Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I just wanted to eat, to survive. I started singing a cappella in bars. I saved up money to get my first guitar and started writing songs.
I got into a lot of trouble. Maybe that's why my parents didn't really like me and I didn't blend in with my family. I was always the naughty one.
I always see my music for its rewards rather than its awards. But I always thought if there was one award I'd want to win, it would be the Mercury.
When you have a lot of fake selves, most of the time it's because you haven't had parents around so you try to build characters to protect yourself.
If I weren't musical, then I would have just published a book, you know? But I'm lucky enough to play piano, and so I use piano to convert my poems.
If I win the Mercury Prize, I'll be very honoured. If I don't win it, I won't have lost it. Someone else will have won it. And that will also be good.
William Blake is my favorite poet of all time, and he said that he wasn't quite familiar with the sounds of music. If so, he would have been a musician.
If you've got great parents, once you grow up and have to live by yourself, you're going to create some fake self as you get comfortable wherever you are.
Obviously you live life for yourself and have your choice to believe what you want to believe in, but I know that the Bible can be used to appreciate life.
With this sort of career, you need determination. You've got to sacrifice a lot of things: family, friends - not that I had any - but you sacrifice everything.
I've always been shy, but every time that I sing or I perform, when music comes out of me, it is the only thing I can relate to, it's the only thing I can give.
I'm from a middle class family but my father squandered all the money, so I didn't really run around with rich people. I was very judgmental towards a lot of them.
That's how I always try to start my thoughts. I write them down first, eventually it turns into a poem, and if I feel like composing something to it, then I do that.
I've learned in the little bit of my life so far that you can't fool people. And so I only tell people what I think about: my ambitions, my dreams, what inspires me.
We always blame other people when things go wrong. For example, family to friends, you think they'll stay by your side, and you realise they never do. But that's life.
I loved English literature - if didn't it would have been hard - but I had to learn it myself. I remembered ways to repeat words, to put more emphasis on certain lines.
The thing is: I was quite slow when I was younger. I might have been smart - I don't know - but I was slow talking to people. And as you can see, I don't talk very loud.
I know, deep down, that what makes my music what it is are my words. It always starts from me wanting to say something. Once I've run out of things to say, I'll be done.
When I started singing about my life and what I was going through, I felt more confident. It was my own life, I was being myself, I was telling people what was happening.
I would describe myself as outspoken. Not political. Outspoken about what I want to say. There are things that need to be said... and I think it's my obligation to say them.
When I think about Edmonton, Silver Street and Pymmes Park, the old people whose faces are so unhappy, it pushes me to be better. I want to be better to help places like this.
If you have parents who can't show you love, a kid can grow up to look arrogant. Because they need to create a fake self. Or they think they're more powerful than they really are.
Why are there not cabs in Edmonton? Why are there cabs in central London but not here? And if they're going to be here, they should be cheaper. And travelcards, they're expensive.
I personally don't know what nerves are. I don't get scared when I'm going to play music. But I think something, maybe my fears, are buried into my songs. Because I'm singing them.
When I lived in Paris, I would shop at antique shops and buy these huge coats because I was very cold. And then I started performing in them because I felt safe. I never stopped doing that.
In fact, I might be confident for the human race because of what the human race has given me. When I was in the street and bars, people always came up to me and said, "Don't stop, keep going."
Now I'm standing in front of a thousand people. They're all looking at me, but they're sitting down. They're surrendered, so I have to keep on proving myself to them and giving them all my passion.
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.
I think it is all about creating characters, mixing them up with the stars and the light-years, and coming back to Earth, because we're from this universe. We're not just New York or London; we're stars.
Most people think a song is a song - three minutes, and you're done. I don't think this way. Songs are my wings. They're what I use to fly. It's very important for me to put everything in the right place.
I felt like I was homeless anyway, so the change in environment wasn't that much of a big deal. I felt pretty much the same. After six months of living on the streets [in Camden], I started singing, busking.
The meaning of love is obviously huge - but for me, it means be nice to people, and people will be nice to you back. Love is a selfless place to be. There is no safer place to be than under the canopy of love.
I'm actually doing what I like doing, which is mixing opera music and classical music with soul and folk. And I was writing and talking about what I've actually experienced, and I don't think that's very common.
If you live in central London, that's probably fine for you, but in places like Edmonton, where you're almost out of sight of London, you've got to pay more and more to get into central London. How does that work?
When I started writing again, especially when I listened to French music and Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, I realized that these lots talked about themselves. The greatest artists, they didn't sing; they only spoke.
Music is the reason I started talking to people. When I started singing in bars and trains, I began to learn the behaviour of people. Music was the bait that helped me get something from them and give myself to them.
If I'm being forced to do something I don't want to do, my real self comes out. But whether or not I'm aware of it, no matter what happens, I'm always going to have a fake self and I'm not going to judge my fake self.
If I'm being forced to do something I don't want to do, my real self comes out. But whether or not I'm aware of it, no matter what happens, I'm always going to have a fake self, and I'm not going to judge my fake self.
I have met a few people, who are so respected in the fashion industry and all around the world, and are still very humble. People who have it all but act like they only just started, it's beautiful. This is what I want to be.
I like it when cities are melancholic. When it started snowing for example, I felt very lonely. I felt very comfortable and very relaxed. When that happens, I write. So I've been writing, not a lot, but I'm inspired everyday.
The real self is who you are when you're at home, when you're comfortable, and the false self is what you're pretending - and the reason you pretend is because you want to create a character for the surroundings you're within.
I believe when the music is being sung or being played, at the end of it, there's some sort of grace and understanding. And that's all I want for humanity. I just want us to understand each other. That's the point of my music.
In Paris, I was really singing for the sake of living. But eventually people said, 'Keep going; you've got a great voice,' and I started having confidence in my voice all of a sudden. That's when I started creating my own music.
People don't always realize that as a performer, you've got to relive those moments. Memories crash through your brains, and you've got to think about your past and the reason why you wrote the song. All that emotion comes back.
I was very rebellious, but my family was strict Christians - they would ask us, "What's the shortest verse in the Bible?" and I was the one who always said "John 11:35" straightaway. It stayed with me, the Bible has stayed with me.
It stayed with me - the Bible has stayed with me. I've grown out of it because, obviously, you live life for yourself and have your choice to believe what you want to believe in, but I know that the Bible can be used to appreciate life.
I started understanding William Blake and George Orwell more and more. It's amazing how we go to school when we're so young, read all of these books, just trying to memorize them. When you start to live, you don't have to memorize anything.
I don't think I'm a singer, I think I'm an expressionist. But it takes time to put it in people's minds that this guy is not singing, 'Baby, I want to have you.' This guy is actually thinking about what he's saying. This guy has something to say.
When I first started singing in Paris, I sounded horrible: I was just singing to get some money to eat. And I wasn't singing my own songs: it was Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix. Eventually, when I wrote my own music, my style just came out of my own place.
When I was a kid, I remember seeing Michael Jackson. I thought he was an alien. You don't grow up to be like Michael Jackson. I'm not saying I'm Michael Jackson, but Mercury Prizes are for aliens, basically. So I was very chuffed that I got nominated, and then I won.