Rockstars often serve as spokesmen for generations, conveying political messages and voicing social concerns far more articulately then any.
Here is a list of quotes that are said by protagonist Tommy Vercetti in the events of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. This page maybe missing some quotes, so you can help by adding more quotes.
ClashMusic: Read 50 more outrageous quotes in music from Ozzy you can't sleep and you grind your teeth, what the fuck is good about that?.
British rock legend David Bowie, who died on January 10 after a battle with cancer, was shorthand for cool. Always the first to speak his mind, here’s a man who admitted that Sigmund Freud would have a blast with a personality like his.
Cull the quotes from his past interviews and you have a textbook filled with valuable life lessons. tabloid! rounds up some of the best ones he made on fame, his battle with drug addiction, relationships, sexuality, death and music ...
“I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring.” — Bowie at his 50th birthday concert bash at Madison Square Garden, January 1997.
“I’m an instant star. Just add water and stir.” — Halliwell’s Who’s Who in the Movies 15th Edition (2003) by Leslie Halliwell,
“I never really felt like a rock singer or a rock star or whatever,” said Bowie about his Ziggy Stardust period in a 1988 interview. “Now I realise that from ‘72 through to about ‘76, I was the ultimate rock star. I couldn’t have been more rock star.” — Rolling Stone, May 19,2014
“I think fame itself is not a rewarding thing. The most you can say is that it gets you a seat in restaurants.” — Q Magazine, April 1990
“The reason you don’t want to make a commitment is not that you’re such a freewheeling, adventurous person, it’s because you’re scared s***less that it will turn out like your mother and father.” Bowie on relationships, speaking in 1990.
“If it’s wearing a pink hat and a red nose, and it plays a guitar upside down, I will go and look at it. I love to see people being dangerous.” — Rolling Stone, April 1999
“Any list of advice I have to offer to a musician always ends with, “If it itches, go and see a doctor.” said Bowie as he received an honorary degree from Boston’s Berklee College of Music, 1999.
“It’s true — I am a bisexual. But I can’t deny that I’ve used that fact very well. I suppose it’s the best thing that ever happened to me. Fun, too.” — Playboy, 1976.
“I had to resign myself, many years ago, that I’m not too articulate when it comes to explaining how I feel about things. But my music does it for me, it really does. There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say,” — Livewire, June 16, 2002
“I feel that I’ve consistently written about the same subjects for 35… nearly 40 years. There’s really been no room for change with me. It’s all despondency, despair, fear, isolation, abandonment.” — BBC, 2002.
“I’ve always regretted that I never was able to talk openly with my parents, especially with my father. I’ve heard and read so many things about my family that I can no longer believe anything; every relative I question has a completely different story from the last. I seem to have half a dozen family histories.” — Esquire 2004.
“I hate sleep. I would much prefer staying up, just working, all the time. It makes me so mad that we can’t do anything about sleep or the common cold.” — Playboy, 1975
“As I get older my questions are fewer, but I ask them more. I bark them, rather than ask them … The song Heathen is about a man confronting the realisation that life is a finite thing and that he can already feel it — life itself — going from him, ebbing out of him. The weakening of age. And I didn’t want to write that. I didn’t want to know that I do feel that. Who does? … You must realise, though, ageing doesn’t faze me at all. It’s the death part that’s really a drag.” — to the BBC, 2002.
“So many people find it fashionable to say you couldn’t write those things if you weren’t on drugs and all that. I just doubt that’s the truth at all, because some of the best things I wrote in [the 1970s were when] I had already cleaned up.” — to ABC, 2004.
“I won’t mention who they are for obvious reasons, but there are two or three critics that I actually take great note of. A couple of times one particular guy has written things, and I’ve definitely taken note and thought, ‘You know, he’s actually hit it right on the head.’” — GQ, 2002.
“I don’t quite know what managers are supposed to do, even. I think if you have even just a modicum of intelligence, you’re going to know what it is you are and where you want to go. Once you know that, you just bring in specific people for specialist jobs. You don’t have to end up signing your life away to some fool who’s just there kind of grabbing hold of the coattails,” in an interview with music writer Bill DeMain.
“Make the best of every moment. We’re not evolving. We’re not going anywhere.” — Esquire, 2004.
They are great and successful. They have been called geniuses, and their music still inspires hundreds of young musicians today. They prove that becoming a legendary musician takes determination, passion, and drive, along with sheer talent.
