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Ambition Will Take You And Ride You Too Far And Conservatism Bring You To Boredom Once More Sit Down By The River And Watch The Stream Flow Recall All The Dreams That You Once Used To Know The Things You've Forgotten That Took You Away To Pastures Not Greener But Meaner.

-Van Morrison

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Ambition Will Take You

Van Morrison

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Ambition Will Take You And Ride You Too Far And Conservatism Bring You To Boredom Once More Sit Down By The River And Watch The Stream Flow Recall All The Dreams That You Once Used To Know The Things You've Forgotten That Took You Away To Pastures Not Greener But Meaner.

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Illusions And Pipe Dreams On The One Hand And Straight Reality Is Always Cold

I Shall Drive My Chariot Down Your Street And Cry Hey It's Me.

When All The Dark Clouds Roll Away And The Sun Begins To Shine I See My Freedom From Across The Way And It Comes Right In On Time Well It Shines So Bright And It Gives So Much Light And It Comes From The Sky Above Makes Me Feel So Free Makes Me Feel Like Me And Lights My Life With Love.

There's An Angel That's Watching Right Over You All Your Trials Have Not Been In Vain Won't You Lift Your Head Up To The Starry Night Finding Strength In The Things That Remain.

I Find It Extremely Difficult Talking About My Songs Because There's So Many Different Things That Can Make A Song Come Together.

Any Artist Is An Instrument-and That's Exactly Why You Can't Do It All The Time. You Can Only Do It When It's Happening, When It's Coming Through. No Matter How Much You May Want To Do It, If It's Not Happening Then It's Simply Not Happening.

Once In A Blue Moon Someone Like You Comes Along.

It Was Really Strange For Me When I Started To Play Concerts In America Where The Audiences Were All Sitting Down.

I Never Paid Attention To What Was Contemporary Or What Was Commercial, It Didn't Mean Anything To Me.

I Don't Like To Wonder About It-i Just Like To Do It. That's What I Mean About The Image Stuff And All That. There's Far Too Much Emphasis Being Placed On That Kind Of Stuff... The Whole Emphasis On What Does It Mean? Everybody Has Their Own Particular Vision.

I Realized I Was Growing Up Or Something Like That. You Have Responsibilities...you've Got To Think About Getting Your Act Together. I Didn't Even Know What It Had Been Doing To Me. I Didn't Realize How Dangerous It Was. People Talked In Terms Of Drugs And I Used To Think In Terms Of...well In Ireland, Everybody Drinks. Nobody Gives It A Second Thought. You're Irish Number One And You're A Drinker Number Two. That's The First Two Things About Us Irish.

The Summer Breeze Was Blowing On Your Face Within Your Violet You Treasure Your Summery Words And As The Shiver From My Neck Down To My Spine Ignited Me In Daylight And Nature In The Garden

If I Ventured In The Slipstream Between The Viaducts Of Your Dreams, Where Immobile Steel Rims Crack And The Ditch In The Back Roads Stop. Could You Find Me?

When I Started Out In This Business, I Was A Performer Before I Was A Songwriter, I Was A Performer Before I Was Recording. Performing Is The Roots. That's Where It All Came From. You Didn't Start Out Doing It Because You Wanted To Make An Album.

I've Been In America For Almost Ten Years. I've Had Many Parts Of The American Experience. I've Been All Over This Country And Seen Many Different Parts Of It. It's Just That I'm Not An American. I've Never Become An American. I'm Talking About The Whole Thing-psychologically, Citizenship, The Whole Trip. Of Course I've Definitely Been Influenced By America-i'm Definitely Influenced By The Music And The Culture.

We're [with Robbie Robertson ] Jazz Musicians. The Context May Be Rock 'n' Roll But It's Still Jazz. It's Jazz And That Means Improvization...you Play A Tune The Way It Feels And You Play It Differently Every Time. It Can Never Be The Same.

Sometimes You Do Know Where The Ideas Are Coming From And Sometimes You Don't. You Might Get A Song Coming Through That You Just Don't Know About.

If You Live The Life You Love, You Get The Blessing From Above.

