Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I did a lot of heavy-lifting - construction, demolition, that kind of thing. Dusty, dirty work.
Music is not a spectator sport, you have to be involved - fully involved - or you get left behind.
I'm born and bred out of Detroit. Detroit is an interesting place. You've got to be from somewhere.
Every 20 years or so, I feel that young people confront the same issues - a new war, new challenges.
In Detroit there are a lot of houses they are going to demolish because no one is taking care of them.
Where other people live in an artificial world, I feel I live in the real world. And nothing beats reality.
That's the way I always listened to music. I'd listen and copy it. I play by ear so that's easier than reading.
There are beautiful songs people write about love and dancing. But it's political issues that should be addressed.
I'm lucky. It's okay that success has come later to me, because I might have burned up if it had happened earlier.
I'm not a visual guy. I'm audio. I'm a musician. I know what I do. I play guitar, and in my category I'm doing O.K.
I've been a candidate for office at least eight times. A couple times for mayor, state representative, city council.
Was 'Crucify Your Mind' dedicated to anybody? No, it was a generalization. 'A Most Disgusting Song' is like that, too.
I like language, words. And I think the survival skills I've developed over the years have added a lot to my perspective.
I don't necessarily want a higher education, I want a wider education. I want to know everything and experience everything.
I don't mind going out to do my shows but I can still retreat back into my own private world, you know? And that is very key.
My dad, he was my role model - my mom died when I was three - and the way we honor our parents is remembering their heritage.
You want to know the secret of life? It is to breathe in and out. And the mystery of life? You never know when it is going to end.
In the music business, there's a lot of criticism and rejection. If you embrace it, you'll be better off when the adjustment comes.
I'm a worker, but I think that all workers get an idea of what to do to get free. Any kind of bondage, even economic bondage, is slavery.
I learned that South Africa is a beautiful country with gorgeous people, and I got to see it from a different perspective than most people do.
Drivers don't always see the (flashing) lights. You can't get tunnel vision. You've got to look everywhere, even when your adrenaline is going.
I'm Mexican, and we do a lot of singing, and it was my brother's guitar that I'd practice on, and he would say, 'Who's that playing my guitar?'
Some bands don't do covers. I love music. I've done the '40s, the '50s, 'the '60s, the '70s, the '80s, the '90s, the '00s, and I'm working on the '10s.
I've only written 30 songs or something. Dylan's written over 500 songs. There's no comparison. He's the Shakespeare of rock 'n' roll and popular music.
That late success has happened is OK. I'm grounded. I use my seniority to my advantage. That's helped me out. Who'd have thought? So, yeah. I'm a lucky guy.
Musicians want to be heard. So I'm not hiding. But I do like to leave it there onstage and be myself, in that sense. Because some people carry it with them.
Musicians do music for the girls. We do music for the money. We do music for the recognition, for the rock and roll history. But we also do it because it's fun.
The social realism of ' Establishment Blues' or 'Like Janis,' are what I chose to use to express what was happening in the U.S. and what was happening to me personally.
All my life, I never gave up on music and though there was a lot of disappointment for some that the commercial thing never happened, it has never been a disappointment for me.
My family, we're indigenous people from San Luis Potosi in Central Mexico. My father moved to Detroit and brought all of us because the automobile companies were paying great wages.
There are no guarantees in the music field. There's a lot of rejection, a lot of criticism and a lot of disappointment. You have to be prepared for that. And after 1973, it just wasn't happening for me.
I have a formal education, but there's a whole lot you don't learn in school. And you only have so much time to figure it out. No matter how cerebral, celestial, how ethnic, there's a span of time here.
I think that many of the issues they were facing in South Africa were the same as those I was singing about. Conscription, resisting the draft, government repression - I mentioned all those things in my songs.
I always had my guitar; I worked at writing some songs. I always played music - in the house. I sang to my daughters, I scribbled down some ideas. Actually I didn't always play music. I did leave it alone for some time too.
I've always covered some Dylan songs. I do one or two. And I do them because they're great songs. You know some people cover songs they wish they could have written, not me. I like to cover songs I know I could not have ever written.
I like to say that I do covers of my own songs. And I have about a dozen bands all over the world. That's no exaggeration. I have a South African band, an Australian band, Swedish bands, English bands, American bands. They're all notable musicians, too.
You can't get around certain stuff, whether it's in Darfur or on your block at home. What makes us political is your home turf, your family, your life space. You walk down the street, and automatically a human being is territorial, and political happens in that.
I know I did 'Establishment Blues,' and I said 'This is not a song it's an outburst' and I'd play it, I never did describe it as a rant - R-A-N-T - but the thing is it's exactly that. Sometimes it sounds like that, but there's a lot out there on the everyday man, on the plight of the little guy.