Pavement Quotes
-
I'm not sure if you can blame everything on the American way of life, but the United States are big. So, if you have a lot of people there, the percentage of stupid people is bound to be higher.
-
You know, the songs that are self-conscious or jerky, they are that way, but the other ones aren't, so that's a good thing. Some of the songs are Beck-jokey, but the others, they have heart in them.
-
Family is the best. I can honestly say, it's a gift that is beyond making art. I didn't know that when I got into it.
-
But, then again, I wouldn't call myself an indie-rock supporter even if there are some really good bands out there and there will always be some real good new bands.
-
We care if people like what we did. If you're just making records for yourself, why put them out and do all these interviews and do touring? I'm a huge music fan, and this is what I do with my artistic time. It's all I really do, except hang out with my family. I value human relationships, and it's a way for me to interact with the world and feel like I'm part of something.
-
You know, it's people's lives, so as you get a little older, your own life narrative, I guess, invades a little more. It's not like we're traveling in separate buses to each show. It's a labor of love, so we just do it because we like it. Maybe someone's gonna move, or not want to go on a tour for some reason - that could happen, I guess.
-
We're probably a couple of freaks who've created their own little universe, are living in our own little world and that's the only place where we can survive.
-
Basically, no one else gives me any opinions on lyrics. I don't ask for them. If they did, I would listen.
-
The best I do, if I'm just playing around and riffing in a fantasy world, and then I'll write something down. Hopefully I write it down.
-
When I see four young kids in a band, I think, That looks really fun, no matter how shitty they are. You develop your own thing, and get excited about your band name. It's all so harmless.
-
It's normally in the morning, just playing around. And I'm not saying everything I make is great, but that's what I do. I can't even remember how I wrote stuff.
-
There's no point that an album should sound like a watered down version of another album.
-
I never decided to start singing, to be a singer.
-
My wife is a big fan of George Oppen and I got into him. I could have a career like his. It's not an alpha male situation, George Oppen. It's quiet. It's poetry.He just lived a life of an intellectual poet.
-
These are very desperate conditions that we're in now. These are the wrong conditions for the use of fireworks of any kind under any circumstances.
-
So much of rock lyrics is just a mirror of real feeling. It doesn't feel dangerous to me. They just feel like "rock lyrics."
-
What producers did was mostly recording in the studio, so it never changed our sound just that much.
-
I thought The Doors were the greatest band for a while.
-
With lyrics for me, it's usually musically-based. It's not really poetry- or writer-based. It's rock-based. It doesn't mean that I'm aping rock lyrics, but I'm writing from a music standpoint. I'm thinking more of music heroes, if they're in my mind. Not William Blake or John Ashbury. Sometimes maybe I thought of him a little bit. Or Wallace Stevens. I don't even really fully understand either of them.
-
We're not on a desperate mission to write chart compatible stuff.
-
It's just a compulsion to create something new and stay busy. I don't know how to do anything else. It was never exactly right. Those records came out in spite of their flaws. And because of their flaws they were good.
-
When I was in high school, I was a late bloomer. And just like all those supermodels who said they were gawky and no one liked them, that was me - metaphorically. And so I was ready to rise like a phoenix in later times.
-
The lyrics are different from Nick Cave songs and lyrics. His songs are very narrative.
-
Everyone wants to be loved, generally. If you released a record and nobody said anything, if you didn't get any feedback from people you don't know, i.e. the press, you'd be sort of upset. To me, any press is good press.