Quotes by Roisin Murphy - Page 2 | QuoteForever

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I'm really into architecture, I'm a member of the Brutalist Appreciation Society; I'm a member of the Postmodern Society. I write letters to save buildings.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Appreciation
Architecture
Letters
Postmodern
Buildings
Copy Quote
Someone said to me a long time ago, 'You're a drag queen,' and at the time I was a little like... hello? But then I realized over the years that I actually am.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Drag
Hello
Long Time
Long Time Ago
Time Me Long
Time Long Me
Queen
Realized
Copy Quote
One night, my father woke me up because he'd come home with a horse. Two days later, I asked my mother where it was, and she said it had run away. She'd sold it.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Horse
Home Father Me
Sold
Woke
Copy Quote
When I had my first child, I went back to Ireland to live with my mother. So, a typical day there was me being a mother, with my mum showing me how to do things.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Ireland
Typical
Me Day Live
First Child
Showing
Copy Quote
There's a great deal of tension between so many kind of distinctive and restrictive female archetypes and images in the world. When you play with the archetypes, you get free.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Distinctive
Tension
Great World Free
Archetypes
Great Deal
Images
Restrictive
Copy Quote
I've not got any terrible stories of what I had to do to scrabble my way to the top, obviously, because I didn't scrabble my way to the top. I just scrabbled my way to the middle!
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Scrabble
Copy Quote
I found my style in my aunt's attic. She hoarded all her '60s clothes there, along with the tiaras she'd won as a beauty queen, and I'd steal her wedding dress to wear around town.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Wedding
Aunt
Attic
Steal
Copy Quote
I always try to lace my work with just a teensy-weensy bit of humour. It's rather like putting a sprig of feathery stuff in a flower arrangement: I believe humour is a great balancer.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Flower
Humour
Lace
Work Great Always
Work Great Believe
Arrangement
Putting
Copy Quote
I was surrounded by music in my family, surrounded by people who sang songs - every single person I knew as a child growing up had one, two, three songs they knew from start to finish.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Single Person
Finish
Sang
Copy Quote
Fashion in the mid-'90s was too easy. Artistic culture was very earnest, so I was flamboyant and dangerous. I wanted to be seen as more than an outline, so I used fashion to say that for me.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Artistic
Earnest
Flamboyant
Outline
Copy Quote
I never thought that was even possible, to have your friends working with you. In the music, yes, in the creative side, yes, but in the business side, I need people who take me fully seriously.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Business Music Your
Business Side
Copy Quote
I work with men a lot, and there's a yin and a yang that goes on when you work one guy and one girl. And there's things that I bring that they don't bring and things they bring and I don't bring.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Yang
Yin
Copy Quote
I'm quite drawn to women artists who use themselves in their work. There is a very feminine point of view, the use of female archetypes. I love artists who play with those kind of things genuinely.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Feminine
Point Of View
Love Work Women
Archetypes
Genuinely
Drawn
Copy Quote
My da used to sing 'Take Her Up to Monto' to me when we were walking down the street - he still does, actually - because it's got a walking tempo, and I still sing it to myself when I'm walking along.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Tempo
Myself Me Street
Copy Quote
I don't think Ireland has really embraced me, but it is not really for me to say. Obviously, people shouldn't embrace me just because I'm Irish, but it is where I'm from. I'm extremely proud to be Irish.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Embrace
Ireland
Me People Proud
Me People Where
Copy Quote
I think my whole career has been marked - or marred - by what people presume about me. But even that's fed back into the creativity. I'm saying that I'm about contradiction, that you can't put me into a box.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Contradiction
Fed
Me Creativity People
Marked
Presume
Copy Quote
When I started out, the idea of wearing interesting clothes seemed to contradict the idea of being a serious artist. The first Moloko record, 'Do You Like My Tight Sweater?' was kind of a reaction to all that.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Artist
Clothes
Interesting
Serious
Idea
Contradict
Wearing
Record
Reaction
Seemed
Sweater
Tight
Copy Quote
I'm a situationist when it comes to anything creative, and that stands with the visual part of anything I do as well. I deal with the concrete things I have in front of me, and I think that's a wise way to be.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Concrete
Visual
Stands
Copy Quote
I became a singer and a songwriter by learning on the spot, so think I always need to be slightly out of my comfort zone when I do something. I've never stopped being experimental because that's how I started.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Comfort
Comfort Zone
Zone
Experimental
Spot
Slightly
Songwriter
Copy Quote
The day I turned 16, I moved into my own flat. My parents had just broken up, and I didn't want to go back to Ireland with my mother. I was doing my A-levels, and my friends would come over and watch 'Twin Peaks.'