Well, It's A Marvelous Night For A Moondance With The Stars Up Above In Your Eyes... And I'm Trying To Please To The Calling Of Your Heart-strings That They Play Soft And Low And All The Night's Magic Seems To Whisper And Hush And All The Soft Moonlight Seems To Shine In Your Blush... One More Moondance With You In The Moonlight On A Magic Night

A Fantabulous Night To Make Romance.

I Was All Caught Up With Identifying With Certain Things. They Just Weren't Very Stimulating Things.

It Was Like I Had Evolved To A Certain Stage Where I Was Stuck In This Songwriter Bag As An Image. But Basically At Heart, I'm A Rocker. And I Still Am. But I Was Caught Up In The Singer/songwriter Bag And I Wasn't Really Enjoying It.

All The Girls Walk By Dressed Up For Each Other, And The Boys Do The Boogie Woogie On The Corner Of The Street.

If My Heart Could Do My Thinking, Would My Brain Begin To Feel?

I Don't Have Any Regrets About The Album [veedon Fleece]. But It's The Same Old Story - An Album Is Basically 35 Or 40 Minutes Of What You Do. It's 'part' Of What You Do.

I Think Intellectualization Is What's Killing Most People.

I'm Not A Rock Singer And I Don't Want To Be A Rock Singer. I'm Not Interested. It Doesn't Seem To Get Across.

The Thing About Albums Is Just Coming Up With New Material. I Just Got Tired Of That Syndrome Of Putting Out An Album And Then Some Reviewer Claims That This Song Or That Song Has Something To Do With X Y Or Z.

I Think We're Going A Bit Too Fast At The Minute. The Rate We're Going Is Like We're Going Over The Edge Of The Hill.

What I Don't Like Is Taking It To Extremes And Making All These Intellectualizations About What Basically Is Simple Music. It's Simple Stream-of-consciousness Stuff In My Songs. What I'm Trying To Get Across Is Misinterpreted.

There's Novel Reading, And Then There's The Other Kind Of Reading. Take Somebody Like Carl Jung, The Psychiatrist - Now There's Somebody Worth Getting Into. With Novels, I'm Kind Of Fly By Night. It Isn't Something I Can Be Really Consistent With.

I've Always Listened To Jazz Or Folk Or Blues. I Was Always Listening To The Prophets. I Don't Really Go For...i Don't Know How To Say Anything About The Singles Scene Without Slamming People.

I Think I Opened Up An Area With Astral Weeks That Hit A Lot Of Peoples' Nerves. But You Can't Really Say That They're My Favorite Songs.

Laying Underneath The Stars Can Be So Much Fun Especially When You're Feeling Good When You're With The One You Love.

You Come Into My Dreams From A Whisper To A Scream.

[you Got To Make It Through The World] It's Kind Of A Survival Song. Survival Is What's Happening And It's Basically A Song About That.

I Also Like To Do Physical Things. I Like Swimming A Lot. I Like Traveling. Not Touring Traveling But Just Plain Traveling. I Also Read A Lot. Reading Takes Up Most Of My Time.

[rock 'n' Roll] Is Still A Primitive Form And There's No Way You Can Get Away From That. It's One Of The Primitive Art Forms And That's Why It's Good And That's Why It's Lasted...you Know, It Hasn't Become Sophisticated And It's Not In The Opera House.

It Will Make You Feel Good, And It Will Make You Feel Whole, When The Spirit Moves You And It Fills You Through And Through.

The First Piece Of Music That Captured My Imagination Was Probably Ray Charles Live At Newport.

I Always Record Far More Than I Can Use. There's Probably Twice As Much Recorded As Comes Out.

What I Really Like To Do Is Just Do The Twist!

Skiffle Was A Name That Was Attached To What Was, In Essence, American Folk Music With A Beat.

There Was A Conflict - The Actual Putting Together Of The Reality Of The Situation Didn't Seem To Gel. I'd Been Doing Kind Of A Slow Ballad Type Of Thing On Records, But When It Came To Performing, I Felt I Was Limiting Myself.

My Experiences With Dope Were Not Good For Me. I Had To Go Another Route. Because In My Experience, Dope Didn't Give Me Those Insights.

