Pavement Quotes
-
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.
-
Almost every band has somebody who's the main songwriter and who has a vision, a very clear idea of how a song should be.
-
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.
-
Every song has a different genesis, or feeling. Usually the lyrics, I don't really know what it's all about, I just kinda do it. I mean, there's a combination of, like you're saying, that kind of lyrics about commitment or vaguely relationship lyrics mixed with jokey 90s Beck-style non-sequiturs and stuff.
-
It's easy to be negatively funny about personalities in the media. It's just kind of a cheap laugh.
-
That's why you go to a nice studio. You can get a magic take. You don't really have to do anything to it.
-
It's sort of irritating now - people always ask me, "You're a dad, and how's fatherhood?" If Bob Dylan or Neil Young had a kid, it didn't seem like it made them a different person. It didn't make you old right away.
-
I've lost my writing skills since college. I couldn't write a book. It would take a long time.
-
Usually the lyrics go from one word to the next word - there's no finish line. The music was that way, too.
-
It's hard to think back. I didn't even know I was going to do it, make actual records. But I was always making up songs, once I figured out that you could do it. I think it's pretty much the same, but there's less urge to get it moving out there. There was a time when it seemed like it was really super important to the audience and now it's just medium-important for people to like us. But that's okay.
-
Berlin is just an affordable European city that's supposed to be cool. There's nothing too deep about it.
-
I hated it so much as a child. I just didn't like it when punk bands went metal, it really bothered me. It was happening left and right in the 1980s. It started I think with D.C. bands - G.I., Soul Side, they went metal. Right at that time, R.E.M. was coming out, these more kinda feminine bands, and I was more drawn to that than to go metal. And you remember MTV, with the bad metal. But even Metallica, it just wasn't my direction.
-
I'm just kind of a hippie. Age is not that relevant to the music.
-
I do play soccer, but it's exhausting in a way.
-
I don't even think my voice is really good.
-
I think it's just entertainment for people that are interested in the form. To sing along to and be psyched by.
-
I did some writing. I was just taking the kids to school. I did a couple things and we did some tours. It was a lot of downtime.
-
Obviously songs and musicians mean a lot to people.
-
If you'd rather learn how to ride a horse or something, I would say do that. That'll keep you out of trouble. You would think a band would get you in trouble, but I think it's the opposite.
-
I'm not a go-to-the-gym type guy. I've tried before. And I'm not a jogger.
-
The word "down," is very musical. It just always comes.
-
George Oppen wasn't a larger than life personality, but I'm not either. And he lived a long time, so he was happy. Going down in flames is fine, too.
-
The earlier stuff is more like "this is happening to me," but now there are more songs that are accusatory or something, or more declaratory. I don't know where that voice comes from, like, "I've been down the road, we've been there and done that." That's sort of like a tougher style, or a less vulnerable style.
-
I guess the majority of people who want to ban certain musicians are the ones who are so proud of everything America stands for.