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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.

-Van Morrison

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There's No Difference Between

Van Morrison

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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.

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

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.

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 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

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

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

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

You Gotta Fight Every Day To Keep Mediocrity At Bay.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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 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

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

[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.

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 Educated Myself. To Me, School Was Boring.

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

Black And White

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

[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.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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

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Going Down The Old Mine With A Transistor Radio.

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.

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

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.

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

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

I Just Need Somewhere To Dump All My Negativity.

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.

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.

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

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.

The Way I Was Singing The Songs Was Jazz

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

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.

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.

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

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?

Music Is Spiritual. The Music Business Is Not.

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.

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

I 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'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.

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.

The Wild Night Is Calling.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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 A Marvelous Night For A Moondance!

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

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

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.

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

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

[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.

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

I Think Intellectualization Is What's Killing Most People.

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 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.

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

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

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

Smell The Sea And Feel The Sky.

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

[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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

A Fantabulous Night To Make Romance.

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'm A Working Man In My Prime Cleaning Windows.

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.

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.

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.

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

Personal Things

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.

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

I 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.

Hearing The Blues Changed My Life.

Changed My Life

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.

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

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.

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.

Let Your Soul And Spirit Fly.

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.

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'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.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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C. Wright Mills

Delmore Schwartz

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