Folk singers

"Anything I can sing, I call a song. Anything I can't sing, I call a poem."

"Because Dickens and Dostoyevsky and Woody Guthrie were telling their stories much better than I ever could, I decided to stick to my own mind."

"There's no black and white, left and right to me anymore; there's only up and down and down is very close to the ground. And I'm trying to go up without thinking about anything trivial such as politics. They has got nothing to do with it. I'm thinking about the general people and when they get hurt."

"I am a writer an a singer of the words I write I am no speaker nor any politician an my songs speak for me because I write them in the confinement of my own mind an have t cope with no one except my own self."

"do Not create anything, it will be misinterpreted. it will not change. it will follow you the rest of your life."

"a poem is a naked person . . . some people say that I am a poet"

"He's a pinboy. He also wears suspenders. He's a real person. You know him, but not by that name... I saw him come into the room one night and he looked like a camel. He proceeded to put his eyes in his pocket. I asked this guy who he was and he said, "That's Mr. Jones." Then I asked this cat, "Doesn't he do anything but put his eyes in his pocket?" And he told me, "He puts his nose on the ground." It's all there, it's a true story."

"You don't necessarily have to write to be a poet. Some people work in gas stations and they're poets. I don't call myself a poet because I don't like the word. I'm a trapeze artist."

"I find it easy to write songs. I been writing songs for a long time and the words to the songs aren't written out just for the paper; they're written as you can read it, you dig. If you take whatever there is to the song away—the beat, the melody—I could still recite it. I see nothing wrong with songs you can't do that with either—songs that, if you took the beat and the melody away, they wouldn't stand up because they're not supposed to do that, you know. Songs are songs."

"I accept chaos. I am not sure whether it accepts me. I know there are some people terrified of the bomb, but there are others terrified to be seen carrying a Modern Screen magazine. Experience teaches that silence terrifies the most."

"Reporter: How many people who labor in the same musical vineyard in which you toil - how many are protest singers? That is, people who use their music, and use the songs to protest the, uh, social state in which we live today: the matter of war, the matter of crime, or whatever it might be. Bob Dylan: Um...how many? Reporter: Yes. How many? Bob Dylan: Uh, I think there's about, uh...136. Reporter: You say about 136, or you mean exactly 136? Bob Dylan: Uh, it's either 136 or 142."

"Bob Dylan: I do know what my songs are about. Playboy: And what's that? Bob Dylan: Oh, some are about four minutes; some are about five, and some, believe it or not, are about eleven or twelve."

"Colleges are like old-age homes; except for the fact that more people die in colleges."

"I don't believe you! You're a liar! ... Play it fucking loud!"

"Keep a good head and always carry a light bulb."

"God, I'm glad I'm not me."

"You have to be let alone to really accomplish anything."

"I used to think that myself and my songs were the same thing. But I don't believe that any more. There's myself and there's my song, which I hope is everybody's song."

"My songs always sound a lot better in person than they do on the record."

"Greed and lust I can understand, but I can't understand the values of definition and confinement. Definition destroys. Besides, there's nothing definite in this world."

"Ron Rosenbaum: Why are you doing what you're doing? Bob Dylan: [Pause] Because I don't know anything else to do. I'm good at it. Ron Rosenbaum: How would you describe "it"? Bob Dylan: I'm an artist. I try to create art."

"I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I'll die like a poet."

"Art is the perpetual motion of illusion. The highest purpose of art is to inspire. What else can you do? What else can you do for anyone but inspire them?"

"I kinda live where I find myself."

"I think women rule the world, and that no man has ever done anything that a woman either hasn't allowed him to do or encouraged him to do."

"I wanted just a song to sing, and there came a certain point where I couldn't sing anything. So I had to write what I wanted to sing 'cos nobody else was writing what I wanted to sing."

"At certain times I read a lot of poetry. My favorite poets are Shelley and Keats. Rimbaud is so identifiable. Lord Byron. I don't know. Lately if I read poems, it's like I can always hear the guitar. Even with Shakespeare's sonnets I can hear a melody because it's all broken up into timed phrases so I hear it. I always keep thinking, 'What kind of song would this be?'"

"Chaos is a friend of mine."

"I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom."

"If the songs are dreamed, it's like my voice is coming out of their dream."

"I think a poet is anybody who wouldn't call himself a poet. Anybody who could possibly call himself a poet just cannot be a poet."

