The Everly Brothers Quotes
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Old men need applause too.
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I always thought I'd be the one to go first. The world might be mourning an Everly Brother, but I'm mourning my brother Phil.
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They say shock therapy is good for some things, but it didn't do me any good. It was a pretty primitive treatment at the time - once they gave it to you, you couldn't remember how long you'd been there. It knocked me back for a long time. I thought I'd never write again.
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That's the one part where being brothers makes a difference. It's just instinct. That's the charm of what the Everly Brothers are: two guys singing as one.
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I was listening to one of my favorite songs that Phil wrote and had an extreme emotional moment just before I got the news of his passing. I took that as a special spiritual message from Phil saying goodbye. Our love was and will always be deeper than any earthly differences we might have had.
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When Phil and I hit that one spot where I call it 'The Everly Brothers,' I don't know where it is. 'Cause it's not me and it's not him. It's the two of us together. I sing the lead, and so I can drift off. Then we'll come back in together and the whole thing happens again. It amazes me sometimes.
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When Phil and I started out, everyone hated rock n' roll. The record companies didn't like it at all - felt it was an unnecessary evil. And the press: interviewers were always older than us, and they let you know they didn't like your music, they were just doing the interview because it was their job.
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Dad wouldn't let me fool with his guitar much, because I'm left-handed, and I'd pick it up upside down. But I remember learning to sing 'Paper Doll,' the Mills Brothers song - this was during the war - and I remember my dad taking me down to one of those little record booths where you could make spoken letters to send home.
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I wrote '('Til) I Kissed You' about a girl I met in Australia. Her name was Lilian, and she was very, very inspirational. I was married, but... I wrote the song about her on the way back home.
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If you lose your concentration singing harmony, then it's lackluster and no fun to watch.
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It's hard to get fluffed up about love anymore. I've lived it. I try to avoid it. If I'm extremely fond of a woman, if I think I might really wind up walking down the aisle again... I go in another direction.
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Singing harmony is not the same as singing a part in a choral group, where you know you're going to have to hit this note and then that note. There are nuances that change every day. Maybe today you have a slight cold or voice fatigue, or you've done something and there's a slight difference in your breathing.
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Don and I are infamous for our split, but we're closer than most brothers. Harmony singing requires that you enlarge yourself, not use any kind of suppression. Harmony is the ultimate love.
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In the beginning of rock n' roll, there was always innovation. Artists were always trying to do something new and something different.
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I grew up as a Roy Rogers fan, of course.
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You couldn't get me to go travel around and sit in a hotel room again. I have no interest in doing that. So everybody's happy. I am, at 74. Some people like doing it, but I never was much for that, anyway. It's a lot of work. So the only thing I miss about all of it is the camaraderie of the tour, but that doesn't offset the rest of it.
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The '60s weren't my cup of tea. I never bought that philosophy that, you know, we're all brothers and that'll solve everything. And I never believed that music dictated the times. I always thought it reflected them.
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Whenever people talk about Don and I recording again, which almost everybody usually mentions, I always say 'Well, there's plenty of things that you haven't heard! Plenty of things out there to discover!'
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When we first started recording, it was before rock, so people thought we were hillbilly hicks. That was something we had to deal with; the girls didn't think we were cool, although they did a few years later. We had ducktails and wore peg-leg pants. We looked like rock n' rollers.
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I don't know of any artist who started off in the 50's who's making it now with new material.
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I always thought I'd be the one to go first. ... The world might be mourning an Everly Brother, but I'm mourning my brother Phil Everly. My wife Adela and I are touched by all the tributes we're seeing for Phil and we thank you for allowing us to grieve in private at this incredibly difficult time.