Don't Lose The Wonder In Your Eyes It's Right There When You Smile... If We Go Back, For A While Let Me Go Back, For A While To That Magic Time

It's All Complete Instinct And Intuition, And That's Extremely Difficult To Teach.

What Excited Me When I First Came Into It Was The Performing Aspect And Doing Blues-oriented Material, Rock/blues Oriented Stuff, Basic Stuff, Basic What They Call Rock 'n' Roll.

It's Like Something Happened To You That Caused You To Do What You Do...you Heard Something Somewhere, You Felt Something About This Music That Was Definitely Part Of Your Own Vision. That's What The Whole Thing Is Like.

I Just Need Somewhere To Dump All My Negativity.

Then It Evolved Into More Of A Ballad Style Singer/songwriter Thing. And There Was A Conflict In Trying To Merge The Two Styles With The Same Band Behind Me. 'cause The Musicians That I Would Need To Do Ballad-oriented Tunes Would Require Musicians Who Were More Into Jazz.

I Had My Eyes Closed In The Dark, I Sighed A Million Sighs, I Told A Million Lies, To Myself, To Myself.

In Deep Confusion, In Great Despair, When I Reach Out For Him, He Is There. When I Am Lonely As I Can Be, Then I Know God Shines His Light On Me.

I'd Been Performing In Bands Since I Was 12 Which Represented, At That Point, About 16 Years Of Playing Music.

Go Up To The Mountain, Go Up To The Glen, Where Silence Will Touch You, And Heartbreak Will Mend.

Let Your Soul And Spirit Fly.

When You Hear The Music Ringin' In Your Soul And You Feel It In Your Heart And It Grows And Grows And It Comes From The Backstreet Rock & Roll And The Healing Has Begun...

It's The Emotion...each Word Has Got A Connotation And Symbolism And The Thing Is Finding What's Behind The Word-what Meaning It Has And What Emotion. I'm Really Into Vocal Repetition As A Definite Art Form.

I Haven't Really Heard Much That's Impressed Me The Way It Was When I First Heard Ray Charles Or Somebody Like That. That Was Really An Impression.

I Can See More Naturalness In Basic Blues, Basic R & B, Basic Rock 'n' Roll.

The Blues - There's No Black And White - It's The Truth.

Black And White

I'd Much Prefer To Hear Somebody Like Ed Thigpen [drummer With New York Session Group Stuff, And Featured On Innumerable Hits] Take A Solo. I Mean, That's What It Is. I'd Much Rather Hear That Than The Jazz/rock Thing Because It's Blowing An Aspect Of Jazz That I Really Like...the Level Where You Can Snap Your Fingers To It And You Can Groove To It. You Can Do Anything To It.

There's No Difference Between Lyrics And Poetry. Words Are Words. The Only Difference Is The People Who Are In Academic Positions And Call Themselves Poets And Have An Academic Stance. They've Got Something To Lose If They Say It's All Poetry; If There's Not Music To It, And You Have To Wear A Certain Kind Of Checkered Shirt Or Something Like That. It's All The Same. Lyrics Are Lyrics, Poetry Is Poetry, Lyrics Are Poetry, And Poetry Is Lyrics. They Are Interchangeable To Me.

Way Across The Country Where The Hillside Mountains Glide, The Dynamo Of Your Smile Caressed The Barefoot Virgin Child.

It's A Marvelous Night For A Moondance!

I'm Very Lucky, I'm Happy With Life Because My Experiences Led Me To Do What I Had To Do. I Don't Have Any Regrets Whatsoever.

There's A Realization That You Have To Do Something But You Just Can't Do It All The Time.

Whether You're Writing A Book Or A Song Or Whatever, You've Got To Be Involved In It. It's Got To Come From The Heart I Think...that's What It's All About.

Smell The Sea And Feel The Sky.

That's What It Is-it's Jazz. It's Just Jazz. That's What The Whole Thing Is About To Me. It's About What's Happening Right Now In This Context. This Conversation Is Jazz To A Certain Extent. It's Improvisation. What Appeals To Me About Music Is The Improvization. That's What I Don't Like About The Media-they're Not Living It.