Their contribution to music can’t be counted, and today we share their words with musicians who dream of greatness, and try to reveal the secrets of these wonderful people’s success and charisma.
So, catch your muse, play a guitar – and may inspiration be with you!
1. Jimi Hendrix
“Music doesn’t lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.”
The point is, that Hendrix was not the best guitar player among his contemporaries. The fact is, he played more naturally. He was a creative person, and he personified the music he played: he was this music himself.
2. Keith Richards
“Music is a necessity. After food, air, water and warmth, music is the next necessity of life.”
There is a reason why people are ready to pay a lot to see Richards’ playing. He created many amazing and diverse songs and melodies. His guitar playing has always been innovative, and his use of constantly changing approaches has always been in at the heart of The Rolling Stones’ sound.
3. Eddie Van Halen
“If you want to be a rock star or just be famous, then run down the street naked, you’ll make the news or something. But if you want music to be your livelihood, then play, play, play and play! And eventually you’ll get to where you want to be.”
Van Halen’s skills come from the way he plays his guitar. He mastered the technique of tapping to perfection, and he even improved it. He is 60 now, and he continues to tour.
4. Robert Leroy Johnson
“When the train, it left the station, there was two lights on behind,
Well, the blue light was my baby, and the red light was my mind.”
There is a good reason why almost all articles about Robert Johnson have one and the same featured image of him: only two portraits of this blues musician are available today. Most of Johnson’s life was spent out of commercial success. Though he played in the streets, he is probably one of the key blues musicians in history.
5. Ry Cooder
“No second chances in the land of a thousand dances, the valley of ten million insanities.”
Ryland Peter Cooder is a charismatic, multifaceted and extraordinary musician best known for his starring role in Buena Vista Social Club. Ry started as a teenager and a promising blues musician, and he became famous for his slide guitar work.
6. Carlos Santana
“Most people are prisoners, thinking only about the future or living in the past. They are not in the present, and the present is where everything begins.”
The “glass” tone of Santana’s guitar playing is easy to recognize once it appears in a song. His characteristic fusion of Latin rhythms, blues and jazz has become almost a cult, and his 65-year-old career deservedly led him to ten Grammy Awards and three Latin Grammies.
7. Jimmy Page
“I believe every guitar player inherently has something unique about their playing. They just have to identify what makes them different and develop it.”
This Led Zeppelin guitarist has become one of the greatest players of all time. However, he is also one of the greatest composers and producers in the world of rock. Having such an extensive set of songs, solos and rhythms, Jimmy Page has easily become one of the titans in music industry.
8. Eric Clapton
“When all the original blues guys are gone, you start to realize that someone has to tend to the tradition. I recognize that I have some responsibility to keep the music alive, and it’s a pretty honorable position to be in.”
The only three-time winner of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Award, Clapton has revolutionized a guitar playing and become one of the most respected and influential musical figures in the era of rock. His style has changed over time, but he always held on to his blues roots.
9. Chuck Berry
“You don’t just go to the studio and say, ‘I’m going to write a hit.’ It becomes a hit when people like your compositions.”
Berry is best known for being one of the first rock and roll guitarists. As a result, he served as an inspiration for famous guitarists such as Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Chuck Berry was economical and clean as a guitarist, and he was bright and witty as a showman.
10. Jeff Beck
“I don’t understand why some people will only accept a guitar if it has an instantly recognizable guitar sound. Finding ways to use the same guitar people have been using for 50 years to make sounds that no one has heard before is truly what gets me off.”
As well as Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page, Beck is one of the three famous guitarists who played with The Yardbirds. Thanks to them, he entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and entered it again as a solo guitarist. He produced some of the most exciting and dizzying guitar melodies in modern music history; and although Jeff Beck is not as commercially successful as many his contemporaries, his influence to the world of music can not be underestimated.
About the author:
Lesley J. Vos is a private educator of French language for high school students. Her interests include writing, reading and music, and she is always open to something new and inspiring. Lesley is a blogger who is honored to write for popular educative blogs such as Edudemic, Bid4papers Blog, Student Advisor Blog, Getting Smart, and others. Lesley is writing her first e-book at the moment, and she hopes to publish it this year.
Waylon Jennings was a prolific American singer, songwriter, musician and actor famous for popularizing outlaw country music. He started playing music in a.
