Music Quotes

Life's just a cocktail party - on the street.

I got nasty habits; I take tea at three.

I believe we should encourage children to sing and play instruments from an early age.

I came into music just because I wanted the bread. It's true. I looked around and this seemed like the only way I was going to get the kind of bread I wanted.

No one should care if the Rolling Stones have broken up, should they? I mean, when the Beatles broke up, I couldn't give a shit. Thought it was a very good idea. Why should I live in the past just for their petty... satisfaction?

I was always a singer. I always sang as a child. I was one of those kids who just liked to sing. Some children sing in choirs; others like to show off in front of the mirror. I was in the church choir and I also loved listening to singers on the radio - the BBC or Radio Luxembourg - or watching them on TV and in the movies.

It's kind of limiting using your intellect to write songs like Brown Sugar, isn't it? The only thing I'm really interested in is comparative religion and ancient history.

In England you're skewered on the altar of pop culture if you become pretentious.

Samba rhythm is a great one to sing on, but it's also got some other suggestions in it, an undercurrent of being primitive - because it is a primitive African, South American, Afro-whatever-you-call-that rhythm. So to white people, it has a very sinister thing about it.

I don't think people care about the mechanics of songwriting.

It's heartening to return to live music, heartening for people like me in a band. It's a very traditional thing to return to. It re-validates the original form that we fell in love with.

No one, but no one, is equal, or ever will be. Elvis was and is supreme.

He [Bo Diddley] was a wonderful, original musician who was an enormous force in music and was a big influence on The Rolling Stones. He was very generous to us in our early years and we learned a lot from him. We will never see his like again.

I'm not in love with things at the moment. I was never crazy about Nirvana - too angst-ridden for me. I like Pearl Jam. I prefer them to a lot of other bands. There's a lot of angst in a lot of it, which is one of the great things to tap into. But I'm not a fan of moroseness.

I love country music, but I find it very hard to take it seriously. I also think a lot of country music is sung with the tongue in cheek, so I do it tongue in cheek.

I think there's a reason why wine figures into so many religions. There's something transcendent about it. It's sort of the way that music is more than the sum of its parts. You have all these elements that make up the terroir that wine can communicate.

Recognize this as a holy gift and celebrate this chance to be alive and breathing.

One of the challenges we set up for 'Puscifer' was to come up with a core identity and see how far we can push it.

I think the Grammys are nothing more than some gigantic promotional machine for the music industry. They cater to a low intellect and they feed the masses. They don't honor the arts or the artist for what he created. It's the music business celebrating itself.

I believe that music is a force in itself. It is there and it needs an outlet, a medium. In a way, we are just the medium.