Quotes by Tom Petty - Page 4

Music is probably the only real magic I have encountered in my life. There's not some trick involved with it. It's pure and it's real. It moves, it heals, it communicates and does all these incredible things.
Tom Petty / Musician
Music
Involved
Magic
Moving
Pure
Real
Things
Life My Life Magic
Life Music My Life
Only
Does
Encountered
Trick
Heals
Incredible
Moves
My Life
Some
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I wouldn't want to get stuck being an oldie-goldie group, but I don't mind. I think all the trouble you go through these days to go to one of these concerts, I think I owe them a bit of what they came to hear.
Tom Petty / Musician
Groups
Mind
Thinking
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I think that if people realize that with an mp3, you're only getting five percent of the sound that's there. But when you hear the entire thing... I think it would save the music business. It's such a drastic change.
Tom Petty / Musician
Drastic
Drastic Change
Five
Mp3
Music Business
Percent
Sound
Entire
Hear
Realize
Save
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TV does not care about you or what happens to you. It's downright bad for your health now, and that's not a far-out concept. I think watching the TV news is bad for you. It is bad for your physical health and your mental health.
Tom Petty / Musician
Health
Mental Health
News
Physical Health
Tv News
Tv
Concept
Downright
Mental
Physical
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It's kind of a lonely work, because you just have to keep your pole in the water. I always had a little routine of going into whatever room I was using at the time to write in and just staying in there till I felt like I got a bite.
Tom Petty / Musician
Felt
Lonely
Routine
Staying
Water
Time Work Always
Bite
Whatever
Room
Till
Pole
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I'm more interested in what I'm going to leave behind me than in making a big hit record. I've refined what I do for a long time. If getting better at it means it goes over the heads of those who only wanted to party, then so be it.
Tom Petty / Musician
Long
Mean
Party
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I could come home, and I would spend the rest of the night just lying on the floor or the sofa listening to albums. It was like a movie to me. I still do, really, and doing the radio show ensures that I'll be sitting there listening.
Tom Petty / Musician
Albums
Lying
Radio
Sitting
Home Me Night
Rest
Floor
Sofa
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I started playing the bass because nobody else would play the bass, and then I got bumped up into singing because no one else really wanted to sing. So I learned how to sing and I wrote the songs, so I tended to get the most attention.
Tom Petty / Musician
Play
Singing
Song
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When I was a kid, we didn't have any blues stations. I never heard Howlin' Wolf or Muddy Waters or any of those people until the Stones had come along, and I took it upon myself to find out who these people were that they were covering.
Tom Petty / Musician
Covering
Muddy
Stations
Stones
Myself People Find
Myself People Never
Blues
Waters
Wolf
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An average show is two hours. And that's usually right up to the curfew or the union triple time. I always feel like I could have played a little longer or something, but it's hard for me to pay attention to anything for longer than that.
Tom Petty / Musician
Attention
Average
Hours
Pay Attention
Time Always Me
Time Me Feel
Played
Longer
Union
Triple
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I don't eat fish and chicken and all that. But I will have some eggs. So I'm not technically a vegan. But I eat pretty sensibly, and before a tour, I will usually work out a lot. I'll get a trainer, or I have a guy I've known a long time.
Tom Petty / Musician
Eggs
Long Time
Work Out
Fish
Chicken
Work Time Long
Technically
Sensibly
Tour
Trainer
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I tend to write on an acoustic guitar or the piano. I have kind of a rule: if I can't sit down and play this and get the song over, I don't take it to the band, because most any good song, you can sit down and deliver it with a piano or a guitar.
Tom Petty / Musician
Acoustic Guitar
Band
Guitar
Song
Acoustic
Good Guitar Song
Good Song Good Song
Deliver
Good Song
Rule
Sit
Tend
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The energy of the crowd is insane. Twenty thousand people. It's the biggest jolt of adrenaline. It's very hard to explain. You know the old story about the woman lifting the car off her kid? It's in that realm. You can actually hurt yourself and not know it.