"Stay hungry. Satisfaction is the death of anything great. I'd rather be hungry and happy than satisfied and miserable."
James Norton
I'd rather be a musician than a rock star.
George Harrison
I've been imitated so well I've heard people copy my mistakes.
Jimi Hendrix
I'm sick to death of people saying we've made 11 albums that sound exactly the same. In fact, we've made 12 albums that sound exactly the same.
Angus Young (AC/DC)
All music is folk music. I ain't never heard a horse sing a song.
Louis Armstrong
"You've got this life and while you've got it, you'd better kiss like you only have one moment, try to hold someone's hand like you will never get another chance to, look into people's eyes like they're the last you'll ever see, watch someone sleeping like there's no time left, jump if you feel like jumping, run if you feel like running, play music in your head when there is none, and eat cake like it's the only one left in the world!"
C. JoyBell"A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence."
Leopold Stokowski "My kids are starting to notice I'm a little different from the other dads. "Why don't you have a straight job like everyone else?" they asked me the other day.
I told them this story:
In the forest, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. Every day, the straight tree would say to the crooked tree, "Look at me...I'm tall, and I'm straight, and I'm handsome. Look at you...you're all crooked and bent over. No one wants to look at you." And they grew up in that forest together. And then one day the loggers came, and they saw the crooked tree and the straight tree, and they said, "Just cut the straight trees and leave the rest." So the loggers turned all the straight trees into lumber and toothpicks and paper. And the crooked tree is still there, growing stronger and stranger every day."
"Music is the universal language of mankind."
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow"Where words fail, music speaks."
Hans Christian Andersen"I accept chaos, I'm not sure whether it accepts me."
Bob Dylan"A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do."
Bob Dylan"Music touches us emotionally, where words alone can't."
Johnny Depp"If you're going to kick authority in the teeth, you might as well use two feet."
Keith Richards, Keith Richards: In His Own Words"I had a boyfriend who told me I'd never succeed, never be nominated for a Grammy, never have a hit song, and that he hoped I'd fail. I said to him, "Someday, when we're not together, you won't be able to order a cup of coffee at the deli without hearing or seeing me."
Lady Gaga"I don't stand for black man's side, I don't stand for white man's side, I stand for God's side."
Bob Marley"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."
Arthur O'Shaughnessy, Poems of Arthur O'Shaughnessy"And I thought about how many people have loved those songs. And how many people got through a lot of bad times because of those songs. And how many people enjoyed good times with those songs. And how much those songs really mean. I think it would be great to have written one of those songs. I bet if I wrote one of them, I would be very proud. I hope the people who wrote those songs are happy. I hope they feel it's enough. I really do because they've made me happy. And I'm only one person."
Stephen Chbosky, The Perks Of Being A Wallflower"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible."
Frank Zappa"If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music."
Albert Einstein"None but ourselves can free our minds."
Bob Marley"People haven't always been there for me but music always has."
Taylor Swift"And, in the end The love you take is equal to the love you make."
Paul McCartney"Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent"
Victor Hugo"Courage isn't having the strength to go on - it is going on when you don't have strength."
Napolean Bonaparte
"Men are from Earth, women are from Earth. Deal with it."
George Carlin, American comedian (1937-2008).
Stop fighting the fight that's already been won... I am redeemed.
Big Daddy Weave
The truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away.
...Elvis Presley
Lose your dreams and you might lose your mind.
...Mick Jagger
The things that come to those that wait may be the things left by those that got there first.
...Steven Tyler
Until you're ready to look foolish, you'll never have the possibility of being great.
...Cher
Sad thing is, you can still love someone and be wrong for them.
...Elvis Presley
Misfits aren't misfits among other misfits.
...Barry Manilow
Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.
Kurt Cobain
Some women choose to follow men and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you're wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn't love you anymore.
Lady Gaga
If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace.
John Lennon
When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down 'happy'. They told me I didn't understand the assignment, and I told them they didn't understand life.
John Lennon
Wouldn't it be a great world if everyone got what they deserved.
Unknown
Let us rather run the risk of wearing out than rusting out.
Theodore Roosevelt
If you hear a voice within you say "you cannot paint," then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.
Vincent Van Gogh
The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you.
BB King
Music is about the only thing left that people don't fight over.
Ray Charles
Music is the devine way to tell beautiful, poetic things to the heart.
Pablo Casais
Music Is everybody's possesion.
