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I'm Not A Singer, A Walking Instrument Like Aretha Franklin. When You Get An Iggy Pop Record, You Don't Get "iggy Sings." I Am Also A Style Of Music, An Approach.

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I'm Not A Singer,

Iggy Pop

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I'm Not A Singer, A Walking Instrument Like Aretha Franklin. When You Get An Iggy Pop Record, You Don't Get "iggy Sings." I Am Also A Style Of Music, An Approach.

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A Lot Of Young Musicians Get The Money At The Wrong Time. They Get It For Something They Don’t Feel Great About, And It’ll Make You Feel So Bad It’ll Destroy You And Kill You.

I Stayed In L.a. Long Enough To Get On My Feet, And Then I Moved Back To New York. The Reason I Moved Here Was That I Don't Feel Warm Outside Of A City; It's Too Barren In The Suburbs, And L.a. Is A Suburb. Here, It Felt Active.

How Am I Going To Listen To That Horrible Noise I Make Without A Gram Of Coke And A Couple Of Double Jack Daniels?

I Have A Hot Memory, But I Know I've Forgotten Many Things, Too, Just Squashed Things In Favor Of Survival.

Miami's Not Anybody's Poor Cousin. It's An Aspiration To Live In This Town, Not Something You Have To Do To Promote Yourself Like Some Of The Larger Cities.

My Mom Was A Saint. She Taught Me To Be Terminally Nice.

Basically, I’m A Musical Vocalist, But I Do Voiceover Stuff As A Sideline, Like Plumbing Or Something.

Curious Is A Good Thing To Be, It Seems To Pay Some Unexpected Dividends.

What Did Christ Really Do? He Hung Out With Hard-drinking Fishermen.

Onstage I've Been Hit By A Grapefruit, Beercans, Eggs, Spit, Money, Cigarette Butts, Mandies, Quaaludes, Joints, Bras, Panties, And A Fist.

I'm Not A Singer, A Walking Instrument Like Aretha Franklin. When You Get An Iggy Pop Record, You Don't Get "iggy Sings." I Am Also A Style Of Music, An Approach.

The 2 Things I Like The Most Are Girls And Loud Noises.

Miami's Never Been More Than A Spit From New York.

And For So Long, I Had Thought If I Was Going To Write A Song, Or Get "into" Something, I Had To At Least Smoke A Joint Or Something. And That Didn't Work Anymore. Once I Was Fairly Well Cleaned Out, Even A Little Bit Of A Drug Getting Into My Work Threw Me Off Kilter.

You Know, I'm Fifty-two Now And I Call Myself A Singer. Before I Kick It I Want To Be Able To Carry A Tune In A Living Room If Called Upon. Of Course, Mine Come Out All Dark And Twisted And Weird.

There Are No Pimps, No Whores, No Transvestites - Gone. Now That's More The Culture I'm Comfortable In ... I Don't Like It In The House, You Know What I Mean, But I Like It Somewhere Around.

Look, You're Here To See Me, And I Can't Go On Until My Dealer Is Here, And He's Waiting To Be Paid, So Give Me Some Money So I Can Fix Up, And Then You'll Get Your Show.

I Was A Pretty Nice Kid. Kind Of Quiet, But Quiet In Terms I Wasn't Going Out And Setting Fire To Anything. I Had A Big Mouth And I Was Creative Type, You Know.

The People Who Were Learning From Me Tended To Be More Commercial Performers Who Were Gonna Rip Off The Salient Idea To Do It In A Way That Will Sell, But They Weren't Going For The Music.

I'm A Street Walking Cheetah With A Heart Full Of Napalm.

It's Fair To Say That I Have A Side That Is Prudent And A Side That Is Not.

I Became Iggy Because I Had A Sadistic Boss At A Record Store. I'd Been In A Band Called The Iguanas. And When This Boss Wanted To Embarrass And Demean Me, He'd Say, 'iggy, Get Me A Coffee, Light.'

