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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.

-Van Morrison

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When I First Started

Van Morrison

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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.

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

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 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.

Singing Is My Profession - There Is No Plan B.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

[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.

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

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.

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.

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

Black And White

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.

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.

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

When You Hear The Music Ringin' In Your Soul And You Feel It In Your Heart And It Grows And Grows And It Comes From The Backstreet Rock & Roll And The Healing Has Begun...

I 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 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?

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.

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

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?

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 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.

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

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

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

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

It Was Like I Had Evolved To A Certain Stage Where I Was Stuck In This Songwriter Bag As An Image. But Basically At Heart, I'm A Rocker. And I Still Am. But I Was Caught Up In The Singer/songwriter Bag And I Wasn't Really Enjoying It.

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

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.

The Wild Night Is Calling.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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 Never, Ever Said That I Was A Nice Guy.

There's Quite A Few People Getting Into That - New Acts Coming Along That Are Using A Lot Of Stuff That Happened In The 50s And 60s. They're Completely Ignoring The 70s Which Is Kind Of A Turn On Because To Me Nothing Has Really Gone Down In The 70s.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

I Think Intellectualization Is What's Killing Most People.

Music Is Spiritual. The Music Business Is Not.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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'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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Black And White

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.

A Fantabulous Night To Make Romance.

Let Your Soul And Spirit Fly.

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.

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.

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.

If The Spirit Comes Through In A Madame George Type Of Song, That's What The Spirit Says. You Have Very Little To Do With It. You're Like An Instrument For What's Coming Through.

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

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.

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

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

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

Personal Things

Once In A Blue Moon Someone Like You Comes Along.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Hearing The Blues Changed My Life.

Changed My Life

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

You Gotta Fight Every Day To Keep Mediocrity At Bay.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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

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

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.

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

I'm Talking About Noise Rock. I Don't Think That Noise Rock Element Belongs In Jazz. It's Not For Me Anyway; It Just Doesn't Fit.

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.

[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.

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.

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'd Much Prefer To Hear Somebody Like Ed Thigpen [drummer With New York Session Group Stuff, And Featured On Innumerable Hits] Take A Solo. I Mean, That's What It Is. I'd Much Rather Hear That Than The Jazz/rock Thing Because It's Blowing An Aspect Of Jazz That I Really Like...the Level Where You Can Snap Your Fingers To It And You Can Groove To It. You Can Do Anything To It.

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

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.

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

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

Going Down The Old Mine With A Transistor Radio.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

[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'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 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 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 I First Started Drinking, Everybody Was Doing It. That Was Before They Discovered Marijuana And All That. It Was The Late 50s, Early 60s - It Was The Beginnings Of The Rock 'n' Roll Era. The Main Drink Was Like Wine. And Even That Was A Romantic Throwback To Something.

I Educated Myself. To Me, School Was Boring.

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

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

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 Wanted To Stop And Try To Get Some Perspective. [ A Period Of Transition] It Was Just A Matter Of Wanting To Review The Whole Thing...to Try And Get Some Relationship To What I Was Doing.

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

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.

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?

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

Motivational Sports

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

And I Want To Rock Your Gypsy Soul Just Like Way Back In The Days Of Old And Magnificently We Will Fold Into The Mystic

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

Whether You're Writing A Book Or A Song Or Whatever, You've Got To Be Involved In It. It's Got To Come From The Heart I Think...that's What It's All About.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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Mahmoud Darwish

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