Below are quotes from the book BLABBERROCK. It's stuff that famous musicians have said. Some quotes I connect with, some I don't, some of them had me thinking, some are just fun.
1- I believe that a performer sometimes lives in this netherworld for the benefit of those who can't go there; the listeners' lives are made richer by getting the feeling from the artist, but they can't join him at the source.
2- There's nothing worse than a whiny musician. Make your work, stay committed to your work, stand by your work and shut up.
3- I have to create. I have to dig in the earth; I have to make something grow; I have to bake something; I have to put something out. It's not a real need to prove anything . It's just my way of life.
4- I'm the one that's got to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to.
5- A rock 'n' roll band needs to be able to get under people's skin. You should be able to clear the room at the drop of a hat.
6- You see cowards a lot when you're doing something that's honest, because you remind them of their own dishonesty.
7- Well, living is dificult, period. Being happy and serene and all that stuff doesn't necessarily get any easier just because you're more mature- or sober.
8- I believe that you learn more from failing than from succeeding. Yet we have a built-in fear of failure, a shame of failure, which I think is pretty harmful.
9- Knowing that everything's futile but still fighting, still raging against the dying of the light- that's what motivates me all the time...... If you hold that sense of futility in your head for too long, it can begin to eat into you. You can still be aware of it but find a place for it where you can actually exist comfortably and enjoy things. So it still doesn't matter if we all die, but given that, you may aswell do something that's really good fun.
10- Without reservation I think it's very important for youth to have anger and awareness of the nowness. I think all those things are part and parcel of being young. But I think that's just a passing grace and then you shift to another viewpoint in life that's tempered by experiences, and the future becomes very important. But you need all the rest, that vortex of mess and misbehaviour, to then straighten up and see where the future can go.
11- I'm sure if there's a new fascism, it won't come from skinheads and punks. It will come from people who eat granola and believe they know how the world should be.
12- For a while it was assumed that I was writing women's songs. Then men began to notice that they saw themselves in the songs too. A good piece of art should be androgynous. I'm not a feminist. That's too divisional for me.
13- The best stuff is primitive enrgy and has no bullshit. Rock 'n' roll gets through to you. It got through to me of all the things that were happening when I was 15. Rock 'n' roll then was real; everything else was unreal. The thing about music, good music- whatever good means and all that shit- is that it's real, and realism gets through to you despite yourself. You recognize something in it which is true, like all true art.
14- Virgin offered me a deal in 1979, and I turned 'em down.... offered me a lot of money. I asked Richard Branson (founder of Virgin) to name two songs off my last album, and he couldn't do it. So I told him to fuck off.
15- When you play from your heart, all of a sudden there's no gravity. You don't feel the weight of the world, of bills, of anything. That's why people love it. Your so-called insurmountable problems disappear, and instead of problems you get possibilities.
16- Just because you like my stuff doesn't mean I owe you anything.
17- In my performances I don't consciously perform. I find that when I consciously do it, I make mistakes. When I don't think and just go for it, it all works out and it's basically flawless. When I second guess it and think "Well, what am I going to do here, or what note an I going to sing or which place am I going to move?" ultimately I always mess up.
18- I think the whole conception of love is something that the previous generation invents to justify their having created you. You know I think the real reason children are born is because parents are bored... they have children to amuse themselves... Then, to justify to the kid the reason he exists they tell him there is such a thing as love and that's where you come from.
19- You get inside the music to such an extent that you kind of are the music, or the music's you. You're thinking about it but you're not thinking about it. Sometimes I think it's almost a flashing backwards and forwards of intellect and intuition.... You're just sort of flying along, and then you have another conscious moment.
20- I think most people are very insecure and attention is being loved, almost. It's being fulfilled. When you reach a point of success you find yourself as empty as you ever were., because nothing outside of yourself could ever make you feel whole. And that's when people put guns in their mouths or become drug addicts or whatever addiction they choose.
21- I thought I was used to everything. But yesterday it dawned on me that there's a possibility that I'm becoming.... everything.....I.....detest.
22- Although we have this divinity, or creativity, within us, it's covered with material energy, and a lot of the time our actions come from a mundane level. We're like beggars in the goldmine, where everything has really enourmous potential and perfection, but we're all so pre-occupied with the dust of our desires on our mirrors.
23- I assume that we will blow ourselves up. I don't think people are gonna smart up in time. But on the other hand, I don't deny the possibility of hope. Action is the antidote to despair.
24- The reason I latched onto this whole folk thing is, similiarly to punk, it's of the people. It's subcorporate music. The whole problem with folk with me is it's so folky. But then I show up at these folk festivals, and everybody's so laid back, everybody's so unpretentious- as oppossed to when I'm playing at rock festivals, and it's like "I would like to smile at you, but I'm trying to be really cool."
25- Live Aid makes us feel a bit more comfortable to slightly relieve the discomfort of a nation in famine. But really the only way we can make them much more comfortable is by enduring a much higher level of discomfort ourselves. And we're not willing to do that. I'm not willing to do that. And I think that is evil.
26- Politicians are necessary, and it'd be foolish to blame them for our troubles. They're just doing what they've always done- looking to survive, looking to climb, trying to please everyone at once, and grinning and lying while they're doing it.
27- Mold your world, don't let it mold you.
28- Stardom and fame is bullshit that sucks you in and if you're not fortunate you can get so sucked in that you start believing it.
29- Somebody said to me, "But the Beatles were anti-materialistic." That's a huge myth. John and I literally used to sit down and say, "Now, let's write a swimming pool."
30- You wonder about people who made a fortune, and you always think they drank it up or they stuck it up their nose. That's not usually what brings on the decline. It's usually the battle to keep your creative child alive while keeping the business shark alive. You have to develop cunning, and shrewdness, and other things which are not well suited to the arts.
31- The world don't need anymore songs. If nobody wrote anymore songs from this day on, the world ain't gonna suffer for it.
32- I'm only interested in heavy metal when it's me who's playing it.... I suppose it's a bit like smelling your own farts.
33- If some people had their way, they'd just want me to weep and suffer for them for the rest of my life, because people live vicariously through their artists.
34- I don't listen to music. I hate music.
1- bryan ferry
2- tori amos
3- bette midler
4- jimi hendrix
5- paul westerberg
6- sinead o connor
7- bonnie raitt
8- peter gabriel
9- robert smith
10- david bowie
11- brian eno
12- joni mitchell
13- john lennon
14- elvis costello
15- carlos santana
16- bob dylan
17- teddy pendergrass
18- richard hell
19- richard thompson
20- boy george
21- bjork
22- george harrison
23- joan baez
24- ani difranco
25- pete townshend
26- ray charles
27- daryl hall
28- george harrison
29- paul mccartney
30- joni mitchell
31- bob dylan
32- john entwistle
33- joni mitchell
34- john lydon
