Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
When you want to die, you at least have a goal. You're aiming for something. It's not a good goal, but at least you want something. And you've got anger and fear, but at least you're feeling something.
If i believed in an outside force that we wanted to call God - and i believe that there is one. i think God would appreciate what i say, because i can't see God wanting to create a world full of idiots
You just realize that you don't know everything there is to know. The older I get, the less I know, and that's a good thing. When I was young, I knew everything, and everything wasn't necessarily good.
Some ways of using our thinking are really inspiring. There are people who use their thinking to race cars. People use their thinking to build rockets to the moon. It’s all just a use of your thinking.
Some ways of using our thinking are really inspiring. There are people who use their thinking to race cars. People use their thinking to build rockets to the moon. It's all just a use of your thinking.
Of course, I do occasionally arouse primeval instincts, but I mean, most men can do that. They can't do it to so many. I just happen to be able to do it to several thousand people. It's fun to do that.
Quite often when I record a song, writing it and making a demo is the big thing and, after that, I think, how do I actually translate this into real life? A lot of the time I think I can't be bothered.
At one time musical theater, particularly in the '40s and '50s, was a big source of pop songs. That's how musical theater started, really - it was just a way of linking several pop songs for the stage.
My ignorance would require a volume to itself. Between its covers would be preserved a record of the spurious model of all creation I had in my head, a prelapsarian construct, uncorrupted by the facts.
It got to the point where I couldn't afford to borrow any more money to lose. Know what I mean? That was just before 'Frampton,' my fourth album. As we were recording it, I was very down and depressed.
I was always going to be vulnerable when I left the Verve. It was a hardening experience for me. People saw me stripped down and decided to have their shot. I suppose they wanted to take me down a peg.
John had Julian and I had Zak so we'd try to do the fatherly things. We'd try to do manly things too; we'd go to the pub and bring Maureen and Cynthia a Babycham or something- a real Liverpool attitude
Don't be hard on yourself. And take as many chances, risks, as you can. You've got to be out there adventuring with the voice. Because if you're just a singer for the sake of it, it's not quite enough.
Clint Eastwood said, the only things America has contributed to civilization are the western and jazz. And I don't think westerns are bad, but lots of people make great cinema. But jazz is right there.
The Bee Gees were always heavily influenced by black music. As a songwriter, it's never been difficult to pick up on the changing styles of music out there, and soul has always been my favourite genre.
When I was doing something on someone else's dime, I was inclined to try to anticipate what they wanted. I knew that wasn't what an artist was supposed to do. In funding my own music, I found my voice.
As a creative individual, I really go out of my way to avoid the corporate scene in terms of songwriting. If the first question is how much money is it going to make, I'm going to be in trouble anyway.
I think Wilco is going to definitely stand the test of time - no question - and Uncle Tupleo, and the whole No Depression scene, which is now alt-country. I think that's going to be around a long time.
I think there are things in my story that have helped my creativity. Your father being killed, for instance, is one of the best things that could happen to a kid if he's going to write poetry or songs.
Stay away from those who would hang around you and drink and do drugs. Drugs are not the answer, because you have to remain focused. There is a lot to be had within music, but you have to stay focused.
A microphone has a certain range. It's not as good as your ears, but it will capture an enclosed space, the harmonic content in a room. Nice old tube mikes do that pretty well. And that's a good sound.
R&B and all that stuff was always very spare and spontaneous. Nobody made those records under solid gold situations. It was just in and out, and you didn't labor over the thing. I like music like that.
Life is a process of working out what's not working for you and disentangling yourself from it and trying then not walk into the same thing again. Watching your patterns and correcting them if you can.
The narrative songs were well-written, like an article in The New Yorker. They're nice and pat. They're more like I'm just showing I can do that when I write a song like that. It's not my true calling.
I want to do some different kind of songs, but say I want to do riffs, but I don't come up with any riffs that I really think are great. Then I can't do a riff album. I'm more of a song, melody person.