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Ireland
Twin Peaks
Twin
Peaks
Copy Quote
If you were a child and every time your relatives had a few drinks, they'd be running after you with scary faces and big hands to pull you back to sing Don't Cry For Me Argentina, you wouldn't like singing either.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Running
Children
Hands
Copy Quote
I didn't spend my childhood trying to be a performer; it was a big surprise to me that this was what I was doing. But it has always felt quite natural to me. I wasn't taught to do what I do; I found out bit by bit.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Surprise
Childhood Always Me
Big Surprise
Copy Quote
I don't really know if I am thought of as a style icon. I don't feel like that at all. Music comes first, but I also just enjoy being creative in whatever I'm doing, be it wearing clothes, making images, or performing.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Icon
Images
Copy Quote
The Church controlled so much in Ireland for so long. I'm not going to get into whether or not religion per se is a bad thing, but my point is the political aspect in Ireland was way out of kilter, and it wasn't right.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Religion
Aspect
Church
Ireland
Long
Political
Much
Bad
Bad Thing
Per
Point
Right
Whether
Copy Quote
When I go home, I go to my house in the countryside. I don't hang out in Dublin. I go home to be with my family and have a rest and so on. I don't know anything about the Irish music scene, and I've never felt part of it.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Countryside
Dublin
Family Home Music
Go Home
Music Scene
Copy Quote
'Take Her Up to Monto' is a very satirical song. I don't really like people calling it a folk song because it kind of isn't. It's a bit cheeky calling it 'Take Her Up to Monto,' but the whole idea was to be very irreverent.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Cheeky
Irreverent
Satirical
Folk
Copy Quote
The sound of 'Take Her Up to Monto' and 'Hairless Toys' is the sound of me and the producer in the studio doing whatever we like. There is no reference. It's too easy to be referential now; I'm trying to find something else.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Producer
Reference
Something Else
Copy Quote
I was about 10 when I first began to sing. My mother had been away for three weeks, and I learned 'Don't Cry for Me Argentina.' When she came back, I sang it in front of her, my auntie Linda, my father, my uncle Jim, and my grandmother.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Argentina
Mother Me Father
Jim
Linda
Sang
Uncle
Copy Quote
The reason why I'm not a pop star is I would have hated it. I'll stick to being an artist. I'm not trying not to be commercial; I am just doing what I do. I have finely tuned tastes, and that gets prioritized above everything else. That's just how it is.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Artist
Reason
Above
Star
Commercial
Tastes
Everything Else
Finely
Gets
Pop Star
Stick
Tuned
Copy Quote
On 'Overpowered,' there was a nostalgia for disco and early house music. But I'm a modernist and futurist as well. I do believe - and this is going to sound really pretentious, I know - that humanity will figure it out, so I'm optimistic about the future.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Disco
Nostalgia
Pretentious
Modernist
Copy Quote
I work extremely hard, but I love every minute of it. Although I couldn't work as hard if I felt there was a ceiling on anything. I spent £125,000 on four pictures for the sleeves for 'Overpowered,' and I loved spending it! It was like making a little movie.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Sleeves
Love Work Anything
Ceiling
Love Work Hard
Copy Quote
I collect words and phrases and cut things out of newspapers and keep scrapbooks and write down ideas in my phone or 10,000 notebooks all around my house. It's not very organised, but I keep collecting, so I did have a lot of material to help me to write songs.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Collecting
House
Ideas
Newspapers
Organised
Words
Collect
Cut
Phone
Material
Notebooks
Copy Quote
I use maps in my phone a great deal because I can't tell left from right. Having easy access to maps has given me a completely different life. When I first moved to London, I couldn't get anywhere and spent so much money on cabs because I couldn't figure it out.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Different Life
Easy Access
Maps
Life Money Great
Great Deal
So Much Money
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My family were wheeler-dealer class. They were their own bosses and very glamorous. We lived in a beautiful, big townhouse in Arklow, in Ireland, that we couldn't afford to heat. My father had a business fitting bar furniture, and my mother is an antiques dealer.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Antiques
Dealer
Fitting
Furniture
Glamorous
Heat
Ireland
Family Business Mother
Bar
Bosses
Copy Quote
We were brought up to think we were amazing. Maybe I was too confident, too full of myself. I found school difficult. I'd get followed home by 20 kids throwing stuff at me. The teachers didn't like me, either. We left Ireland for Manchester when I was 12, and I was happy to go.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Ireland
Manchester