Tom Petty / Musician
Car
Adrenaline
Energy
Hurt
Insane
Lifting
Thousand
Yourself Energy People
Biggest
Crowd
Explain
Old Story
Realm
Twenty
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My family wasn't involved in the college. They were more of just your 'white trash' kind of family. And so I have that kind of background, but I always kind of aspired to be something else, and I made a lot of different friends over the years that were passing through.
Tom Petty / Musician
Involved
Passing
Trash
Family Always Your
Background
Aspired
Something Else
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I feel sorry for kids these days. They get so much homework. Remember the days when we put a belt around our two books and carried them home? Now they're dragging a suitcase. They have school all day, then homework from six until eleven. There's no time left to be creative.
Tom Petty / Musician
Home
Creative
Eleven
Homework
Left
Remember
School
Six
Sorry
Two
Time Day Remember
Time Home Day
Feel
Now
Then
Much
All Day
Get
Around
Books
Time Home Remember
Belt
Them
Days
Carried
Day
Dragging
Until
Put
No Time
Suitcase
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I'm certainly not a Robin Hood, I'm not that way. I don't want to come through, burn everybody for $200 a ticket and then they can't afford to come see me again. Plus, I just don't think it's right. I don't think we need that much money. I just do what seems like the logical thing to do.
Tom Petty / Musician
Robins
Thinking
Tickets
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Making a record? You've got to have the song, then you create a record. I think it's the same with a live performance. If the material is strong, you're already 90% there. I always tell young people it's all about the music, the songs. Work on the songs, work on the songs, work on the songs.
Tom Petty / Musician
Live Performance
Record
Performance
Material
Young People
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You're dealing in magic-it's this intangible thing that has to happen. And to seek it out too much might not be a good idea. Because, you know, it's very shy, too. But once you've got the essence of them, you can work songs and improve them. You see if there's a better word, or a better change.
Tom Petty / Musician
Essence
Ideas
Song
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When my record company rejected 'Full Moon Fever', I was hurt so bad. I was pretty far along in my career at that point. I'd never had anything rejected; I'd never really even had a comment. So when that happened, it was really just a board to the forehead. But then, finally, I picked myself up.
Tom Petty / Musician
Comment
Fever
Full Moon
Hurt
Moon
Rejected
Board
Career
Full
Finally
Forehead
Record
Picked
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When I go to see people, I always kind of hope they are going to play some kind of songs I know. So you've got to know your audience. It's kind of something that is a blessing and a curse in a way. You're obligated to play some of that stuff that people know, but I don't think that's all you have to do.
Tom Petty / Musician
Audience
Blessing
Curse
Hope People Way
Obligated
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When I decided to be a musician I reckoned that that was going to be the way of less profit, less money. I was sort of giving up the idea of making a lot of money. It was what I loved to do. I would have done it anyway. If I'd had to work at Taco Bell I'd have still been out at night trying to play music.
Tom Petty / Musician
Money
Decided
Done
Giving
Giving Up
Musician
Night
Profit
Anyway
Bell
Less
Loved
Idea
Reckoned
Making
Play Music
Taco
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When I met Elvis, we didn't really have a conversation. I was introduced by my uncle, and he sort of grunted my way. What stays with me is the whole scene. I had never seen a real mob scene before. I was really young and impressionable. Elvis really did look - he looked sort of not real, as if he were glowing.
Tom Petty / Musician
Uncles
Conversation
Glowing
Looks
Real
Me Look Way
Elvis
Look Me Way
Introduced
Mob
Stays
Uncle
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My hours get kinda backwards. Most of the time, we're basing out of one town, flying out, doing the show, then flying back. And it's a pace that no one would believe, really. Unless you've done it, you really can't understand what it is. And if you're not really experienced and know how to do it, you will fall.
Tom Petty / Musician
Backwards
Flying
Pace
Time Believe Will
Time Believe Done
Experienced
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When I was 15 or 16 playing in groups, we used to sit in the car and try to write the lyrics down as a song was playing, and we'd assign each person a verse, you know: 'I'm going to do the first one. You go for the second one.' And then sometimes you'd wait an hour for it to come on again so you could finish it up.