I Like Semi-torn-down Places Where I Could Get Nestled In And Get Something Done Without Anyone Bothering Me.

Pussy Power's Pulling Me Down, Down, Down, Down. When It's There And I Can't Have It, I Get Real Real Rabid.

I Think That Prosecuting Some College Kid Because She Shared A File Is A Lot Like Sending Somebody To Australia 200 Years Ago For Poaching His Lordship's Rabbit. That's How It Must Seem To Poor People Who Just Want To Watch A Crappy Movie For Free After They’ve Been Working Themselves To Death All Day At Tesco Or Whatever, You Know.

If I Had To Depend On What I Actually Get From Sales, I'd Be Tending Bar Between Sets.

Music Is Life, And Life Is Not A Business.

My Parents Wanted To Light My Artistic Candle. But Over Time, The Definition Of 'the Arts' Began To Stretch. And As I Got Older, They Suddenly Realized, Oh, My God, We're The Parents Of Iggy Pop.

Well, The Stuff That Has Become More Commercial Doesn't Have Any Edge.

I Am The Passenger, I Stay Under Glass. I Look Through My Window So Bright, I See The Stars Come Out Tonight. I See The Bright And Hollow Sky, Over The City's Ripped Backsides And Everything Looks Good Tonight.

I'm Not The Kind Of Person Who Could Join Aa Or Have Rules For Myself Or On Thursday Take This Vitamin Pill. So, Basically, I Learned The Hard Way. I Learned By Trial And Error, And Tried To Get Drugs Out Of My Work. That Took About A Year. If I Was Going To Work, It Was Best That I Be Straight. And I Was Surprised At What Came Out.

I'd Have A Few On And Off, But The Commitment Was Always More On The Girls' Part Than On Mine, To Be Perfectly Honest. So, I Met A Girl In Tokyo, On My Japanese Tour, With Whom I've Been Living Ever Since, Very Happily. Her Name Is Suchi.

I Never Say Never About Anything.

Never Say Never

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I Always Went In With A Very Specific Idea Of The Sound I Wanted, And Once I'd Recorded I'd Try And Make It Sell As Much As I Could, But I Only Went In Thinking Of A Sound I Wanted. So, It's No Surprise To Me That He Got The Hit And I Didn't. But What I Realized Was That He Did Dress It Up Nicely, And My God, He Does Sing On Key Well.

If I Started Thinking Too Much About How Influential I've Been, Then I'd Be More Of A Turd Than I Already Am.

I'd Come Home From School Alone With Those Teenage Blues And I'd Put On Frank Sinatra's It Was A Very Good Year. Here Was This Mature Man Singing About The Cycle Of His Life, And As A Kid I Felt The Emotions Of It Already. It Has Since Been A Touchstone For Me Whenever I Want To Experiment Musically.

I Smoked This Joint And Then It Hit Me. I Thought, What You Gotta Do Is Play Your Own Simply Blues.

I Find It Hard To Focus Looking Forward. So I Look Backward.

Looking Forward

Miami Is Nothing Like Me, And Thats Why I Need To Be Here - Its The Opposite. Im Practical, Where This Place Is Moody, Im Stolid In My Interior, Where This Place Has A Certain Flair, And Im Materialistic In A Sense That This Place Is Fundamentally Spiritual - Theres A Quicksilver Quality About This Place.

In 1965, When Great Young White Artists In The English-speaking World Were Successfully Re-channeling Hillbilly And Black Music - You Know Bob Dylan, Ray Davies, Pete Townsend, Keith Richards - They Didn't Get Any Money At First. They Were All Broke.

I Like Music That's More Offensive. I Like It To Sound Like Nails On A Blackboard, Get Me Wild.

I Think That All The Years Of Exposure To Amps And Electricity Has Altered My Body Chemistry.

