Music Quotes

All my life I just wanted to be a beatnik. Meet all the heavies, get stoned, get laid, have a good time. That's all I ever wanted. Except I knew I had a good voice and I could always get a couple of beers off of it. All of a sudden someone threw me in this rock 'n' roll band. They threw these musicians at me, man, and the sound was coming from behind. The bass was charging me. And I decided then and there that that was it. I never wanted to do anything else. It was better than it had been with any man, you know. Maybe that's the trouble.

People, whether they know it or not, like their blues singers miserable. They like their blues singers to die afterwards.

When I'm there, I'm not here. I can't talk about my singing; I'm inside it. How can you describe something you're inside of?

Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin. Now, they are so subtle, they can milk you with two notes. They can make you feel like they told you the whole universe. But I don't know that yet. All I got now is strength. Maybe if I keep singing, maybe I'll get it.

When I sing, I feel like when you're first in love. It's more than sex. It's that point two people can get to they call love, when you really touch someone for the first time, but it's gigantic, multiplied by the whole audience. I feel chills.

One good man, Oh ain't much, honey ain't much, It's only everything...

Why should I hold back now and sound mediocre, just so I can sound mediocre twenty years from now?

I started singing rhythmically, and now I'm learning from Otis Redding to push a song instead of just sliding over it.

What we've had to do is learn to control success, put it in perspective, and not lose the essence of what we're doing - the music.

You got to get it while you can.

You can't stay in your home town and play because the two people will get tired of seeing you.

If someone comes along, gonna give you some love and affection, I say get it while you can.

I don't know what happened. I just exploded. I'd never sung like that before. I used to stand still and sing simple, but you can't sing like that in front of a rock band. You have to sing loud and move wild with all that in back of you. Now, I don't know how to perform any other way.

The thing about my music is, there really is no point.

I don't feel connected to the whole vision of the record in the same way-it's got all these characters. The point of view of "Love Earth" and the point of view of "Break the Chain" are so different. It's not the same thing, but it is the same thing.

I especially love the pump organ on "Walkin' on the Road (to the Future)" and "The Wonder Won't Wait"-it adds this wheezing, groaning sound. It's almost as though another person, another set of lungs, is suddenly in the room.

Because the record companies, in their ultimate wisdom, seeing what a great thing digital was, they sold all the places where they made records. Now people want records and they haven't got a facility to make them in, so it takes months and months and months to get vinyl. Vinyl is ultimately much better.

World Record" has a looseness and a spontaneity that's rare in new recordings. It reminds me a little of listening to old 78-r.p.m. records-most early recording artists had just one three-minute shot in front of the microphone, and sometimes things got a little wild, a little free. How do you purposefully cultivate that feeling in the studio?

I play the songs, and we're doing it live, and everything happens, and then we capture it like that. Rick is a genius. It's so easy, because he loves music. You're not gonna find a person who loves music more than Rick. He's dedicated to preserving it.

The king is gone but he's not forgotten.