In The Media, A Reviewer Has His Personal Vision But It's Passed Along To A Million Readers Or Whatever. He Might Think That This Particular Song Sounds Like Jo Blow. Or Like A Bo Diddley Record That He Heard Six Years Ago. But The Artist Who Made The Record May Never Have Even Heard The Bo Diddley Song. We All Respond Differently.

When I First Started Drinking, It Was Working For Me. It Was Great. Like When You're Doing A Gig And You're In A Band And You're In The Truck And There's Nothing To Do In The Truck And The Gigs Are All The Same And The Hotels Are All The Same...it's The Hotels, The Car, The Gig.

[jazz Musicians] Couldn't Cut Rock. I Had To Be More Limited And Specific About What I Was Doing.

No Guru, No Method, No Teacher, Just You And I And Nature, And The Father In The Garden.

When The Ghost Comes Round At Midnight Well You Both Can Have Some Fun He Can Drive You Mad, He Can Make You Sad He Can Keep You From The Sun When They Take Him Down, He'll Be Both Safe And Sound And The Hand Does Fit The Glove And No Matter What They Tell You, There's Good And Evil In Everyone.

I Educated Myself. To Me, School Was Boring.

I Have Some Intellectual-type Pursuits, Like Studying Philosophy And Stuff Like That.

Hark, Now Hear The Sailors Cry, Smell The Sea, And Feel The Sky Let Your Soul & Spirit Fly, Into The Mystic.

I'd Come To The Point Where I Wasn't Really Putting Out Creatively. I Didn't Seem To Have Anything To Say In That Period Of Time After The '74 Tour. There Was Nothing Definite That I Wanted To Record.

Love Of The Simple Is All That I Need, I've No Time For Schism Or Lovers Of Greed.

What Was Happening With Me, With The Album [a Period Of Transition], With The People Who Took The Pictures, The Record Company, Everything, Getting A New Manager [harvey Goldsmith]-it Was All Saying A Period Of Transition To Me So That Was The Title Choice. It Says What It Is And Obviously Nobody Is Going To Analyze That. It's Exactly What It Is.

Every Performance Is Different. That's The Beauty Of It.

You Can't Stay The Same. If You're A Musician And A Singer, You Have To Change, That's The Way It Works.

You've Got To Separate The Singer And The Songs.

I Deliberately Try Not To Cater For The Commercial Market, So I Can't See Myself In Competition, You Know, With Second Or Third Generation Rock Stars.

Definitely Muddy Waters Has Been A Prime Influence For Anybody Who's Ever Done Anything Rock 'n' Roll.

Your Street, Rich Street Or Poor Used To Always Be Sure, On Your Street There's A Place In Your Heart You Know From The Start Can't Be Complete Outside Of The Street Keep Moving On Through The Joy And The Pain Sometimes You Got To Look Back To The Street Again Would You Prefer All Those Castles In Spain? Or The View Of Your Street From Your Window Pane?

My Responsibility Is To Fulfil What That Natural Thing Is. The Thing That I Dislike About Pop Rock Top 40 Music Is That It's Not Natural.

I Went Back To Belfast And Started A Club, The Maritime. No One Had Thought About Doing A Blues Club, So I Was The First.

The Wild Night Is Calling.

When You Perform Live, It's A Different Trip - It's Different Energy. I Just Felt A Conflict Between Both Of The Trips. I Was Trying To Evaluate What It Meant For Me To Be A Singer/songwriter And What That Whole Thing All Meant.

There Aren't Any Labels - All Jazz Means Is Improvization And You Can Never Play A Tune The Same Way Twice. So Jazz Spills Over Into Everything.

The Fact I Wasn't Getting Off Made Me Realize That I Really Had To Take A Hard Look At It And At The Type Of Music That I Played, Which Ranges From Ballads To Country Type Stuff To Rock And Rhythm 'n' Blues. It Takes In A Wider Spectrum.

My Thinking Musically Has Always Been More Advanced - It Is Difficult To Get It Down Onto Paper Sometimes, Even Now.

Making Love In The Green Grass Behind The Stadium With You My Brown Eyed Girl.

I Write Songs. Then I Record Them. And Later, Maybe I Perform Them On Stage. That's What I Do. That's My Job. Simple.

I Wanted To Find Out Why I Wasn't Getting Off On What I Was Doing And Try And Make Some Sense Out Of The Evolution Of It.