Well, It Wasn't Like I Was Going To Run Out And Score Heroin And Score An Ounce Of Coke - But Incidentally, On The Road, I Would Usually Get Tanked Up And As Stoned As I Possibly Could To Go On Stage. And Offstage, It Would Be A Demon That Would Come Up About Twice A Week.

What The World Needs Right Now... A Good, Artistic, Gothic, Terrifying Scare

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And It's A - It's A Term That's Based On Contempt; It's A Term That's Based On Fashion, Style, Elitism, Satanism, And, Everything That's Rotten About Rock 'n' Roll.

Stages Are Getting Higher And Higher, And I'm Getting Older And Older.

When It Comes To Art, Money Is An Unimportant Detail. It Just Happens To Be A Huge Unimportant Detail.

I'm Not The Kind Of Person That Likes To Be Dependent.

Sex May Be A Little More Factual Than Love. You Know Whether It's Good Or Bad. You Know Whether You Liked It Or Not. You're Not Going To Change Your Mind About It Ten Years Later.

It's More Fun To Look At An Old Picture Of Me Than It Is To Look At A New One Sometimes. Although, I Still Wear A Dress Pretty Well.

I Spent Most Of The Eighties, Most Of My Life, Riding Around In Somebody Else's Car, In Possession Of, Or Ingested Of, Something Illegal, On My Way From Something Illegal To Something Illegal With Many Illegal Things Happening All Around Me

I'm Bored, I'm The Chairman Of The Board.

I Have No Idea Why A Guy Would Bring A Jar Of Peanut Butter To A Concert.

Living In England Was Wonderfully Civil And Easy-going.

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Dmt Was A Gaseous Wax That You Could Smoke That Gave You A 20-minute Psychedelic High. You'd Inhale It. And Then When You'd Exhale—poof, You'd Be High. I Saw Buddha, Man. I Know That Sounds Like No Big Deal. But I Saw A Gigantic Holographic Buddha — Correct In Every Way! Buddhas Can Be Very Intricate — These Drawings That You See In Books. Thousands Of Details Were Included In This Buddha. Where Did They Come From? I Didn't Make Them Up. I Can't Even Draw, You Know? I Could Barely Spell Cat, You Know? And There It Was. And I Thought, Wow — The Power Of The Mind, You Know?

Studios Are Like Hospitals. A Lot Of People Check In, And They Don't Check Out.

There Was A Time When I Wanted To Get Out Of The Western World. I Went Down To Grenada And Looked At A Place, And I Realised That If I Lived In A Grenadian Manner I'd Be Nothing But A Blah. I'm Going To Need Constant Bodyguarding, Guns And Money To Join The Community There. Otherwise You Just Got A Bunch Of Fat, Old White People Dying Together, Overeating, Drinking. Not Very Attractive.

I'm Glad I Am Crazy, It Keeps Me Trying. I Despise Trendies, I Know They're Lying.

At University, I Had Been Obsessed With Reading About The Lives Of Rimbaud And Baudelaire, And I Was Steeped In The Crazy Poets, And I Came To View My Early Subjects Through That Prism.

Something I Like To Do A Lot Is Just Sit By Water When There’s A Current And Just Stare Into The Water. I Don’t Fish, I Don’t Hunt, I Don’t Scuba, I Don’t Spear, Don’t Boat, Don’t Play Basketball Or Football – I Excel At Staring Into Space. I’m Really Good At That.

As Society Has Changed, What Had Formerly Been Unacceptable Has Become Colorful.

When Punk Began To Be A Genre, People Were Going To Go Out And Try To Mine It. Some Of The Better Groups, Like The Ramones And The Sex Pistols, Were Very Artificial.

Nihilism Is Best Done By Professionals.

The Problem Being: For Years I Was Struggling - First To Prove That I Had Any Talent, Then To Create Some Skills And Finally To Fulfil It Reasonably. But Then Once I Got There It Was, "ok. I Did That, But I Want To Be Happy." And That's A Whole Different Deal. It's Kind Of Like A Dance. Being Active Seems To Help. I'm 70, So Sometimes A Little Voice Is Going, "just Take It Easy".

