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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.

-Van Morrison

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There's No Man Alive

Van Morrison

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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.

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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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

[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.

Smell The Sea And Feel The Sky.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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

Singing Is My Profession - There Is No Plan B.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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's A Marvelous Night For A Moondance!

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

A Fantabulous Night To Make Romance.

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

Black And White

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

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.

Going Down The Old Mine With A Transistor Radio.

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.

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

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

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.

Music Is Spiritual. The Music Business Is Not.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Let Your Soul And Spirit Fly.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

You Gotta Fight Every Day To Keep Mediocrity At Bay.

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 Will Make You Feel Good, And It Will Make You Feel Whole, When The Spirit Moves You And It Fills You Through And Through.

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.

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.

I Haven't Really Heard Much That's Impressed Me The Way It Was When I First Heard Ray Charles Or Somebody Like That. That Was Really An Impression.

I'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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Black And White

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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 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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Large Audiences Did Not Suit My Low-key Approach.

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

[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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

[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.

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.

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.

Hearing The Blues Changed My Life.

Changed My Life

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

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 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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Fact I Wasn't Getting Off Made Me Realize That I Really Had To Take A Hard Look At It And At The Type Of Music That I Played, Which Ranges From Ballads To Country Type Stuff To Rock And Rhythm 'n' Blues. It Takes In A Wider Spectrum.

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

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

Personal Things

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!

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.

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

I Think That There Are Quite A Few Acts Which Have Stayed With The Basic Feelings And That's Good. And I See Something Of A Swing Back To That. For Example There Are Quite A Few People Copying My Early Stuff Now. Like It's Become A Reference Point Or Something.

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

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.

Any Artist Is An Instrument-and That's Exactly Why You Can't Do It All The Time. You Can Only Do It When It's Happening, When It's Coming Through. No Matter How Much You May Want To Do It, If It's Not Happening Then It's Simply Not Happening.

I Educated Myself. To Me, School Was Boring.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Once In A Blue Moon Someone Like You Comes Along.

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.

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.

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'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.

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

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 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.

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?

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

The Wild Night Is Calling.

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.

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

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?

The Theory Is That You Don't Play A Song The Same Way Twice Because It's Jazz. That's Where I'm Coming From.

I 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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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Samantha Morton

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