That Song [you Got To Make It Through The World] Came From A Vibe I Picked Up From An Old Blues Singer Named Bo Carter. My Lady Was Making A Film As A Thesis For U.c.l.a. And She Wanted Me To Write A Song To Depict This Character. The Movie Had Something To Do With Bootlegging And Stuff Like That. I Found This Bo Carter Record And He Was Just Saying Something About Making It To The Woods Or Something Like That.

Men Saw The Stars At The Edge Of The Sea They Thought Great Thoughts About Liberty Poets Wrote Down Words That Did Fit Writers Wrote Books Thinkers Thought About It.

If It's What You Do And You Can Do It, Then You Do It.

Music Is Spiritual. The Music Business Is Not.

I've Never Felt Like I Was Born With A Silver Spoon At All, Although I've Felt Like Howling At The Moon A Lot Of Times!

There's No Man Alive Who Has Any Answers. We All Know That. It's Like The Guru Trip. All A Guru Can Do Is Direct You To Something That You Probably Already Know About Yourself, Something You Might Want To Followup On. Apply The Same Thing To Music And Records. You Might Get Something From A Particular Record That Hits A Nerve And Something Inside You. But That's Your Vision Of It.

Like I Said, Basically I'm A Rocker. That's About It. Things That I've Done Away From That-branches That I've Gotten Into Off Of That - Are Just Other Streams, Other Things That I Can Do.

Memories, How They Linger In The Twilight And In The Wee Small Hours Sometimes Just Before Dawn.

The Eternal Kansas City Song Came From A Dream Sequence. It Was Actually Kind Of Weird. I Had This Dream About A Kansas City Type Of Thing While I Was Up At Stevie Winwood's Place Near Cheltenham, In Britain. I Went Into This Small Town And I Was Walking Along And This Dream Thing Was Still In My Head.

Common One, My Illuminated One, Oh My High In The Art Of Suffering. Take A Walk With Me.

When I Started Studying Tenor Saxophone As A Kid In Belfast, I Did So With A Guy Named George Cassidy, Who Was Also A Big Inspiration.

See The Man On The Tv With A Phony Smile. Bring You Up, Bring You Down, He Can Turn Your Head Around.

This Hollywood Ain't No Good, I Would Rather Be Like Robin Hood.

Ambition Will Take You And Ride You Too Far And Conservatism Bring You To Boredom Once More Sit Down By The River And Watch The Stream Flow Recall All The Dreams That You Once Used To Know The Things You've Forgotten That Took You Away To Pastures Not Greener But Meaner.

I Was Just Getting Tired Of The Image Bullshit...that Man Of Mystery Trip And What Have You. What's That All About?

The Media Is Going To Stick A Label On Records. And The Public Is Going To Pick It Up From That. And That's What I Was Getting Sick Of-the Whole Analyzation Thing.

I Like To See People Reaching Back For The Roots And For The Reason Why. Not Intellectually, But Just For The Gut Feeling Of What It's All About.

Some Thoughts Went Through My Head About Recording Some Stuff That Had Influenced Me Earlier In My Career Like Blues And Early Rock. But It Didn't Seem To Really Make Sense At That Point - It Might Have Been Taken The Wrong Way. A Lot Of People Already Had Been Into That Trip.

I Have To Accept The Fact That I Was Putting Out Records That Reviewers Were Going To Get An Image From.

At The End Of The Day, We Should Give Thanks And Pray, To The One, To The One.

Once You Start To Analyze It [joyous Sound], You've Completely Lost It. That One Just Came.

I Think That There Are Quite A Few Acts Which Have Stayed With The Basic Feelings And That's Good. And I See Something Of A Swing Back To That. For Example There Are Quite A Few People Copying My Early Stuff Now. Like It's Become A Reference Point Or Something.

I Am About The Arrangements And The Layers Of Depth In The Music.

The Point Of Jazz Is, You Do Something And Then You Go On.

When The Spirit Moves Me, I Can Do Many Wondrous Things.

[rock 'n' Roll] Music Started Out With Some Cat Banging A Log With A Couple Of Pieces Of Stick. He Sent A Message Across A River And Although The Cat On The Other Side Receiving The Message Didn't Know The Exact Words, He Did Understand Basically Something About What Was Being Communicated.