John Lennon
To want what I have, to take what I'm given with grace. For this I pray...
Don Henley
I ain't ever satisfied...
Steve Earle
Believe half of what you see, son, and none of what you hear.
Marvin Gaye
Be careful what you ask for 'cause you just might get it!
Meatloaf
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.
Thomas Jefferson
I've never killed a man, but I've read many an obituary with a great deal of satisfaction.
Mark Twain
Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music.
George Carlin
After the invention of the vitaphone, the device that provided audio for movies, over 18,000 professional theater drummers lost their jobs in less than two years
William F. Ludwig II
Seems Like Now a Days Love's a Word That No One Means.
Johnny Lang
"One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain."
Bob Marley
I think music in itself is healing. It's an explosive expression of humanity. It's something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we're from, everyone loves music.
Billy Joel
Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid
Frank Zappa
As a great democratic society, we have a special responsibility to the arts. For art is the great democrat, calling forth creative genius from every sector of society, disregarding race or religion or wealth or color. What freedom alone can bring is the liberation of the human mind and a spirit which finds its greatest flowering in the free society. I see of little more importance to the future of our country and our civilization than the full recognition of the place of the artist.
John F. Kennedy
"Those who do not find time for exercise will have to find time for illness!"
Unknown
"Life is what happens to you when you're making other plans."
John Lennon
"Those in the cheap seats can clap. The rest of you, rattle your jewelry."
John Lennon, with the Beatles, in a Royal Command Performance, London, 1964.
Music is not a matter of life or death...
It's much more important than that.
Unknown
There is an old saying…
"No man buys a guitar because he wants a guitar. What he really wants is the ability to make women notice him."
Unknown
You see, we are here, as far as I can tell, to help each other; our brothers, our sisters, our friends, our enemies. That is to help each other and not hurt each other.
Stavie Ray Vaughan
It's a great thing about being a musician; you don't stop until the day you die, you can improve. So it's a wonderful thing to do.
Marcus Miller
Being around great musicians always gives me this energy I've had it my whole career.
Prince
Everything is scary if you look at it. So you just got to live it.
Mary J. Blige
All musicians are potential band leaders.
Thelonious Monk
Sometimes you can get too caught up in trying to think about the coordination. it's got to be about the feel.
Steve Jordan
I don't know where I'm going from here, but I promise it won't be boring.
David Bowie
Saying that Woodstock was just another festival is like saying that Sunday February 9, 1964 was just another Sunday night.
Johnny Winter
When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.
Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970) American Musician, Guitarist, Singer, Songwriter
I'm trying to get people to see that we are our brothers' keeper, I still work on it. Red, white, black, brown, yellow, rich, poor, we all have the blues.
B.B. King - Blues Great
If you play music with passion and love and honesty, then it will nourish your soul, heal your wounds and make your life worth living. Music is it's own reward.
Sting
Love May Be Blind...
But It's Not Deaf!
Unknown
Feed the babies who don't have enough to eat, shoe the children with no shoes on their feet, house the people living in the street. There is a solution...
Steve Miller
All this talk about equality. The only thing people really have in common is that they are all going to die.
Bob Dylan
People have said to me, You can't write songs. You can't play an instrument. But I've got 10 gold records.
Sonny Bono
We were at our best when we were playing in the dance halls of Liverpool and Hamburg. The world never saw that.
John Lennon
The man who never dreams, goes slowly mad.
Thomas Dolby
Beyond a certain point, the music isn't mine anymore. It's yours.
Phil Collins
Learning to read music in Braille and play by ear helped me develop a damn good memory.
Ray Charles
Success is having to worry about every damn thing in the world, except money.
Johnny Cash
Hair is the first thing. And teeth the second. Hair and teeth. A man got those two things he's got it all.
James Brown
My heroes are the ones who survived doing it wrong, who made mistakes, but recovered from them.
Bono
Don't let the same dog bite you twice.
Chuck Berry
Most chick singers say 'if you hurt me, I'll die'... I say, 'if you hurt me, I'll kick your ass'.
Pat Benatar
I play the way I do because it allows me to come up with the sickest sounds possible. That's the point now isn't it?
Jeff Beck
"...watch me paste that pathetic palooka with a powerful, pachydermous, percussion pitch."
Bugs Bunny
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."
Samuel Adams
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Mark Twain
After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music
Unknown
Never part without loving words to think of during your absence. It may be that you will not meet again in this life.