"When I first heard Elvis's voice I just knew that I wasn't going to work for anybody and nobody was going to be my boss. He is the deity supreme of rock and roll religion as it exists in today's form. Hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail. I think for a long time that freedom to me was Elvis singing 'Blue Moon of Kentucky.' I thank God for Elvis."

"The first two lines, which rhymed 'kiddin' you' and 'didn't you,' just about knocked me out, and later on, when I got to the jugglers and the chrome horse and the princess on the steeple, it all just about got to be too much."

"It's not to anybody's best interest to think about how they will be perceived tomorrow. It hurts you in the long run."

"My sense of rhyme used to be more involved in my songwriting than it is... Still staying in the unconscious frame of mind, you can pull yourself out and throw up two rhymes first and work it back. You get the rhymes first and work it back and then see if you can make it make sense in another kind of way. You can still stay in the unconscious frame of mind to pull it off, which is the state of mind you have to be in anyway."

"People today are still living off the table scraps of the sixties. They are still being passed around — the music and the ideas."

"That ear - I mean, Jesus, he's got to will that to the Smithsonian."

"Here's the thing with me and the religious thing. This is the flat-out truth: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music. I don't find it anywhere else."

"I change during the course of a day. I wake and I'm one person, and when I go to sleep I know for certain I'm somebody else. I don't know who I am most of the time. It doesn't even matter to me."

"I'm inconsistent, even to myself."

"Bob Dylan: The media is all-pervasive. What can a writer think of to write that you don't see every day in a newspaper or on television? Interviewer: ...Do you think that TV and the media have killed poetry and literature? Bob Dylan: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. ... What's a writer to do if every idea is exposed in the media before he can get to it or let it evolve? What's a writer gonna write about? ... We're living in a science-fiction world. We're living in a world that Disney has conquered. Disney's science fiction. Theme parks, trendy streets, it's all science fiction. So I would say, if a writer has got something to say, he'll have to do it in that– Interviewer: Outside of the real world? Bob Dylan: There is a real world. Science fiction has become the real world. Whether we realize it or not, it has."

"We may not be able to defeat these swine, but we don't have to join them."

"I had ambitions to set out and find, like an odyssey or going home somewhere... set out to find... this home that I'd left a while back and couldn't remember exactly where it was, but I was on my way there. And encountering what I encountered on the way was how I envisioned it all. I didn't really have any ambition at all. I was born very far from where I'm supposed to be, and so, I'm on my way home, you know?"

"I didn't go to classes. I just didn't feel like it."

"An artist has gotta be careful never really to arrive at a place where he thinks he's at somewhere. You always have to realize that you're constantly in a state of becoming."

"You don't need my autograph. If you needed it, I'd give it to you."

"You can't be wise and in love at the same time."

"I had no answers to any of those questions any more than any other performer did, really. But, you know, that didn't stop the press or people or whoever they were from asking these questions. They, for some reason the press thought that performers had the answers to all these problems in the society and you know, like what can... What can you say to something like that? I mean, it's just kind of absurd."

"I read On the Road in maybe 1959. It changed my life like it changed everyone else's."

"Someone handed me Mexico City Blues in St. Paul [Minnesota] in 1959 and it blew my mind. It was the first poetry that spoke my own language."

"I think it's the land. The streams, the forests, the vast emptiness. The land created me. I'm wild and lonesome. Even as I travel the cities, I'm more at home in the vacant lots. But I have a love for humankind, a love of truth, and a love of justice. I think I have a dualistic nature. I'm more of an adventurous type than a relationship type."

"It's not a character like in a book or a movie. He's not a bus driver. He doesn't drive a forklift. He's not a serial killer. It's me who's singing that, plain and simple. We shouldn't confuse singers and performers with actors. Actors will say, “My character this, and my character that.” Like beating a dead horse. Who cares about the character? Just get up and act. You don't have to explain it to me."

"It's peculiar and unnerving in a way to see so many young people walking around with cellphones and iPods in their ears and so wrapped up in media and video games. It robs them of their self-identity. It's a shame to see them so tuned out to real life. Of course they are free to do that, as if that's got anything to do with freedom. The cost of liberty is high, and young people should understand that before they start spending their life with all those gadgets."

"The people in my songs are all me."

"A man is successful if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night, and in between does what he likes."

"It wasn't money or love that I was looking for. I had a heightened sense of awareness, was set in my ways, impractical and a visionary to boot. My mind was strong like a trap and I didn't need any guarantee of validity."