In The Gentle Evening Freeze, By The Whispering Shady Trees I Will Find Sanctuary In The Lord.

The Music I Really Like To Get Off On Is The Old Rhythm 'n' Blues And Rock 'n' Roll Stuff... That's What I Really Dig. And I Also Dig To Sing Ballads As Well. And I Also Dig Writing My Own Songs. I Was Just Trying To Find A Way Of Integrating The Whole Thing, Taking A Look At The Total Picture.

Become Enraptured By The Sights And Sounds In Intrigue Of Nature And Beauty, Come Along With Me And Take It All In. Come Here My Love.

Oh Won't You Stay Stay A While With Your Own Ones Don't Ever Stray Stray So Far From Your Own Ones 'cause The World Is So Cold Don't Care Nothing For Your Soul That You Share With Your Own Ones.

I Forgot That Love Existed, Troubled In My Mind. Heartache After Heartache, Worried All The Time. I Forgot That Love Existed Then I Saw The Light Everyone Around Me Make Everything Alright.

I Have Seen Without Perceiving I Have Been Another Man Let Me Pierce The Realm Of Glamour So I Know Just What I Am.

Being Famous Was Extremely Disappointing For Me. When I Became Famous It Was A Complete Drag And It Is Still A Complete Drag.

I Think Paul Mcguinness And U2 Created The Irish Music Industry. It Certainly Wasn't There Before That.

I Don't Think Nostalgia Has To Be Negative.

[the Music Is About ] For The Purpose Of Getting People To An Excitement Level. They Feel Something, They Feel Emotions. They're Going To Go Home After That Concert And Remember It.maybe They Got Something Out Of The Experience Rather Than Intellectualizing About What Songs Mean Which Is The Whole Head Trip.

If The Spirit Comes Through In A Madame George Type Of Song, That's What The Spirit Says. You Have Very Little To Do With It. You're Like An Instrument For What's Coming Through.

I Like [george] Benson Because I Just Like It. I Like That Kind Of Style. I Don't Like The Broken Up Kind Of Style. I Don't Like Where You Play For 16 Bars And Then Break It Up Into What Somebody's Version Of What Birds Twittering Sounds Like, Or What The Sound Of The City Is, Or What New York Sounds Like.

You Can Put Out An Album And It Could Be Totally Out Of The Window As Far As What You Want To Do Performance-wise.

Shivers Up And Down My Spine It's A Feeling So Divine Let Me Go Back For A While Got To Go Back For A While To That Magic Time.

Performing Was The Natural Thing Originally And The Rest Of It [records And So On] Is Just Like Offshoots Of That. That's How I See It Anyway.

Men Come, Men Go, All Things Remain In God.

Well I've Got To Get Out Of The Rat-race Now I'm Tired Of The Ways Of Mice And Men And The Empires All Turning Into Rust Again. Out Of Everything Nothing Remains The Same That's Why I'm Cloud Hidden Cloud Hidden Whereabouts Unknown.

I'd Love To Live In Ireland But I'd Like To Live As Me, Not What Someone Thinks I Am. People Don't Understand - I Lived There Before I Was Famous.

I Don't Like To Condemn People Because What That Means Is That You're Only Condemning Yourself About A Part Of You That You Can't Stand.

Condemning Yourself

The Trip Had Become Boring. It Wasn't Exciting Anymore To Totally Be A Singer/songwriter Because It Wasn't Working For Me.

J.p. Donleavy - Now He's One Writer I Am Consistent With. He's Written Books That I Can Definitely Connect With. He Has Amazing Insights Which Other People Missed Out On. Even With His Descriptions Of Northern Ireland.

Rock Is Gut Level And It Just Gets To People. I Think There's Far Too Much Emphasis On Intellectualization, Especially In Rock 'n' Roll Which Is A Primitive Form.

I'll Tell You What Does Impress Me: The Fact That A Lot Of The Cats Who Were Our Idols Are Still Out There Doing It. That Impresses Me Very Much.

For A Long Time, I Couldn't Actually Deal With Playing Concerts, It Was A Totally Alien Concept To Me, 'cos I Was Used To Playing In Clubs And Dance Halls.

