The 41-year-old, Tennessee-born songwriter and performer Valerie June is as much a mystic as she is an entertainer. With insight and introspection, power, and positivity, June writes songs that seem both simple and of the eternal.
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The Grammy-nominated artist is as interesting to hear during a Ted Talk as she is with a banjo or acoustic guitar in her hand. Given all this, one might wonder what the yoga-practicing musician has to say about life and love, the world at large, her craft, and more.
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Below, we will dive into the best 20 Valerie June quotes.
1. “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.”
2. “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.”
3. “I was working like a dog as a housekeeper, barista, nanny, and 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.”
4. “Amalgamation is a good word that I like to use—musically and in every way.”
5. “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.”
6. “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.”
7. “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.”
8. “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.”
9. “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.”
10. “My music confuses people because they think I will sound a certain way because I look a certain way with the dreads.”
11. “I like performing live more than anything. I get a little bit afraid in the studio.”
12. “When I was a teenager, Britney Spears was it—that was the pop world that was happening, and I knew I wasn’t in it.”
13. “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.”
14. “I don’t care if you’re Muslim or Christian or Buddhist or whatever your religion is, when you listen to a spiritual song and you really open your heart, you can feel it. You can feel the message of it. Just a simple story.”
15. “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.”
16. “As soon as I could talk, I was bellowing at the top of my lungs. My parents couldn’t get over how weird I sounded – like an old man when I was just a toddler! But no one was gonna shut me up.”
17. “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.”
18. “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.”
19. “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.”
20. “My number one style requirement is to have fun getting dressed. Nothing is too old, expensive, cheap, cute, or ugly for me.”
Photo by Renata Raksha / Courtesy Shorefire
