The Byrds Quotes
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The people who run record companies now wouldn't know a song if it flew up their nose and died. They haven't a clue, and they don't care. You tell them that, and they go, Yeah? So, your point is?
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My dad founded the 'Rancho Santa Fe Times' and won a lot of journalism awards.
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I was a lucky kid. You could have got 10 kids to be in The Byrds who were better than I was.
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But in my imagination this whole thing developed and I started mixing up old folk songs with the Beatles beat and taking them down to Greenwich Village and playing them for the people there.
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Sailing became one of the mainstreams of my life. I suppose my father was an influence. I remember seeing a photo of him at home sailing a big boat to Bermuda in his 20s. I still have it.
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My father being in the movie business, I thought being an actor would be great. But when I started singing to people in coffeehouses, you know, singing folk music and then, later, singing songs that I started to write myself, I felt more than an affinity for it. I felt a calling.
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My father being in the movie business, I thought being an actor would be great. But when I started singing to people in coffeehouses, you know, singing folk music and then, later, singing songs that I started to write myself, I felt more than an affinity for it.
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All along, I did what I was comfortable doing, which was to play the music I enjoyed and try to stretch the parameters a bit. Country and bluegrass and folk were my foundation.
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When I was 11 years old, my parents wanted me to do something besides get in trouble. So they enrolled me in sailing classes at the Sea Shell Association in Santa Barbara, Calif. From the moment I climbed into that 8-foot dinghy in 1952, I knew instinctively what to do and sensed I had done it before.
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I play a couple basic folks songs and break them down. I did that on a six string. I can't recall all the songs on it. There's some finger picking on it.
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My songs emerge from my life, or wherever they do, unbidden and unplanned and completely on a schedule of their own.
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I don't like greed, I don't like ignorance. I really don't like anger. But I love love.
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I would do a Byrds tour or a Byrds record in a minute. I miss that band now. I've tried to convince Roger over and over to do it, but he's not interested. Music isn't something you can legislate into being.
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Those Laurel Canyon days were great. I have a real fondness for that era, 'til about '68. Musically, it was wonderful, and there was this great innocence, an idyllic view of the world. After that, everything got a little... edgy.
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I love Stephen Stills and Neil Young dearly. We talk all the time. We see each other.
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I started singing in coffeehouses when I was still in high school, in Santa Barbara. I took a job washing dishes and busing tables in the coffeehouse, so I could be there, and would beg permission to sing harmony with the guy who was singing onstage. That was the first time I ever got on a stage in front of people.
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I've always been a very careful sailor. I know, me and being careful - doesn't really sound right, does it? But when I sail, I take it seriously and take along spares for everything. You have to be careful when you're 1,500 miles from land. There's no one you can call. You're on your own.
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I get egotistical about things where I can do something well - for example, my singing. Most other things, I don't have the wherewithal to back it up.
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There are a lot of people who look great but can't sing.
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Describing Woodstock as the 'big bang,' I think that's a great way to describe it, because the important thing about it wasn't how many people were there or that it was a lot of truly wonderful music that got played.
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When it all started, record companies - and there were many of them, and this was a good thing - were run by people who loved records, people like Ahmet Ertegun, who ran Atlantic Records, who were record collectors. They got in it because they loved music... Now, record companies are run by lawyers and accountants.
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When it all started, record companies - and there were many of them, and this was a good thing - were run by people who loved records, people like Ahmet Ertegun, who ran Atlantic Records, who were record collectors. They got in it because they loved music.
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I'm an inveterate bookstore wanderer. I read constantly, so I love a good bookstore. I can't help it.
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I think music is a lifting force, I think love is the lifting force in the human condition. I think you see someone loving on their child, and it moves you, and you can't help it. It rings a bell inside of us that elevates us as human beings, and I treasure that. I think it's one of the few great things about human beings.