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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.

-Van Morrison

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We're [with Robbie Robertson

Van Morrison

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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.

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

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.

You Gotta Fight Every Day To Keep Mediocrity At Bay.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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 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

[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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Black And White

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.

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.

What Was Happening With Me, With The Album [a Period Of Transition], With The People Who Took The Pictures, The Record Company, Everything, Getting A New Manager [harvey Goldsmith]-it Was All Saying A Period Of Transition To Me So That Was The Title Choice. It Says What It Is And Obviously Nobody Is Going To Analyze That. It's Exactly What It Is.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Smell The Sea And Feel The Sky.

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.

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.

The Way I Was Singing The Songs Was Jazz

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 Whole Trip That Happened In The Late 60s And 70s Was Kind Of A Throwback To A Lot Of Folk Styles. I Got Into It As Well 'cause I Started With The Folk Styles.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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'm A Working Man In My Prime Cleaning Windows.

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.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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

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

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.

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

Motivational Sports

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

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.

Hearing The Blues Changed My Life.

Changed My Life

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

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'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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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 Educated Myself. To Me, School Was Boring.

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.

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

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.

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.

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?

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Do You Remember The Time Darlin' When Everything Made More Sense In The World? Oh I Remember, I Remember... When Life Made More Sense... Take Me Back, Take Me Back, Take Me Way Back... To When Life Made More Sense.

I 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 Write Songs. Then I Record Them. And Later, Maybe I Perform Them On Stage. That's What I Do. That's My Job. Simple.

Large Audiences Did Not Suit My Low-key Approach.

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

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.

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.

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

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 Just Need Somewhere To Dump All My Negativity.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

[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'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.

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

Oh Won't You Stay Stay A While With Your Own Ones Don't Ever Stray Stray So Far From Your Own Ones 'cause The World Is So Cold Don't Care Nothing For Your Soul That You Share With Your Own Ones.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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 Wild Night Is Calling.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

[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 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.

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.

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

Personal Things

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.

Singing Is My Profession - There Is No Plan B.

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

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

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.

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

We're [with Robbie Robertson ] Jazz Musicians. The Context May Be Rock 'n' Roll But It's Still Jazz. It's Jazz And That Means Improvization...you Play A Tune The Way It Feels And You Play It Differently Every Time. It Can Never Be The Same.

I 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.

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.

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

I Don't Think Nostalgia Has To Be Negative.

I'd Come To The Point Where I Wasn't Really Putting Out Creatively. I Didn't Seem To Have Anything To Say In That Period Of Time After The '74 Tour. There Was Nothing Definite That I Wanted To Record.

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?

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

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.

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.

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

It's The Emotion...each Word Has Got A Connotation And Symbolism And The Thing Is Finding What's Behind The Word-what Meaning It Has And What Emotion. I'm Really Into Vocal Repetition As A Definite Art Form.

I 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.

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

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 Think Intellectualization Is What's Killing Most People.

[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.

[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.

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.

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

It's A Marvelous Night For A Moondance!

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

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

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.

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

I 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.

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

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

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

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

There's 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.

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

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

Black And White

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.

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