Tom Petty / Musician
Car
Groups
Song
Used
Again
Assign
Finish
Wait
Hour
Second
Sit
Verse
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Rock n' roll was one thing, and then they chopped off the 'roll' and called it 'rock,' which became a sort of umbrella term for anything with a guitar in it. Like hair bands. How could we possibly believe that? It's just gotten downright silly, to the point where now it's sort of become like professional wrestling.
Tom Petty / Musician
Guitar
One Thing
Silly
Term
Umbrella
Wrestling
Bands
Became
Chopped
Downright
Gotten
Rock
Possibly
Professional
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'Southern Accents,' I think that's one of my best, really. That would have been 1984, and I wrote that on the piano in the studio at home. I had a studio, and I just happened to be down there in the middle of the night. It was quite late, probably early morning, and I just started to play, and a song just started to appear.
Tom Petty / Musician
Accents
Early Morning
Late
Middle
Night
Song
Quite
Appear
Early
Studio
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I don't believe in censorship, but I do believe that an artist has to take some moral responsibility for what he or she is putting out there. And I think a lot of these young kids are going to have to learn the hard way before they realize that you can actually do some damage if you're being careless or frivolous in what you're saying.
Tom Petty / Musician
Kids
Believe
Responsibility
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In the mid-'60s, AM radio, pop radio, was just this incredible thing that played all kinds of music... You could hear Frank Sinatra right into the Yardbirds. The Beatles into Dean Martin. It was this amazing thing, and I miss it, in a way, because music has become so compartmentalized now, but in those days, it was all right in one spot.
Tom Petty / Musician
Dean
Frank
Radio
Amazing Thing
Miss
Beatles
Spot
Incredible
Martin
Pop
Sinatra
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Songwriting ability is a gift. After a while, you come to realize, "I've really been blessed. I can write these things and it makes me happy, and it makes millions of people happy." It's an obligation, it's bigger than you. It's the only true magic I know. It's not pulling a rabbit out of a hat; it's real. It's your soul floating out to theirs.
Tom Petty / Musician
Blessed
Real
Writing
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Artists aren't necessarily business people. And they aren't necessarily aware of all the things that go on in their names. Some just want to make some music, but there is a lot of greed among artists as well. Whether or not we know it, we are all to blame. I think it's time - starting with the artist - to try to be a little more responsible and aware of what goes on in our name.
Tom Petty / Musician
Artist
Names
Thinking
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I didn't worry about my career ending, but there were days where I felt pretty beat up by it all and just pretty tired, because they didn't make it easy for me. And coming right off the last lawsuit, it was the last thing I wanted to get involved in. When it was over, we didn't really celebrate, we were just exhausted. I lost all interest in the record business and never wanted to do anything except hand in a record again.
Tom Petty / Musician
Careers
Hands
Tired
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I've learned one thing, and that's to quit worrying about stupid things. You have four years to be irresponsible here, relax. Work is for people with jobs. You'll never remember class time, but you'll remember the time you wasted hanging out with your friends. So stay out late. Go out with your friends on a Tuesday when you have a paper due on Wednesday. Spend money you don't have. Drink 'til sunrise. The work never ends, but college does.
Tom Petty / Musician
Jobs
Life
Work
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Well, I started out down a dirty road Started out all alone And the sun went down as I crossed the hill And the town lit up, the world got still I'm learning to fly but I ain't got wings Coming down is the hardest thing Well, the good ol' days may not return And the rocks might melt and the sea may burn I'm learning to fly but I ain't got wings Coming down is the hardest thing Well, some say life will beat you down Break your heart, steal your crown So I've started out for God knows where I guess I'll know when I get there I'm learning to fly around the clouds But what goes up must come down
Tom Petty / Musician
Clouds
Dirty
Heart
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Tom Petty Quotes - Page 4

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