John Joseph Lydon (Johnny Rotten) Quotes
I'm not blowing my own trumpet here, but I made a rap song 20 years ago with Afrika Bambaataa.
Quotes to Explore
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Even in the beginning, when we knew there was a legal argument about how much our song sounds like his song, as one songwriter to another, I wasn't sure that Cat Stevens would take that as bad.
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There's something different that happens when you're writing a song for your own record that you know you're going to sing.
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I think rap music is brought up, gangster rap in particular, as well as video games, every other thing they try to hang the ills of society on as a scapegoat.
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Most people think companies are basically evil. They get a bad rap. And I think that's somewhat correct.
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From the stage, I can reach a large audience, and you learn from being on stage how much a song reaches, what extent of the crowd a song can reach. I write in a way that can reach most of the audience, but I also wanted to have truly intimate moments as well, many intimate moments, more so than the big moments.
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People say, 'How does having kids change your writing? Do you see the world through their eyes?' No - you just become a faster songwriter... In the old days, you'd be like, 'Oh I'm gonna work on this song for a few days.'
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It is such a gift to be able to write songs in general, but when you can share it with somebody, it is just such a pleasure. It is such a happy moment when you finish a song, and you are just like, 'Wow - that was great.'
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'Float On' was a fine song, but I was still writing the lyrics on the last day we were working on it and deciding if it was something we wanted to put on the record.
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'Deacon Blues' was special for me. It's the only time I remember mixing a record all day and, when the mix was done, feeling like I wanted to hear it over and over again. It was the comprehensive sound of the thing: the song itself, its character, the way the instruments sounded, and the way Tom Scott's tight horn arrangement fit in.
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If you asked me to sing a modern song, I wouldn't be able to - I can't easily slip into that groove. But if it were a song by Nico or The Velvet Underground, fine.
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The problem is that rap is so often a caricature of its own image. Nobody comes to the table with the seriousness of the effect that it can have; nobody is prepared for that.
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One of my favorite albums in the world is Bruce Springsteen's 'Nebraska.' Each song has this very distinct character who has something profound to say.
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It was a privilege to direct the music video for Adele's beautiful, heartbreaking song, 'Hello.' When I first heard it, all the images appeared clearly in my head - and her trust and generosity allowed me to work with abandon artistically and emotionally, like she always does. It made me extremely proud.
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There's a lot of craft that goes into achieving a hit song - at the beginning of your career, you're usually more inspiration than craft, and you get great when those intersect. A skilled songwriter can get you to that intersection.
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What you hear about the band is always going to be more disturbing than any particular song.
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I'd like to do a completely off-the-wall collaboration. I would like one of my songs to be the hook to a rap song. That would be so much fun!
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'Can't Get Closer' I originally recorded in about half an hour, just on my bed with a microphone. I actually re-recorded the song with a cleaner vocal take, but I decided to leave the demo version on there, just because I felt that instant where it was created is what captured the most emotion.
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I think Bhutanese food - long dissed by every food writer out there - has gotten a bum rap.
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Strangely enough, when the Sugababes' 'Freak Like Me' went to number 1, which was built around my 'Are 'Friends' Electric' song, I had another song called 'Rip' go to number 1 in the Kerrang TV chart, so I was pulling new people in from very different areas of musical interest. That was quite an amazing week.
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You're my bread when I'm hungry You're my shelter from troubled winds You're my anchor in life's ocean Most of all You're my best friend
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I never get enough of the adrenaline rush of hearing good music played live and played loud like this. Hearing these songs again snatches me out of the day-to-day and helps me forget all the things I usually waste my time worrying about. As long as the music's playing I don't have to do anything except listen, relax, and enjoy myself.
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I never talk about my wife: we're both in public professions but we try to keep our private life private.
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I had never read Victorian novels before going overseas. I read a handful of authors, but I had not immersed myself in the literature of the 19th century.
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I'm not blowing my own trumpet here, but I made a rap song 20 years ago with Afrika Bambaataa.
