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As long as my body holds out, I'll be grooving when I'm 70, and not some sort of horrible spectacle.
Nick Lowe Brinsley Schwarz -
I realized sometime in the early '80s that if I didn't do something - like planning for the future in a way, a kind of pension or something - that if I didn't do something there and then, I was going to be condemned to forever present my three years as a pop star, condensed, as a stage act for the rest of my life. Because that's normally what happens to people in the pop business.
Nick Lowe Brinsley Schwarz
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A devastating culmination of the elegant and the funky, a really sensational musician with enormous depth.
Nick Lowe Brinsley Schwarz -
I loved Christmas. We had a really great time. But there wasn't - it was all - you had to be happy with, you know, an orange and a couple of walnuts, you know, in your stocking.
Nick Lowe Brinsley Schwarz -
Rather the pain of discipline than the pain of regret.
Bob Andrews Brinsley Schwarz -
Even if I was really prolific - which I'm not - I think I'd always put at least a couple of covers on my record. I think it's a sort of healthy thing to do. It shows that you're not totally self-obsessed.
Nick Lowe Brinsley Schwarz -
The idea was put to me, and my initial reaction was of slight sort of - I was slightly appalled, really, because in the U.K., we don't - we think it's all a bit vulgar, you know, doing Christmas or cashing in on Christmas. And there's a word we have for it, which is naff. And it's not exactly uncool. It really sort of means kind of vulgar and a bit - not very stylish.
Nick Lowe Brinsley Schwarz -
I'm very fussy about how my records sound, but I'm very aware that because of the way they sound, I will never be a big-selling, mainstream artist because the public has gotten conditioned to hearing pop music in a certain way. And I don't do it that way.
Nick Lowe Brinsley Schwarz
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London was a real dump in the 70s, when it belonged to me and my friends, because, like most cities, you kind of hand them off. You're in charge for a bit and then you don't go out anymore. You say, "Oh god, it's going to be too crowded."
Nick Lowe Brinsley Schwarz -
I found myself in Zurich Airport. I'd done a TV show, oddly enough, with Mavis Staples. That's the way they do it in Switzerland. And I'd had a bit of a late night with members of her band. And I was - my flight was delayed. And I was sitting in the airport, and I just came up with the idea. And by the time, we landed at Heathrow, I'd pretty much sort of got it.
Nick Lowe Brinsley Schwarz -
And the other thing for the sort of posher kids was a sort of lethal scooter, you know. One of the things that you just push along with your - really heavy, lethal, you know, trap your fingers in and every bit of metal got rusty very quickly. And the girls I seem to remember they had a thing like a broomstick with a horse's head on the top which they sat astride.
Nick Lowe Brinsley Schwarz -
I sort of have various sort of theories when people ask me about songwriting because it is a mystery. You don't really know. Sometimes you can do it and sometimes you can't. It's really peculiar.
Nick Lowe Brinsley Schwarz -
And there were sort of three toys for boys and three toys for girls. And the boys I can remember was, well, there was a Dan Dare Ray Gun. Dan Dare was a sort of a cartoon character. He was just sort of a - he was like a Battle of Britain fighter pilot, only in space.
Nick Lowe Brinsley Schwarz -
The world is full of musicians who can play great, and you wouldn't cross the road to see them. It's people who have this indefinable attitude that are the good ones.
Nick Lowe Brinsley Schwarz
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When somebody like Elvis Costello comes along, anybody can make a good record with him.
Nick Lowe Brinsley Schwarz -
In the '70s, you had to come up with an album every year whether you were ready or not.
Nick Lowe Brinsley Schwarz -
I've always felt kind of like an outsider, even when I was very successful back in the old days. Even then. I kind of enjoyed it, really.
Nick Lowe Brinsley Schwarz -
As soon as one of my records goes on, it makes a vast portion of the public nervous. They get spooked by it. To some people who have ears to hear, it's a delightful, refreshing change. But to most of the public, it's a load of homemade-sounding nonsense.
Nick Lowe Brinsley Schwarz -
I like being a big fish in a small pond. I'm not interested in a huge audience because it brings headaches.
Nick Lowe Brinsley Schwarz -
I don't have the faith now. I certainly believe in Jesus - you know, that he existed and he was a very nice man. And who can disagree with a simple philosophy of treat other people like you'd like to be treated yourself? It's absolutely - nothing I can disagree with that.
Nick Lowe Brinsley Schwarz
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I knew how the suits used to talk about the artists, with barely concealed contempt. So I knew what was waiting for me round the corner. Because I wasn't one of those very unusual people like Neil Diamond or Elton John, whose careers just seem to span the decades. I knew I wasn't one of them.
Nick Lowe Brinsley Schwarz -
So you can be about your business, and then on it comes again. And this time you're ready, and you've got a wine glass or something. And you put the glass up to the wall, and you can hear through the wall a little bit more of the song - maybe just the middle bit this time. You know, you managed to get in a little bit of the end. And so it goes on until - because you just got to - you really just want to sing it.
Nick Lowe Brinsley Schwarz -
I'm playing to the sort of people who like the same records.
Nick Lowe Brinsley Schwarz -
You try to make every word count, so there's no doubt what you're talking about. When you're young, you waffle away. Well, I'm done with that. I think it's much more interesting to say just what you mean.
Nick Lowe Brinsley Schwarz