Quote of the Day (Rosanne Cash, on How a Song Becomes Universal)

“The more specific you are about places and characters, the more universal the song becomes.”—Rosanne Cash, quoted in Geoffrey Himes, “Rosanne Cash on Discovering New Artistic Terrain,” Smithsonian Magazine, November 2014

Quote of the Day (Rosanne Cash, on Her “Worker-Bee Mentality”)

“I have a real worker-bee mentality. Just show up, just do it. Even if you feel like s--t and you think you’re terrible and you’ll never get better and it will never go anywhere, just show up and do it. And, eventually, something happens.”—Singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash, quoted in Jim Windolf, “Country in the City,” New York Magazine, August 9-16, 2010

Rosanne Cash could have coasted on being the daughter of country great Johnny Cash, but her “worker-bee mentality” saved her—just as, I’m sure, it got her through cocaine addiction more than two decades ago, and, more recently, divorce, the death of her father, mother and stepmother (June Carter Cash), and brain surgery. She narrates all of this in her new memoir, Composed.

Cash’s account might just as easily been titled Surviving Sane—hardly easy to accomplish in either the entertainment business in general or the Nashville scene in particular. Good for her. She inspires all of us other wanna-be worker bees.