Music Quotes

I think the music reflects the state that society's in. It doesn't suggest the state. I think poets, musicians, artists or whatever they are of the age, not only do they lead that age on but they reflect the age. And I think that's what the pop music is doing-it's mainly reflecting.

I'm a Loser,' 'Help,' 'Strawberry Fields,' they are all personal records. I always wrote about me when I could. I didn't really enjoy writing third person songs about people who lived in concrete flats and things like that. I like first person music. But because of my hang-ups and many other things; I would only now and then specifically write about me.

I write songs because that's the thing I chose to do. And I can't help writing them, that's a fact. Sometimes I felt as though you worked to justify your existence, but you don't; you work to exist, and vice versa, and that's it, really.

Just before I record, I go buy a few albums to see what people are doing. Whether they have improved any, or whether anything happened. And nothing's really happened. There's a lot of great guitarists and musicians around, but nothing's happening, you know.

If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then in that respect you can call me that... I believe in what I do, and I'll say it.

People are afraid of Beatle music. They are still afraid of my songs. Because they got that big image thing: You can't do a Beatle number... You can't touch a Lennon song; only Lennon can do it... It's garbage! Anybody can do anything. A few people in the past have done Beatle songs. But in general they feel you can't touch them. And there are so many good singles that the Beatles wrote that were never released. Why don't people do them? It's good for me; it's good for Paul. It's good for all of us.

All music is rehash. There are only a few notes. Just variations on a theme. Try to tell the kids in the Seventies who were screaming to the Bee Gees that their music was just the Beatles redone. There is nothing wrong with the Bee Gees.

I think Mick [Jagger] got jealous. I was always very respectful about Mick and the Stones but he said a lot of tarty things about the Beatles, which I am hurt by. I'd like to just list what we did and what the Stones did two months after on every f***king album... he imitates us.

I've got used to the fact-just about- that whatever I do is going to be compared to the other Beatles. If I took up ballet dancing, my ballet dancing would be compared with Paul's bowling.

Carrying the Beatles or the '60s dream around all your life is like carrying the Second World War and Glenn Miller around. That's not to say you can't enjoy Glenn Miller or the Beatles, but to live in that dream is the twilight zone. It's not living now. It's an illusion.

Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it.

Yeah we all shine on, like the moon, and the stars, and the sun.

If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry'.

We were all on this ship in the sixties, our generation, a ship going to discover the New World. And the Beatles were in the crow's nest of that ship.

Lots of people who complained about us receiving the MBE received theirs for heroism in the war - for killing people. We received ours for entertaining other people. I'd say we deserve ours more.

You have to be a bastard to make it, and that's a fact. And the Beatles are the biggest bastards on earth.

It was like being in the eye of a hurricane. You'd wake up in a concert and think, Wow, how did I get here?

When real music comes to me - the music of the spheres, the music that surpasseth understanding - that has nothing to do with me, 'cause I'm just the channel. The only joy for me is for it to be given to me, and to transcribe it like a medium...those moments are what I live for.

I always remember to thank Jesus for the end of my touring days; if I hadn't said that the Beatles were 'bigger than Jesus' and upset the very Christian Ku Klux Klan, well, Lord, I might still be up there with all the other performing fleas! God bless America. Thank you, Jesus.

Elvis really died the day he joined the army. That's when they killed him, and the rest was a living death.