Bob Dylan

In the dime stores and bus stations, people talk of situations, read books, repeat quotations, draw conclusions on the wall.

But even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked.

Money doesn’t talk, it swears.

Well, I don’t know, but I’ve been told the streets in heaven are lined with gold. I ask you how things could get much worse if the Russians happen to get up there first; Wowee! pretty scary!

Just because you like my stuff doesn’t mean I owe you anything.

All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie.

It’s not what they think, it’s about what’s best for the music.

I had an affinity for music and could play anything I heard on the piano, but I wasn’t scholastically advanced in any way. It was more of a habitual tendency. I would work on weekends at piano bars playing jazz when I was an art student, but the music wasn’t mine – it was covers: everything from Radiohead to really old jazz. But other than that, the only training I had was piano lessons from when I was nine until I was eleven.

Music is emotional, and you may catch a musician in a very unemotional mood or you may not be in the same frame of mind as the musician. So a critic will often say a musician is slipping.

So until we see you again, bright moments and keep searchin’ for your mystery note on the universal piano of life.

I am very aware that so little has happened to the electric guitar from the time that it was conceived to now; where there are so little changes made where there should be drastic changes made. If we were to put our heads together and start thinking about modern technology we would be much more advantaged with the electric guitar than we are. I think that we’ve been stagnant for many years.

Les is an old friend of mine. He gave me this special white Les Paul – he wound the pickups himself – for my birthday, first time I met him. I play everything from heavy metal to blues to jazz on it. He just hit it right on the head when he designed the Les Paul. I like it better than most girlfriends I’ve had. The godfather of rock ‘n’ roll, I call him. Without him, none of us would have a job.

I would sit on the street corners in my hometown of Indianola, Mississippi, and I would play. And, generally, I would start playing gospel songs. People would come by on the street – you live in Time Square, you know how they do it – they would bunch up. And they would always compliment me on gospel tunes, but they would tip me when I played blues.

I think the idea of a love song has changed. Most of the love songs we all loved as kids would be classified as funeral dirges now, you know, really super slow. I think nowadays the ballad has changed. It can have some up-tempo, some drums, some other things. ‘Forever’ would still be considered a ballad, I guess, but the tempo is probably more of a mid-tempo. The content is love song. I don’t know how to write anything else.

I am at my core a singer/songwriter a la James Taylor or a la Billy Joel. It’s not that I don’t want to work with people, but I do just love doing my own thing.

You gotta love livin’, baby, ’cause dyin’ is a pain in the ass.

By and large Jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn’t want your daughter to associate with.

We all have idols. Play like anyone you care about but try to be yourself while you’re doing so.

Jazz is the false liquidation of art, instead of utopia becoming reality it disappears from the picture.

Music and life are all about style.

I’m just trying to create context for me to improve my musicianship.