"I was heading for the fantastic lights. No doubt about it. Could it be that I was being deceived? Not likely. I don't think I had enough imagination to be deceived; had no false hope, either. I'd come from a long ways off and had started from a long ways down. But now destiny was about to manifest itself. I felt like it was looking right at me and nobody else."

"Morality has nothing in common with politics."

"What was the future? The future was a solid wall, not promising, not threatening—all bunk. No guarantees of anything, not even the guarantee that life isn't one big joke."

"Opportunities may come along for you to convert something—something that exists into something that didn't yet."

"America was changing. I had a feeling of destiny and I was riding the changes... My consciousness was beginning to change, too, change and stretch."

"I had been in a motorcycle accident and I'd been hurt, but I recovered. Truth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race. Having children changed my life and segregated me from just about everybody and everything that was going on. Outside of my family, nothing held any real interest for me and I was seeing everything through different glasses."

"I had very little in common with and knew even less about a generation that I was supposed to be the voice of."

"I'm a '60s troubadour, a folk-rock relic, a wordsmith from bygone days, a fictitious head of state from a place nobody knows. I'm in the bottomless pit of cultural oblivion."

"Sometimes you say things in songs even if there's a small chance of them being true. And sometimes you say things that have nothing to do with the truth of what you want to say and sometimes you say things that everyone knows to be true. Then again, at the same time, you're thinking that the only truth on earth is that there is no truth on it. Whatever you are saying, you're saying in a ricky-tick way. There's never time to reflect. You stitched and pressed and packed and drove, is what you did."

"I put one on the turntable and when the needle dropped, I was stunned — didn't know if I was stoned or straight... All these songs together, one after another made my head spin. It made me want to gasp. It was like the land parted."

"[Ref Rimbaud line 'Je est un autre,]' “which translates into ‘I is someone else.’ When I read those words the bells went off. It made perfect sense. I wished someone would have mentioned that to me earlier.”"

"The road out would be treacherous, and I didn’t know where it would lead but I followed it anyway. It was a strange world ahead that would unfold, a thunderhead of a world with jagged lightning edges. Many got it wrong and never did get it right. I went straight into it. It was wide open. One thing for sure, not only was it not run by God, but it wasn’t run by the devil either."

"If someone had ever told me that I had the slightest chance of winning the Nobel Prize, I would have to think that I'd have about the same odds as standing on the moon."

"I began to think about William Shakespeare, the great literary figure. I would reckon he thought of himself as a dramatist. The thought that he was writing literature couldn't have entered his head. His words were written for the stage. Meant to be spoken not read. When he was writing Hamlet, I'm sure he was thinking about a lot of different things: "Who're the right actors for these roles?" "How should this be staged?" "Do I really want to set this in Denmark?" His creative vision and ambitions were no doubt at the forefront of his mind, but there were also more mundane matters to consider and deal with. "Is the financing in place?" "Are there enough good seats for my patrons?" "Where am I going to get a human skull?" I would bet that the farthest thing from Shakespeare's mind was the question "Is this literature?""

"As a performer I've played for 50,000 people and I've played for 50 people and I can tell you that it is harder to play for 50 people. 50,000 people have a singular persona, not so with 50. Each person has an individual, separate identity, a world unto themselves. They can perceive things more clearly. Your honesty and how it relates to the depth of your talent is tried."

"Like Shakespeare, I too am often occupied with the pursuit of my creative endeavors and dealing with all aspects of life's mundane matters. "Who are the best musicians for these songs?" "Am I recording in the right studio?" "Is this song in the right key?" Some things never change, even in 400 years. Not once have I ever had the time to ask myself, "Are my songs literature?" So, I do thank the Swedish Academy, both for taking the time to consider that very question, and, ultimately, for providing such a wonderful answer."

"You sound like a hillbilly; We want folk singers here."

"A lot of people don't have much food on their table But they got a lot of forks and knives And they gotta cut something"

"I'm out here a thousand miles from my home Walkin' a road other men have gone down I'm seein' your world of people and things Your paupers and peasants and princes and kings"

"Hey, hey, Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song, 'Bout a funny ol' world that's a-comin' along Seems sick an' it's hungry, it's tired an' it's torn It looks like it's a-dyin' an' it's hardly been born"

"Here's to Cisco an' Sonny an' Lead Belly too An' to all the good people that traveled with you Here's to the hearts and the hands of the men That come with the dust and are gone with the wind"

"How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man? How many seas must a white dove sail before she sleeps in the sand?"

