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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.

-Van Morrison

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I Haven't Really Heard

Van Morrison

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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.

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

It's A Marvelous Night For A Moondance!

Sartre Said That Hell Is Other People, I Believe That Most Of Them Are

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.

Won't You Guide Me Through The Dark Night Of The Soul That I May Better Understand Your Way... Let Me Purify My Thoughts And Words And Deeds That I May Be A Vehicle For Thee... Give Me My Rapture Today.

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

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 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...

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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'm A Dweller Of The Threshold And I'm Waiting At The Door, And I'm Standing In The Darkness, I Don't Want To Wait No More.

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

[jean-paul] Sartre Was A Throwback To The Existential Period. I'm Not Really So Much Into That These Days. I Went Through A Period Of Going Over Things And Looking At Them Again To See What They Were. But I'm Into Psychiatry Type Things. I'm Into Philosophy. I'm Into That Sort Of Thing.

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

Large Audiences Did Not Suit My Low-key Approach.

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.

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.

I'm Talking About Noise Rock. I Don't Think That Noise Rock Element Belongs In Jazz. It's Not For Me Anyway; It Just Doesn't Fit.

These Are The Days Of The Endless Summer, These Are The Days, The Time Is Now. There Is No Past, There's Only Future, There's Only Here, There's Only Now.

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.

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

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

I Think Intellectualization Is What's Killing Most People.

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

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

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

Let Me Purify My Thoughts And Words And Deeds That I May Be A Vehicle For Thee.

Everybody's Got Their Own Particular Vision Which Is A Personal Thing.

Personal Things

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.

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.

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.

[touring] Is Not Necessarily A Priority. It's Just A Part Of Who I Am As A Performer. That's Obviously Why I'm Doing It; Why I'm In This Business Is Part Of Me Has To Perform.

Enlightenment Says The World Is Nothing Nothing But A Dream, Everything's An Illusion And Nothing Is Real.

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

I Don't Think Nostalgia Has To Be Negative.

Leave Your Thoughtlessness Behind You Then You May Begin To Understand. Clear The Emptiness Around You With The Waving Of Your Hand.

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

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.

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

[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.

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

There's Always Stress Involved In Any Genre Or Art Form, There's Always Going To Be A Struggle. If There's No Struggle, You Wouldn't Do Anything. What Are You Going Do? Retire?

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

Singing Is My Profession - There Is No Plan B.

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.

I Educated Myself. To Me, School Was Boring.

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

[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.

Let Go Into The Mystery Let Yourself Go You've Got To Open Up Your Heart That's All I Know Trust What I Say And Do What You're Told Baby, And All Your Dirt Will Turn Into Gold.

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

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.

When It's Not Always Raining There'll Be Days Like This. When There's No One Complaining There'll Be Days Like This. When Everything Falls Into Place Like The Flick Of A Switch. Well My Mama Told Me There'll Be Days Like This.

Spiritual Hunger And Spiritual Thirst But You Got To Change It On The Inside First To Be Satisfied

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

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.

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

These Days Politics, Religion, Media Seem To Get All Mixed Up. Television Became The New Religion A Long Time Back And The Media Has Taken Over.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

My Bag Is Approaching Something And Taking It To Another Place. Like Words-you Take A Word And By The Time You've Finished With It, You Milk It And You Go Through The Emotion Of What It Is, What It Means There And Then.

The Wild Night Is Calling.

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!

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.

I Just Can't Stand It [jazz/rock]. It Just Doesn't Sound Right To Me. It Doesn't Hit Me...it Doesn't Get Me...it Just Doesn't Grab Me.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Motivational Sports

[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'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.

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

Going Down The Old Mine With A Transistor Radio.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

[being Alcoholic] You're Either Too High Or You're Too Low. I Mean, I Was Always Looking For The Bell To Ring. I Was Always Waiting For That Bell.

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.

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 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.

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

I've Got Love In My Life, As Well As Trouble And Strife.

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.

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.

When I First Started Drinking, Everybody Was Doing It. That Was Before They Discovered Marijuana And All That. It Was The Late 50s, Early 60s - It Was The Beginnings Of The Rock 'n' Roll Era. The Main Drink Was Like Wine. And Even That Was A Romantic Throwback To Something.

You Can Call It Nostalgia, I Don't Mind Standing On That Windswept Hillside Listening To The Church Bells Chime Listen To The Church Bells Chime In That Magic Time.

I Thought Of Collaborating With Other People Which Still Might Happen At This Point. It Might Not. I Was Just Trying To Break The Cycle Because I Had Gotten To A Point Where I Was Definitely Sure That I Was On The Wrong Track After About 16 Years.

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

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

The Fog Of Illusion, The Fog Of Confusion Is Hanging All Over The World.

A Fantabulous Night To Make Romance.

I Never, Ever Said That I Was A Nice Guy.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Somebody's Going To Hear A Song That Will Key In A Nerve Or Something In Their Experience That Represents Their Own Vision. And The Next Person Is Going To See It Completely Different. So Even What It Means To Me Is Probably Irrelevant. It's Totally Irrelevant. What Matters Is What It Means To Each Person Listening To It.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Music To Me Is Spontaneous, Writing Is Spontaneous And It's All Based On Not Trying To Do It. From Beginning To End, Whether It's Writing A Song, Or Playing Guitar, Or A Particular Chord Sequence, Or Blowing A Horn, It's Based On Improvisation And Spontaneity.

Skiffle Was Blues Featuring A Washboard And Acoustic Instruments. It Encompassed Blues, With Elements Of Folk, Jazz, And, At Times, American Country-and-western Music.

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

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.

There's Always Got To Be A Struggle. What Else Is There? That's What Life Is Made Of. I Don't Know Anything Else. If There Is, Tell Me About 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.

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.

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.

You Gotta Fight Every Day To Keep Mediocrity At Bay.

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.

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.

I Just Need Somewhere To Dump All My Negativity.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

I Understood Jazz, I Understood How It Worked. That's What I Apply To Everything.

I Just Like Any Music To Swing, No Matter What It Is.

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.

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

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.

You Know What They're Writing About Baby You Know What They're Writing About It's A Thing Called Love Down Through The Ages Makes You Wanna Cry Sometimes Makes You Feel Like You Wanna Lay Down And Die Sometimes Makes You High Sometimes But When You Really Get In It Lifts You Right Up.

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 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 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.

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

If You're A Pop Singer, You Don't Need To Evolve. You Just Get A Set Together, Have Some Hit Songs And Play Them Over And Over.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Music Is Spiritual. The Music Business Is Not.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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'm A Working Man In My Prime Cleaning Windows.

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

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

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.

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.

Did You Ever Hear About The Rock And Roll Singer Who Got 3 Or 4 Cadillacs, Saying Power To The People, Dance To The Music, Wants You To Pat Him On The Back.

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.

Do You Remember The Time Darlin' When Everything Made More Sense In The World? Oh I Remember, I Remember... When Life Made More Sense... Take Me Back, Take Me Back, Take Me Way Back... To When Life Made More Sense.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

Once In A Blue Moon Someone Like You Comes Along.

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

That's The Jazz That I Like - The Stuff That Has A Soothing Effect.

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.

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

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.

I Just Wanted To Have A Look At My Whole Musical Career, Get Right Back To When I Started And Why I Started Doing It In The First Place.

I'm Still Basically The Same As I Always Was. I Still Listen To The Same People. That's Where I'm Coming From.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

If You Never Hear From Me That Just Means I Would Rather Not.

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