Little Steven - the songwriter, producer, and arranger - stayed alive doing the 'Lilyhammer' score. That pretty much took up three or four years of my life, and all of my musical energy went into that.
And if the world does turn, and if London burns, I'll be standing on the beach with my guitar. I want to be in a band, when I get to Heaven. Anyone can play guitar, and they won't be a nothing anymore.
Once you have MIDI information - I mean, it's a bit technical - that's your paint. You can slow down, pitch up, change notes within a different key. That's the foundation in which you can write things.
I've always found it pretty difficult to write a happy song. Since I was a kid, when I pick up my guitar it's been hard for me to write some sort of bubblegum lyrics. It's not really ever been my route.
Hardcore bands were coming out with names like Urban Waste and The Mob, you know, a lot of kind of tough names. So Beastie Boys was the stupidest name we could come up with. And unfortunately, it stuck.
I mean, you go to the internet and you can see all these conversations and arguments that our fans have about our music and that's wonderful to know, that people would take the time to be that involved.
There's songs that could either be taken as a conversation between two people, like "The Privateers," or "Why," from a much earlier record. Or "Glass Figurine." That's my version of a relationship song.
I'm the artist formally known as Beck. I have a genius wig. When I put that wig on, then the true genius emerges. I don't have enough hair to be a genius. I think you have to have hair going everywhere.
I clearly remember my father cutting our jumpers and our sports clothes with scissors - because he didn't want us to wear jogging bottoms and hoodies. He thought that would somehow set the police on us.
One of my earliest ventures was when I was nine years old. I realized there was a shortage of pencils at school, so I started Rent-a-Pencil. But I made a fundamental mistake. Everybody stole my pencils.
The drummer in my first band was killed in Vietnam. He kind of signed up and joined the marines. Bart Hanes was his name. He was one of those guys that was jokin' all the time, always playin' the clown.
Over the years, music put a weapon in my hand and words in my mouth, it backed me up and shielded me, it shook me and scared me and showed me the way; music opened me up to living and being and feeling.
I do more writing by myself than with anybody else. My best thing is sitting...around somewhere with a guitar, and having an idea. You never know where it'd come from. Songwriting is a God-given talent.
When you become a parent, you leave a lot of things behind and refocus, maybe on how simple life really is and what few things there really are to worry about. And everything else can go by the wayside.
A lot of great bluegrass comes out of Kentucky. There's a lot of great music, like the Judds, Billy Ray Cyrus, Ricky Skaggs, and Keith Whitley. There's a lot of bluegrass intertwined with country music.
Whether people like it or not, China is incredibly important to the future of mankind. For me, this is something that we all need to have intelligent discussions about in America, in Britain, in Europe.
There are many different ways of telling an interactive story, I think. I don't think there's a right one and a wrong one. There are different games telling different types of stories in different ways.
Nothing—absolutely nothing—in this life gives you more satisfaction than knowing you’re on the road to success and achievement. And nothing stands as a bigger challenge than making the most of yourself.
In regard to music, I just think that it's always best to have an attitude of being a perpetual student and always look to learn something new about music, because there's always something new to learn.
People say, 'Well, why don't you talk about being vegetarian?' And I'm like, 'People will find out.' The people who are interested in what I do and why I do it, being a vegetarian is a big part of that.
When we were writing songs for the Eagles, Don Henley would be involved in some new love relationship, and he was always excited about them. But we were all waiting for the day that they would break up.
I think after 9/11, here in America, I saw something extraordinary. I saw neighbors looking after neighbors. I don't think anybody asked who anybody voted for. It was people taking care of other people.
There was this discussion to know how long the human ear was really receptive to the music. A 74 minute CD is too long. We thought about making two CDs, 35 minutes each... But the songs need to breathe.
As much as being in a rock band can be really glamorous and exciting - and it can be a lot of things that people imagine it to be - if you just live that lifestyle, you're gonna burn out really quickly.
I was living on the wrong side of the tracks in Evanston, Illinois, in a home for boys. We had these Jackson 5 records. I really related to their voices - they were about my age, but they were doing it.