I Write Songs. Then I Record Them. And Later, Maybe I Perform Them On Stage. That's What I Do. That's My Job. Simple. I Don't Feel Comfortable Doing Interviews. My Profession Is Music, And Writing Songs. I Like To Do It, But I Hate To Talk About It...music Is Spiritual. The Music Business Is Not. Being Famous Was Extremely Disappointing For Me. When I Became Famous It Was A Complete Drag And It Is Still A Complete Drag.

There's A Lot Of Sub-conscious Stuff You May Write But You Don't Then Suddenly Sit Down And Take Out Your Analytical Books And Say: I'm Determined To Find Out Where This Came From. You'd Probably Be Wrong Anyway.

Enlightenment, Don't Know What It Is. It's Up To You, The Way You Think.

The Way I Was Singing The Songs Was Jazz

Don't Want To Discuss It, I Think It's Time For A Change You May Get Disgusted, Some Think That I'm Strange In That Case I'll Go Underground, Get Some Heavy Rest Never Have To Worry, About What Is Worst And What Is Best.

The Whole Trip That Happened In The Late 60s And 70s Was Kind Of A Throwback To A Lot Of Folk Styles. I Got Into It As Well 'cause I Started With The Folk Styles.

I Realized That What I Was Looking For Was Doing Collaborations With Other People - People Who Can Play A Ballad, Rock, Jazz. I Was Looking For More Co-op Type Things Than What I Had Been Doing, Which Had Been Completely My Own Trip.

Basically I Got An Insight Into What It Really Was Through Alcoholics Anonymous. One Day The Switchboard Lit Up And I Saw Where It Was All Going. I Saw What Alcohol Could Do To People And I Saw That It Wasn't A Good Thing Anymore. Plus I Wasn't A Teenager Anymore Myself.

I Just Can't Stand Jazz/rock. I Think It's The Worst Thing That's Come Down The River Yet.

In Order To Win You Must Be Prepared To Lose Sometime. And Leave One Or Two Cards Showing.

Motivational Sports

Hearing The Blues Changed My Life.

Changed My Life

The Theory Is That You Don't Play A Song The Same Way Twice Because It's Jazz. That's Where I'm Coming From.

Jackie Wilson Said It Was Reet-petite, Kind Of Love You Got Knock Me Off My Feet.

We Might Think That We're Really Intellectual And We're Going To Check Out The Library To Research The Meaning Every Time Somebody Puts Out A New Record. It's Still Primitive Stuff. It's The Same Now As It Was At The Beginning. It's No Different Now. Rock 'n' Roll Is Spirit Music-it's Just Coming Through People.

Meet Them Halfway With Love, Peace, And Persuasion, And Expect Them To Rise For The Occasion.

Jazz Goes Into Folk Music, Into Rock Music. Jazz Is In Practically Everything Except Classical Music Where They're Reading The Same Music All The Time, The Same Way, The Same Tempo Every Night.

Into The Music Was About The First Album Where I Felt, 'i'm Starting Here'...the Wavelength Thing, I Didn't Really Feel That Was Me.

A Famous Person To Themselves, They Don't Get Up In The Morning And Think, I'm Famous. I'm Not Famous To Me. Famous Is A Perception.

I Didn't Know What Some Of The Stuff On Astral Weeks Was About Until Years Later.

What I Like Is Natural Music. It's Like I Was Born With A Gift To Do Something Naturally, Which I Have No Choice But To Followup On.

There's Quite A Few People Getting Into That - New Acts Coming Along That Are Using A Lot Of Stuff That Happened In The 50s And 60s. They're Completely Ignoring The 70s Which Is Kind Of A Turn On Because To Me Nothing Has Really Gone Down In The 70s.

If You're Putting Somebody Down, You're Doing It Because You're Just Seeing A Part Of Yourself That You Don't Like. That's All That Is.

Jazz Was Always Cool. That Was What I Liked About Jazz - It Was Always Cool. Now I See The Cats That Were Basically Cool Getting Kind Of Uncool. So That Ruins What I Feel About Jazz.