"Yes, and how many years can a mountain exist before it is washed to the sea?"

"How many times can a man turn his head pretending he just doesn't see?"

"How many times must a man look up before he can see the sky?"

"Yes, and how many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died?"

"The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind."

"So if you're travelin' in the north country fair, Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline, Remember me to one who lives there. She once was a true love of mine."

"But I see through your eyes"

"All the money you made will never buy back your soul."

"You ain't worth the blood that runs in your veins."

"There is one thing I know though I'm younger than you Even Jesus would not forgive what you do"

"And I hope that you die And your death'll come soon I will follow your casket In the pale afternoon And I'll watch while you're lowered Down to your deathbed And I'll stand o'er your grave 'Til I'm sure that you're dead"

"Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son? And where have you been, my darling young one?"

"I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it."

"I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken."

"I heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world."

"I heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin'."

"I met a white man who walked a black dog."

"And I'll tell it and speak it and think it and breathe it."

"But I'll know my song well before I start singin'."

"It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall."

"It ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe If you don't know by now"

"I once loved a woman, a child I am told I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul."

"I'm walkin' down that long, lonesome road, babe Where I'm bound, I can't tell But goodbye's too good a word, babe So I'll just say fare thee well"

"I ain't saying you treated me unkind You could have done better but I don't mind You just kinda wasted my precious time But don't think twice, it's all right."

"I got into the driver's seat and drove down 42nd Street in my Cadillac. Good car to drive after a war."

"Half of the people can be part right all of the time, Some of the people can be all right part of the time, But all the people can't be all right all the time. I think Abraham Lincoln said that. I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours. I said that."

"Come gather ’round people Wherever you roam And admit that the waters Around you have grown. And accept it that soon You’ll be drenched to the bone. If your time to you is worth savin’ Then you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone For the times they are a-changin'."

"Come writers and critics Who prophesize with your pen And keep your eyes wide The chance won't come again And don't speak too soon For the wheel's still in spin And there's no tellin' who that it's naming.’ For the loser now will be later to win"

"Come mothers and fathers Throughout the land And don't criticize What you can't understand Your sons and your daughters Are beyond your command Your old road is rapidly agin'."

"Come Congressmen, Senators, please heed the call Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall For he who gets hurt will be he who has stalled There’s a battle outside and it's ragin’."

"You prayed to the Lord above Oh please send you a friend Your empty pockets tell yuh That you ain't a-got no friend"

"There's seven people dead On a South Dakota farm Somewhere in the distance There's seven new people born"

"If there's anyone who knows, is there anyone who cares?"

"You never ask questions When God's on your side"

"You don't count the dead When God's on your side"

"But I can't think for you You'll have to decide Whether Judas Iscariot Had God on his side"

"The words fill my head, and fall to the floor, that if God's on our side, he'll stop the next war."

"Oh all the money that in my whole life I did spend Be it mine right or wrongfully I let it slip gladly past the hands of my friends To tie up the time most forcefully"

"But if the arrow is straight And the point is slick It can pierce through dust no matter how thick"

"Oh, but if I had the stars from the darkest night And the diamonds from the deepest ocean I'd forsake them all for your sweet kiss For that's all I'm wishin' to be ownin'."

"Well, if you, my love, must think that-a-way, I'm sure your mind is roamin'. I'm sure your heart is not with me, But with the country to where you're goin'."

"William Zanzinger killed poor Hattie Carroll With a cane that he twirled around his Diamond ring finger At a Baltimore hotel society gath‘rin‘ And the cops were called in and his weapon took from him As they rode him in custody down to the station And booked William Zanzinger for first-degree murder But you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears Take the rag away from your face Now ain‘t the time for your tears."

"William Zanzinger, who at twenty-four years Owns a tobacco farm of six hundred acres With rich wealthy parents who provide and protect him And high office relations in the politics of Maryland Reacted to his deed with a shrug of his shoulders And swear words and sneering, and his tongue it was snarling In a matter of minutes on bail was out walking But you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears Take the rag away from your face Now ain‘t the time for your tears."