I Wasn't So Stupid That I Didn't Realize The Implications Of What They Were Saying. In My Live Work I Was Going For The Quick Thrill, Rather Than Spending Time Concentrating On My Voice. I Figured I'd Get On, Make As Many Quick Movement As Possible, Dance My Ass Off For Five Minutes, Move Into The Insult Portion Of The Evening, And Then, At The End, Create Some Kind Of Chaos Until The 55 Minutes Were Up.

I'm Not Ashamed To Dress "like A Woman" Because I Don't Think It's Shameful To Be A Woman.

I Wanted To Learn A Little Bit About Acting, Not Because I Thought I'd Find A Star Vehicle And Set The World On Fire, But I Thought The Discipline Of It Would Be Good For Me. I Met A Good Coach, And I Joined Her Class - With A Lot Of Hungry Young Actors Who Really Didn't Acre If I Was A Rock 'n' Roll Singer Or Not. I Started To Learn To Get A Focus, Without Having To Jump Up And Down Every Few Seconds.

And If Somebody's Going To Produce Me, They Should Be Producing My Sound For Me. And That's Something I Have To Come Up With Myself.

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The Key To The Doors Is The Culture Behind The Myth.

I Never Had A Checkbook. It Used To Be Cash In Hand, Stuff In The Pocket, Or A Manager Would Keep Some Accounts And Give Me Money. I Started To Wonder What It Must Feel Like To Actually Make A Profit, Pay Taxes, And To Have A Phone Listing, And A Manager. And Also, I Was Sick Of Sleeping Around Every Night.

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I Don't Get My Bliss By Listening Over And Over To People In The Street Thinking, "boy, Is It That Good?" Even Though Every Time I Hear It That's What I Think. But I Get It In Human Situations. There Is This Little Voice That Is Going, "the Reason You're Able To Enjoy Your Life Now Is That You Made It In Rock'n'roll And People Are Giving You Free Visas All Over The Place. Dude, You Are Being Spoiled".

Well, After Zombie Birdhouse Came Out, I Toured Behind It In The Fall Of 1982, Into The Spring, And In The Summer In The Far East. At That Time, I Found My Work Self-referential; It Was Getting To Be Rock Songs About A Rock Singer Who Lived A Rock Life On The Rock Road, And I Was Starting To Wonder What I Would Be Like To Rent My Own Apartment, What It Would Be Like To Have A Checkbook.

I Was Feeling That I Was The In The Dead-end Circuit From 1980 To 1983, And I Didn't Know What Else To Do. I Remember Doing A Show In Some College Town, In A Tiny Club, And Afterward Some Fans Came Back. I Thought I Had Done Good Gig And They Were Going To Tell Me That.

Cigarettes And Coffee, Man, That's A Combination.

I'm A Little Bit Damaged In About 15 Different Ways, And It's Been Nice That No Particular Damaged Area Has Become A Major Issue. I'm A More Than Moderately Healthy 65-year-old Male Who Has Gotten Away With A Lot Of Stuff.

My General Take On American Music Since 1969 Is That It's Just Getting Stiffer And People Are Getting More Uptight - Audience, Performance, And Palace Guard.

What Some People Would Call Antics, I Would Just Call A Good Show.

If I Don't Terrorize, I'm Not Pop.

I Thought That If I Practiced Doing Melodies For A Year Or So At Home, I Would Learn To Think Melodically, And When I Went To Work It Would Come Out, And It Did, On This Album. What Else Was Important To Me...? I Spend A Lot Of Time In The Grocery Store, Shopping.

When I Get Up In The Morning, I Stay Nude For Three Or Four Hours. If I Really Feel Like Getting Formal, I'll Put On Board Shorts.

