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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.

-Van Morrison

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Jazz Was Always Cool.

Van Morrison

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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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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 Think Nostalgia Has To Be Negative.

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

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.

Someone Once Described Me As A Maverick And That's What I Would Say. I'm A Maverick Not By Choice But By Conviction.

I Think Intellectualization Is What's Killing Most People.

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 Was Like One Of Those Newspapers, Those Periodicals. There's All Different Kinds Of Alcoholics. There's The Everyday Kind: That's The Consistent One. That's What People Think An Alcoholic Is-but An Alcoholic Is Basically Just Someone Who's Allergic To Alcohol. That's All It Means. It's Just An Allergy.

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

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.

Music Is Spiritual. The Music Business Is Not.

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

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

Going Down The Old Mine With A Transistor Radio.

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

I Don't Feel Comfortable Doing Interviews. My Profession Is Music, And Writing Songs. That's What I Do. I Like To Do It, But I Hate To Talk About It.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

Let Your Soul And Spirit Fly.

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

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.

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.

Let Go Into The Mystery. Let Yourself Go. And When You Open Up Your Heart, You Get Everything You Need. Baby There's A Way And A Mystic Road. You've Got To Have Some Faith To Carry On, You've Got To Open Up Your Heart To The Son.

You Are Who You Are. It Doesn't Make Any Point To Go Out And Buy The Top 40 Albums To See What Those Acts Are Doing. There's No Point In Hearing What's Going On. The Only Thing That's Going On Is What's Been Going Forever. It's Just That Some People Dig That Bag And Some People Dig The Other Bag.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

There Is No Black-and-white Situation. It's All Part Of Life. Highs, Lows, Middles.

Black And White

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

[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.

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

Smell The Sea And Feel The Sky.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Motivational Sports

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

When I Started You Were More In Touch With The People You Were Playing To. There Wasn't The Distance Or The Separation That There Is Now.

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'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!

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'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.

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.

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.

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.

You Gotta Fight Every Day To Keep Mediocrity At Bay.

Once In A Blue Moon Someone Like You Comes Along.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

It's A Marvelous Night For A Moondance!

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

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.

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

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.

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 Never, Ever Said That I Was A Nice Guy.

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

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

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.

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

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 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.

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

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

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

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

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 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.

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

If You Get Into Introspective Blues Or Something Where You're Stretching Out A Bit, Large Audiences Don't Respond To This, So You Have To Give Them What They Want, Basically.

Sometimes, When The Spirit Moves Me I Can Do Many Wondrous Things I Wanna Know When The Spirit Moves You Did Ye Get Healed?

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.

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

You Have To Remember That Writing Those Sorta Songs Is Not Reality, It's More Like Trance, Dream, Y'know, Like Dreamwork. The Mythical Thing Can Enter The Creating But There's The Mythical Place And The Real Place. And There's Both...i Get It Between Waking And Sleeping. Or, When I'm Doing Something Else. I Don't Sit Down And Think I'm Gonna Write About Subject X Or Subject Y. I Could Be Doing Something And An Impression Comes In From Outside And The Song Emerges Out Of That. It's Never Thought About Or Contrived.

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.

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

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

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'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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Singing Is My Profession - There Is No Plan B.

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

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

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

It's The Same Thing As A Primitive Of Africans, Indians, Nomads Or Whatever - When They Start Getting Up And Doing Their Ritual And Doing The Dance, It's Just What's Coming Through. It's The Spirit. Rock 'n' Roll Is Still Primitive.

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.

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.

A Fantabulous Night To Make Romance.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 Never Bought The Commercial Thing, At Any Stage Of The Game.

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

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

[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.

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.

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

[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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

[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.

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.

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'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 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.

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.

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

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.

The Way I Was Singing The Songs Was Jazz

I Educated Myself. To Me, School Was Boring.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

[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.

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

Black And White

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

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 Just Need Somewhere To Dump All My Negativity.

Hearing The Blues Changed My Life.

Changed My Life

It's Not That Big A Mystery About Types. It's Not Even That Big A Mystery Why So Many People Are Picking Up On Things Now. It's Like We Were Talking About The Primitive Thing Before And All That. Nothing Has Really Changed Much. The Things That Have Changed Are Like We're On The Noon Now. There Are More Buildings Now. But We're Still Basically Two Monkeys Sitting Here.

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.

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

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

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?

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

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

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.

[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.

When You Start To Analyze [rock 'n' Roll], It's Only Because You Don't Understand It. You're Just Not Connecting With It Once You Have To Start Analyzing It.

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.

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Diane Von Furstenberg

Cleveland Amory

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