"Hattie Carroll was a maid of the kitchen She was fifty-one years old and gave birth to ten children Who carried the dishes and took out the garbage And never sat once at the head of the table And didn‘t even talk to the people at the table Who just cleande up all the food from the table And emptied the ashtrays in a whole other level Got killed by a blow, lay slain by a cane That sailed through the air and came down through the room Doomed and determined to destroy all the gentle And she never done nothing to William Zanzinger But you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears Take the rag away from your face Now ain‘t the time for your tears."

"In the courtroom of honor, the judge pounded his gravel To show that all‘s equal and that the courts are on the level And the strings in the books ain‘t pulled and persuaded And that even the nobles get properly handled Once that the cops have chased after and caught ´em And that the ladder of law has no top and no bottom Stared at the person who killed for no reason Who just happened to be feelin‘ that way without warnin‘ And he spoke through his cloak, most deep and distinguished And handed out strongly, for penalty and repentance William Zanzinger with a six-month sentence Oh, but you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears Bury the rag deep in your face For now‘s the time for your tears."

"All I really want to do is, baby, be friends with you."

"I ain't looking for you to feel like me, see like me, or be like me."

"Far between sundown's finish an' midnight's broken toll, We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing. As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds, Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing. Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight, Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight, An' for each an' ev'ry underdog soldier in the night, An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing."

"Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail, The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder, That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind, Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind, An' the poet and the painter far behind his rightful time An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing."

"It ain't no use a-talking to me It's just the same as talking to you"

"I'm a poet, and I know it."

"Everything passes Everything changes Just do what you think you should do And someday maybe Who knows, baby I'll come and be cryin' to you"

"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now."

"Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth "Rip down all hate," I screamed Lies that life is black and white Spoke from my skull."

"In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand at the mongrel dogs who teach Fearing not that I'd become my enemy in the instant that I preach My existence led by confusion boats, mutiny from stern to bow."

"I had to say something to strike him very weird so I yelled out "I like Fidel Castro and his beard.""

"All is gone, all is gone, admit it, take flight. I gagged twice, doubled, tears blinding my sight. My mind it was mangled, I ran into the night Leaving all of love's ashes behind me. The wind knocks my window, the room it is wet. The words to say I'm sorry, I haven't found yet. I think of her often and hope whoever she's met Will be fully aware of how precious she is. Ah, my friends from the prison, they ask unto me, "How good, how good does it feel to be free?" And I answer them most mysteriously, "Are birds free from the chains of the skyway?""

"Go away from my window, Leave at your own chosen speed, I'm not the one you want, babe, I'm not the one you need. You say you're looking for someone, Who's never weak but always strong, To protect you and defend you, Whether you are right or wrong, Someone to open each and every door, But it ain't me, babe, No, no, no, it ain't me, babe, It ain't me you're looking for, babe."

"Johnny's in the basement Mixing up the medicine I'm on the pavement Thinking about the government The man in the trenchcoat Badge out, laid off Says he's got a bad cough Wants to get it paid off Look out kid It's somethin' you did God knows when But you're doin' it again"

"You don't need a weather man To know which way the wind blows"

"Get jailed, jump bail Join the army, if you fail"

"Don't follow leaders Watch the parkin' meters"

"Twenty years of schoolin' And they put you on the day shift"

"The pump don't work 'Cause the vandals took the handles"

"She's got everything she needs, she's an artist, she don't look back."

"She could take the dark out the nighttime and paint the daytime black."

"You will start out standing, proud to steal her anything she sees, but you will wind up peeking through her keyhole down upon your knees."

"Well, I try my best To be just like I am But everybody wants you To be just like them"

"I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more."

"There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all."

"She knows too much to argue or to judge."

"In the dime stores and bus stations, People talk of situations, Read books repeat quotations, Draw conclusions on the wall."

"Don't ask me nothin' about nothin'. I just might tell you the truth."

"I said, "You know they refused Jesus, too" He said, "You're not Him""

"The ancient empty street's too dead for dreaming."

"And if you hear vague traces of skipping reels of rhyme..."

"It's not aimed at anyone, it's just escapin' on the run"

"Take me disappearing, through the smoke rings of my mind, down the foggy ruins of time..."

"Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free."

"With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves, let me forget about today until tomorrow."

"Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me. I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to. Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me. In the jingle-jangle morning, I'll come following you."

"All and all can only fall with a crushing but meaningless blow."

"And there are no truths outside the Gates of Eden."

"Of war and peace the truth just twist, its curfew gull it glides."