Really Good Music Isn't Just To Be Heard, You Know? It's Almost Like A Hallucination

I Try To Beat Back The Producers And Engineers So They - There's Not An Excess Of Stuff Used To Squeeze My Voice To Make It Artificial. There's A Person In There, And People Will Listen; If They Hear Another Person Speak To Them, They'll Listen Because It's Lonely Out Here.

I Feel A Great Comfort And Relief Knowing That There Are Others Who Lived And Died And Thought And Fought So Long Ago; I Feel Less Tyrannized By The Present Day.

I Kinda Feel Like Everything Comes Full Circle In Life, Even Though That's A Cliche.

I Stare At Myself In The Mirror And I Think, 'wow, I'm Really Great-looking.'... I Think I'm The Greatest, Anyway.

In The Morning I'd Write These Essays, Anything That I'd Feel Like Writing, And In The Afternoon, I'd Spend Time With My Guitar. I Had Decided After Listening To My Last Four Or Five Albums That My Biggest Weakness Musically Was Melody. The Reason I Had Been Singing In A Monotone Over The Chord Patterns In My Songs Was That I Never Practiced Doing Melodies.

The More Walking-around Money I Have, The Less I Walk Around.

It's The Same Thing: I Would Think, "if I Can't Go Out And Pull Some Teenager Tonight, Maybe I'm No Good On Stage Anymore." And You Start To Think That You Even Need It As A Motivation. I Did, Anyway.

Punk Rock Is A Word Used By Dilettantes And Heartless Manipulators About Music That Takes Up The Energies, The Bodies, The Hearts, The Souls, The Time And The Minds Of Young Men Who Give Everything They Have To It.

I Thought, "wow, It Sounds Really Stoned Anyway." It Sounded Good To Me. I Found Out That There Was A Lot In There. What All This Comes Down To Is I Was Just Trying To Get In Touch With Myself. And I Met Some Interesting People In New York Who Weren't In Show Business. I Even Got To Know My Dentist.

I'm A Travel Enthusiast.

The Rock 'n' Roll Hall Of Fame Was A Great Idea When It Started, But I Think They Ought To Close It, I Think It's Full.

The Future Of Rock N Roll Is Justin Bieber.

If You Give A Good Performance, Something That Gets Some Feeling Across To People, That’s Such A Rare Gift. It’s Underestimated At This Point In History, When The Music Biz Is Inevitably Turning Into A Kind Of Politics.

They Say That Death Kills You, But Death Doesn't Kill You. Boredom And Indifference Kill You.

I'll Love You When My Eyes Are Open, I'll Love You When My Eyes Are Gone.

I've Probably Been Spit On More That Any Person Alive Outside Of, I Would Say, A Member Of The Prison System.

I Was Who I Was In High School In Accordance With The Rules Of Conduct For A Normal Person, Like Obeying Your Mom And Dad. Then I Got Out Of High School And Moved Out Of The House, And I Just Started, For Lack Of A Better Term, Running Free.

Musical Types Tend To Combine The Burden Of The Author With The Burden Of The Actor.

I Never Believed That U2 Wanted To Save The Whales. I Don't Believe That The Beastie Boys Are Ready To Lay It Down For Tibet.

Life Is Just A Bag Of Pot.

Well, I Don't Use The Toilet Much To Pee In. I Almost Always Pee In The Yard Or The Garden, Because I Like To Pee On My Estate.

Nobody Understands Me, I'm Really Sensitive.

Nobody Understands Me

Your Skin Starts Itching Once You Buy That Gimmick About Something Called Love.

Bowie's A Real Man, And I'm A Real Woman - Just Like Catherine Deneuve.

When The 'godfather Of Punk' Thing Started Floatin' Around, It Was, I Was Really, Really Embarrassed. I Thought I Should Have A Great, Big Rig And A Cape And Everything, And It Was Very Embarrassing. And Then After A While, You Learn That If People Call You Anything, This Is A Great Gift.

It Is Very Important What Not To Do.

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