Music Quotes

You're headed for disaster cos you never read the signs. Too much love will kill you every time.

I actually felt sorry for Liverpool bands like Bunnymen and Wah!, having this immense pressure of following the Beatles. I suppose I responded to that challenge by being nothing like them. I carved my own thing.

Allowing valuable sound recordings to pass into the public domain does not create a public asset: it represents a massive destruction of U.K. wealth and a significant loss to the U.K. taxpayer.

For some, music is a limitless source of cheap content, just waiting to be exploited.

Money's Too Tight to Mention' was about as big an anti-Thatcherite message as you can get in pop music. There was a vast swath of the British media at that time that were rabid Thatcherites; do you think they are going to take kindly to me? Then I got hit by the left, because we were too popular.

I'm from the punk generation, but I make romantic, soft soul music. I like the bizarre disconnect of that but, clearly, some people don't.

At art school, a teacher said: 'The best paintings are when you get lost in a piece of work and start painting in a stream of consciousness.' I wanted to do music, not art, so started writing lyrics that way. The first song I wrote was called 'Ice Cream and Wafers.' The next was 'Holding Back the Years.'

I just want to write songs in my little corner. And I still love music, I've not been worn down by cynicism.

My dad knew I was mad about music. While he worked as a barber he would hear songs on the radio and we'd have endless discussions about them. So I got my first record player when I was 11 years old.

I feel enormously privileged to be part of the generation that witnessed the magic of the Beatles first hand, and I think 'A Hard Day's Night' connected with my four-year-old self because it was the whole package: an album and a movie.

I feel a bit like the antichrist as I had the bulk of my success in the 80s and I hate 80s music.

I first sang 'Holding Back the Years' in my earliest band, Frantic Elevators. When the Elevators split and I started Simply Red, I returned to the song and wrote the 'I'll keep holding on' chorus.

The last Simply Red album, 'Stay,' was good, but the first three tracks were designed for radio play. They were written to meet people's expectations of Simply Red.

Nothing had the chance to be good nothing ever could.

We would never have gained the attention without a major label throughout the world initially. I just got tired of them taking all the money.

The truth is there was a golden era in music from 1962 to 1978 - after that it all went a bit tits up. I blame the fucking drum machine and the fucking shoulder pads of the 1980s.

I first heard Miles Davis as a student, when I was struck by his extraordinary musicianship, and his work did affect some of the sounds of Simply Red. He was one of the reasons I chose to have a muted trumpet on 'Holding Back the Years.'

The reason I'm uncomfortable with celebrity and don't care about it is that none of that matters. I think that's why people attack me and think I'm arrogant. I've never felt the need to justify myself. If I make good music, that music will do the job for me, even when I'm dead and gone.

As I've gotten older I've got more bass in my voice but also because I don't talk very much during the day I've managed to keep my voice in good condition.

My dad was one of the reasons I kept Simply Red going so long. I was brought up to stick at things. I was the only songwriter in Simply Red, so I could have toured under my own banner. But I'd developed the name, so I stuck with it.