Joyous Sound Evolved From A Gospel Influence. Actually It Evolved Out Of Sitting At A Piano And Just Picking Out A Riff, A Gospel Type Riff. It Just Seemed To Come Joyously-something About The Song, About Living In Another Place Of Joyous Sounds. I'm Not Quite Sure-that's One I'm Trying To Analyze. It Just Came Out.

When Heart Is Open, You Will Change Just Like A Flower Slowly Opening.

Britain Is Not The Same Anymore Of Course. It's Never The Same.

My Ambition When I Started Out Was To Play Two Or Three Gigs A Week. And That's What I'm Doing.

I Do See Value In Music Criticism. Most Of The Criticism I Have Received Over The Years Has Been Very Good.

There's A Million Things That Come Through When You Put Songs Together And It's Kind Of Difficult To Pinpoint Exactly What Triggers It On Every Occasion. It's Just Like Somebody Writing A Screenplay Or Something Like That.

You Can't Stop Us On The Road To Freedom, You Can't Stop Us Cause Our Eyes Can See.

I Just Wanted To Stop And Try To Get Some Perspective. [ A Period Of Transition] It Was Just A Matter Of Wanting To Review The Whole Thing...to Try And Get Some Relationship To What I Was Doing.

I Wrote A Couple Of Songs That Had Gypsy References In Them. The Only Reason It Happened Was Because That's What Was Coming Through And I Liked The Idea At That Period Of Time. But That Doesn't Mean That It's A Myth Or That I'm A Gypsy. It's Gotten Totally Out Of Context.

You Learn To Read The Audiences After A While, And There Are All Different Kinds Of Gigs.

It's Real Difficult To Pin Down Directions. I Just Want To Do Collaboration-tape Stuff.

Heavy Connection Is Just Basically About Psychic Stuff...it's Kind Of About Connections That You're Not Normally Making. It's Like A Fate Number Where You're Making Psychic Connections That You're Not Really Aware Of But They're There.

And I Want To Rock Your Gypsy Soul Just Like Way Back In The Days Of Old And Magnificently We Will Fold Into The Mystic

You Have To Understand A Bit About The Poetry Of The Blues To Know Where The References Are Coming From.

A Lot Of Things Come Together To Make Up A Song. It's Just Images.

If You Want To Put Your Rock 'n' Roll Into Mythology, [a Period Of Transition] Is From The Daddy Cool School.

And I Shall Watch The Ferry Boats, And They'll Get High, On A Bluer Ocean Against Tomorrow's Sky. And I Will Never Grow So Old Again, And I Will Walk And Talk, In Gardens All Wet With Rain.

I Felt Kind Of Bored At The Prospect Of Writing Some More Of My Own Songs Because I Really Wasn't Saying What I Wanted To Say.

From The Dark End Of The Street - To The Bright Side Of The Road - We'll Be Lovers Once Again On The - Bright Side Of The Road

As A Developing Musician, Skiffle Became A Platform For Me To Start Playing Music.

I'd Found That What I Wrote And Put Out On Records Somehow Was Not Fitting Into How I Perform On Stage.

Even Today, Skiffle Is A Defining Part Of My Music. If I Get The Opportunity To Just Have A Jam, Skiffle Is What I Love To Play.

If You're With A Good Band And Everybody's From The Old School, It's Different. When You're In Your Element, You're In Your Element And Things Just Come. You Don't Have To Drag Them Out Or Force Them Out. They Just Happen.

I Learnt From Armstrong On The Early Recordings That You Never Sang A Song The Same Way Twice.

Going Down The Old Mine With A Transistor Radio.

You Take Stuff From Different Places, And Sometimes You Stick A Line In Because It Rhymes, Not Because It Makes Sense.

The Idea [of A Period Of Transition Album] Was To Get A Break From Everything For A While Because I've Been Doing It For So Long. I Started Doing It When I Was 12.

Large Audiences Did Not Suit My Low-key Approach.

Jazz Comes From A Tradition Where It Swings. Swing Was The Main Ingredient Of Jazz. And Once It Loses The Swing...well, That's It.

When I Think Of That Dear Rugged Cross Where The Dear Saviour Gave His All... When I Feel Like I'm On My Last Go Round, See Me Through.

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Josephine Baker

Theodore Roethke

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