Jean Paul Richter
You are the person who has to decide. Whether you'll do it or toss it aside; you are the person who makes up your mind. Whether you'll lead or will linger behind. Whether you'll try for the goal that's afar. Or just be contented to stay where you are.
Edgar A. Guest
"Democracy" will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."
Thomas Jefferson
May the most you wish for be the least you get, but work for it.
Ray Briem
The problem with Socialism is, sooner or later you will run out of OTHER peoples money.
Margret Thatcher
Never trust an atom... They make up everything.
...anonymous
"All music is folk music. I ain't never heard a horse sing a song."
Louis Armstrong
"I'm sick to death of people saying we've made 11 albums that sound exactly the same. In fact, we've made 12 albums that sound exactly the same."
Angus Young (AC/DC)
"All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff."
Frank Zappa
"My music is best understood by children and animals."
Igor Stravinsky
"Do it again on the next verse, and people think you meant it."
Chet Atkins
"To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time."
Leonard Bernstein
"If I didn’t do this well, I just wouldn’t have anything to do…I can’t cook, and I’d be a terrible housewife."
Freddie Mercury (Queen)
"I don’t know anything about music, In my line you don’t have to."
Elvis Presley
"There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn’t give a damn what goes on in between."
Thomas Beecham
"There are two kinds of artists left: those who endorse Pepsi and those who simply won’t."
Annie Lennox
"I've been imitated so well I've heard people copy my mistakes."
Jimi Hendrix
"After I saw Jimmy [Hendrix] play, I just went home and wondered what the f*** I was going to do with my life."
Jeff Beck
"Money doesn’t talk, it swears."
Bob Dylan, Music at Night and Other Essays
"Actually I don’t remember being born, it must have happened during one of my black outs."
Jim Morrison
"I don’t deserve a Songwriters Hall of Fame Award. But fifteen years ago, I had a brain operation and I didn’t deserve that, either. So I’ll keep it!"
Quincy Jones
"When people say you’re doing something radical in rock or dance music, I’m not sure how special that is. What we do is so old-fashioned. It’s like trying to do something innovative in tap-dancing."
Jonny Greenwood (Radiohead)
"Competitions are for horses, not artists."
Bela Bartok
"I’d rather be a musician than a rock star."
George Harrison
"I smash guitars because I like them."
Pete Townshend
"It’s easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself."
Johann Sebastian Bach
"Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny."
Frank Zappa
"I never had much interest in the piano until I realized that every time I played, a girl would appear on the piano bench to my left and another to my right."
Duke Ellington
"There’s nothing like the eureka moment of knocking off a song that didn’t exist before � I won’t compare it to sex, but it lasts longer."
Paul McCartney
"Let me be clear about this: I don’t have a drug problem, I have a police problem."
Keith Richards
"I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
"When I was a little boy, I told my dad, "When I grow up, I want to be a musician.' My dad said: "You can't do both, Son'."
Chet Atkins
"If you're listening to a rock star to get your information on who to vote for, you're a bigger moron than they are."
Alice Cooper
"To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also."
Igor Stravinsky
"To get your playing more forceful, hit the drums harder."
Keith Moon (The Who)
"Sometimes we pee on each other before we go on stage."
Trent Reznor
“Dogs smoke in France.”
Ozzy Osbourne
"In order to compose, all you need to do is remember a tune that nobody else has thought of."
Robert Schumann
"I think John would have liked Free As A Bird. In fact, I hope somebody does this to all my crap demos when I’m dead, making them into hit songs."
George Harrison
"In the end we’re all Jerry Springer Show guests, really, we just haven’t been on the show."
Marilyn Manson
"If I knew I had to play this song the rest of my life I probably woulda wrote something else…."
Joe Walsh ("Rocky Mountain Way")
"Rock journalism is people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk in order to provide articles for people who can’t read."
Frank Zappa
"Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end."
Igor Stravinsky
"I never practice my guitar… from time to time I just open the case and throw in a piece of raw meat."
Wes Montgomery
"Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal."
Igor Stravinsky
"When an instrument fails on stage it mocks you and must be destroyed!"
Trent Reznor
"Talking about music is like dancing about architecture."
Unknown
Well then let's have some fun with famous quotes coming from rock stars. "Don't hate me because I'm fabulous" - Prince at the end of the Las.
