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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.

-Van Morrison

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That's What It Is-it's

Van Morrison

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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.

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

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

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

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

Hearing The Blues Changed My Life.

Changed My Life

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

The Job Of The Jazz People Is To Take It As Far As It Will Go And That's What They're Doing. But In The Process Of Taking It Out There, There Has To Be Some Times When They're Not Getting It Right. It All Depends On What You Dig. I Personally Don't Think The Fusion Of Jazz With The Heaviness Of Rock Is Working.

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

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

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.

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.

Way Over On The Railroad, Tomorrow All The Tipping Trucks Will Unload Together, Every Scrapbook Stuck With Glue, And I'll Stand Beside You, Beside You, Child.

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

The Way I Was Singing The Songs Was Jazz

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

[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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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'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!

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

Large Audiences Did Not Suit My Low-key Approach.

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.

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'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 Just Need Somewhere To Dump All My Negativity.

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

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

Black And White

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.

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

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.

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

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

Personal Things

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

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.

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.

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!

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

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

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.

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

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

Motivational Sports

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

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.

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'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.

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

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

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

Once In A Blue Moon Someone Like You Comes Along.

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 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.

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.

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.

[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.

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.

Smell The Sea And Feel The Sky.

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

Have I Told You Lately That I Love You, Have I Told You Lately There's No One Above You. Fill My Heart With Gladness, Take Away All My Sadness, Ease My Troubles, That's What You Do.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

[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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

The Wild Night Is Calling.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

[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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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?

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

I'm A Working Man In My Prime Cleaning Windows.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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...

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.

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

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

You Gotta Fight Every Day To Keep Mediocrity At Bay.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I Don't Think Nostalgia Has To Be Negative.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Music Is Spiritual. The Music Business Is Not.

Going Down The Old Mine With A Transistor Radio.

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.

It's A Marvelous Night For A Moondance!

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

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?

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.

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.

[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.

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

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 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.

A Fantabulous Night To Make Romance.

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.

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.

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 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 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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Jackie Robinson

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