or I didn’t like some phrasing or some tone I got in my voice and it always brings me down so I try as hard as I can to avoid ever hearing myself sing,” she said.
However, when she performed live, there was no escaping her own voice. Then, she said, it was alright. “Except for when I’m singing on stage, I can’t help it,” she explained. “Then I don’t mind.”
Photo by Richard McCaffrey/ Michael Ochs Archive/ Getty Images
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