Pretenders Quotes
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I'm not a figurehead for anything. I was a single mom with two kids. What else was I going to do? It was either be in a band or be a waitress.
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When you're in a band and you're a girl, you know, guys just don't ... it's not the same kind of a groove as a girl walking up wearing a mac with nothing on underneath, or knocking on someone's door at three in the morning.
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Some cities are really boring and straight.
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I just want to be as regular, and get by with doing the least amount of publicity, but still look really cool, you know? And get a bit of respect.
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I think it's a shame when pop culture forgets that theatricality is a big part of it. When Neil Young is fumbling around in his pocket looking for the right harmonica, it doesn't matter that he's a dude in the hat who is a man of the people - there's a theatricality there. You don't have to be David Bowie or the Kabuki theater to have that theatricality going on.
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When I started playing the bass, I became kind of fascinated by it and started investigating various styles of bass playing, and I was really struck with funk music, mainly American funk music - Stanley Clarke, Funkadelic and that kind of stuff. That comes out in a couple of songs like 'Barbarism Begins at Home.'
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Q: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?JM: Never get into a situation you can’t get out of. I really have stuck to it, because it’s good advice for all walks of live.
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That enforced time when you have to switch off, that you're on a plane, is so unusual these days. It's just that thing of not being able to interact with other people through e-mails or social media or whatever. It's crazy how you even notice that you're not able to do that. I find that the kind of traveling - long days, particularly if you go somewhere to do a show, and then traveling again the next day - a lot of people would find pretty challenging, but I find it energizing in a weird way.
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I can't force myself to do anything I don't wanna do, really. I never have.
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I don't like to be recognized on the street or in restaurants, and I don't like the whole celebrity thing.
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I think if I lost an edge, or the music didn't have the aggression or whatever, which is maybe one of the hallmarks of what I do, if indeed it is, I still think if you have something original in what you do and you keep doing that, then you're all right.
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I feel displaced when I'm back in America, like a visitor. I feel like if I don't get a cup of tea I'm going to lose my mind.
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I don't think it's good to be sentimental, so I try not to be.
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I'm not saying I'd already done anything, actually, but I'd passed my experimental streak.
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I've done lots of songs for film soundtracks and things like that - stuff I'm not ashamed of, but that doesn't represent my legacy with the Pretenders.
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I don't want my children to be at a disadvantage, growing up in the limelight, because then they have to live up to an identity already cut out for them, relating all the time to being so-and-so's daughter or so-and-so's son.
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Don't get a job in an abattoir. Don't be a butcher. The idea that people have to do these jobs for a livelihood is ridiculous. They can get other jobs. Shoplift, man. Better to be a prostitute than cut an animal's head off for a living.
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I had learned classical guitar when I was a kid, and I embraced it, and apparently I got good at it.
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I love America - I'm not saying that I love Americans. I don't know. It just seems a bit more optimistic. I don't know - in England, if you do something successful, people hate you. Whereas in America, if you do something successful, people will pat you on the back and say, 'Hey, well done.' People are jealous and negative in England.
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For my 21st birthday, I think my mother wanted to give me a watch, or something, you know, some kind of traditional thing. And I said, "Well, if you're going to buy me something, there's a Gibson Melody Maker guitar advertised in the paper for 60 dollars. Do you think I could have that?" And I think that she was very disappointed that at 21 I was still messing around with that sort of thing. She didn't understand what it was all about. But now she understands it, and likes it.
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It was strange: I never had an interest in school because from an early age I knew the only thing I wanted to do was to play music! So I didn't feel so bad not going into school when I was supposed to be there - why do I need Latin, geography, physical education, etc., and to get beaten on a daily basis?
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I'm not interested in trying to have people who might like other kinds of music follow me. I don't want to please them.
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You're lucky if you find something that makes you feel like yourself; that's the one time that you feel like you know who you are. Most people are struggling to find that out all the time.
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I'm all for bootlegging. A record costs $20 . . . who can afford that?