Throwing
Followed
Copy Quote
That idea of not always being in control of the primitive parts of yourself - the bits that fall in love or the bits that dance or lose the plot or drink too much - and putting that across... that's pop for me. It's playing with all the different colours of the rainbow of life.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Bits
Different Colours
Plot
Primitive
Rainbow
Life Love Me
Colours
Copy Quote
I really do prioritise humour in people. It's a sign of intelligence. One of the most important things I heard that moulded me was Derek and Clive. That sense of release when I heard them for the first time, crying and laughing, was akin to seeing Sonic Youth for the first time.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Humour
Important Things
Release
Sonic Youth
Crying
Sonic
Copy Quote
I went to bed on the night of Brexit, of that vote for leaving the E.U., and I said to everyone it will be a 70/30: nobody wants to leave the E.U. I woke up on the bus in Glastonbury, and everybody had their heads in their hands. They could not believe it. I could not believe it.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Bed
Leaving
Vote
Brexit
Heads
Woke
Copy Quote
With Moloko, we tried to be the opposite of what was out there at the time. I like to be different. In the mid-Nineties, music was quite dour and serious, and everything was dressed down. So we went the other way. Our first record was about not wanting to do four-to-the-floor dance music.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Dance Music
Time Music Way
Time Music Dance
Be Different
Dressed
Copy Quote
I like taking different elements - clothes, shoes, lighting - and creating a total transformation. But it's never about hiding: it's about drawing something out from deep inside of me that's really true. I'm always trying really hard to tell you the truth. That's what this is all about for me.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Deep Inside
Drawing
Elements
Hiding
Lighting
Transformation
Truth Always Me
Different Elements
Copy Quote
I'm proud that I've even had a career, but 'proud' isn't the first word I'd use. I feel lucky that I moved to Manchester when I was 12 because I don't think I could have done this in Ireland. And I feel lucky that the government took care of me from the age of 16 to when I signed my first record deal at 19.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Ireland
Manchester
Signed
Copy Quote
A year before I met Mark Brydon - he was the one I used to make all the music with in Moloko - I was living in Sheffield with a guy who was studying architecture. I used to go to his college and crash the lectures there. I had enrolled to do a fine art course, but then I met Mark, and we signed a record deal instead.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Architecture
College
Crash
Fine
Guy
Lectures
Mark
Sheffield
Art Music Architecture
Course
Deal
Enrolled
Fine Art
Instead
Record
Met
Signed
Studying
Copy Quote
I was given this beautiful coffee table book of Soviet architecture for my birthday. It has a lot of holiday camps, swimming pools, theatres, and buildings that were built for leisure activities. Incredible architecture in the most obscure places. It's a little bit sad, because a lot of it has been left to fall apart.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Birthday
Sad
Architecture
Book
Camps
Coffee
Fall
Given
Holiday
Left
Leisure
Little Bit
Obscure
Soviet
Swimming
Activities
Apart
Bit
Buildings
Coffee Table
Places
Pools
Table
Copy Quote
Performance was a shock to me. The first time I remember feeling I could do it was during the making of my first video, 'Fun for Me.' I couldn't sleep the night before the shoot, I was so frightened. I had to play a ghost and a piece of merchandise in a shop window, and I had no idea whether I was going to be able to pull it off.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Frightened
Ghost
Merchandise
No Idea
Shock
Window
Time Me Night
Shop
Shop Window
Copy Quote
On 'Hairless Toys,' I've tried to create an ambiguous character to go with an ambiguous record. She's anything but rock n' roll - she's so not rock n' roll that, in a twisted way, she's kind of radical. She's like someone from my memory, almost like my mother, and she's lost in some space-time between the 1960s and the late '80s.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Ambiguous
Late
Radical
Toys
Twisted
Record
Memory
Rock
Tried
Copy Quote
When you're a kid, right, and you're surrounded by all these other kids, and let's say they don't have the same interests or the same goals or the same world view as you... It's difficult because a child doesn't know that there's another way. A child doesn't know that there's another place outside of the systems and hierarchies in school.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Another Way
World View
Hierarchies
Other Kids
Systems
Copy Quote
When a friend of mine introduced me to the music of Luca C & Brigante I was stuck with an apocalyptic feeling, as if I were listening to the sound of a party at the end of the world. And with such strong imagery coming to mind I was only too happy to write with them when they asked. Flash of Light is about that last night on earth, a forewarning of the end of an era and a last chance to Love.
Roisin Murphy / Singer-Songwriter
Party
Strong
Writing
Copy Quote

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