"Darkness at the break of noon Shadows even the silver spoon The handmade blade, the child's balloon Eclipses both the sun and moon To understand you know too soon There is no sense in trying"

"He not busy being born is busy dying"

"Others say, don't hate nothing at all except hatred"

"Disillusioned words like bullets bark As human gods aim for their mark Make everything from toy guns that spark To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark It's easy to see without looking too far That not much is really sacred"

"Even the President of the United States Sometimes must have to stand naked"

"It is not he or she or them or it That you belong to."

"While one who sings with his tongue on fire Gargles in the rat race choir"

"Money doesn't talk, it swears"

"You must leave, now take what you need, You think will last But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast Yonder stands your orphan with his gun Crying like a fire in the sun."

"The highway is for gamblers, better use your sense."

"Your lover who just walked out the door, has taken all his blankets from your floor."

"Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you. Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you. Strike another match, go! Start anew And it's all over now, Baby Blue."

"You got a lotta nerve to say you are my friend. When I was down, you just stood there grinning."

"Do you take me for such a fool to think I'd make contact with one that tries to hide what he don't know to begin with."

"I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes. You'd know what a drag it is to see you."

"How does it feel? To be on your own, with no direction home, like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone?"

"Once upon a time you dressed so fine, threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you. People call, say beware doll, you're bound to fall, you thought they were all, kiddin you."

"You used to laugh about Everybody that was hangin' out Now you don't talk so loud Now you don't seem so proud About having to be scrounging for your next meal"

"You never turned around to see the frowns, on the jugglers and the clowns when they all did, tricks for you."

"Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people, they're drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made"

"Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse. When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose. You're invisible now. You've got no secrets to conceal."

"The sweet pretty things are in bed now, of course."

"The sun's not yellow, it's chicken."

"Stop all this weeping, swallow your pride, you will not die, it's not poison"

"The geometry of innocent flesh on the bone Causes Galileo's math book to get thrown At Delilah's who sitting worthlessly alone But the tears on her cheeks are from laughter"

"And the National Bank at a profit sells road maps for the soul To the old folks home and the college"

"Well I ride on a mail train baby, can't buy a thrill."

"Don't the moon look good, mama, shinin' through the trees? Don't the brakeman look good, mama, flaggin' down the double E? Don't the sun look good goin' down over the sea?"

"And you say, Oh my God, am I here all alone?"

"You've been with the professors and they've all liked your looks. With great lawyers you've discussed lepers and crooks."

"You go watch the geek, who immediately walks up to you when he hears you speak, and says, how does it feel to be such a freak?, and you say, impossible as he hands you a bone."

"And something is happening here, but you don't know what it is, do you Mr. Jones?"

"Here's your throat back, thanks for the loan."

"You put your eyes in your pockets and your nose on the ground."

"They already expect you to just give a check to tax-deductible charity organization."

"Oh God said to Abraham, Kill me a son. Abe says, Man, you must be puttin' me on. God say, No. Abe say, What? God say, You can do what you want Abe, but the next time you see me comin' you better run. Well Abe says, Where do you want this killin' done? God says, Out on Highway 61."

"The cops don't need you, and, man, they expect the same."

"I started out on burgundy but soon hit the harder stuff."

"They're selling postcards of the hanging"

"Yes, I received your letter yesterday (About the time the door knob broke) When you asked how I was doing Was that some kind of joke? All these people that you mention Yes, I know them, they're quite lame I had to rearrange their faces And give them all another name Right now I can't read too good Don't send me no more letters no Not unless you mail them From Desolation Row"

"Now at midnight all the agents And the superhuman crew Come out and round up everyone That knows more than they do"

"The Titanic sails at dawn"

"And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot Fighting in the captain's tower While calypso singers laugh at them And fishermen hold flowers..."

"Ron Rosenbaum: When you hear your songs in your mind, it's not just you strumming alone, you mean?"

"Dylan: Well, no, it is to begin with. But then I always hear other instruments, how they should sound. The closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind was on individual bands in the Blonde on Blonde album. It's that thin, that wild mercury sound. It's metallic and bright gold, with whatever that conjures up. That's my particular sound. I haven't been able to succeed in getting it all the time. Mostly, I've been driving at a combination of guitar, harmonica and organ, but now I find myself going into territory that has more percussion in it and [pause] rhythms of the soul."

"But I would not feel so all alone, everybody must get stoned!"

"Somebody got lucky, but it was an accident."

"Oh Mama, can this really be the end? To be stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again?"

"And here I sit so patiently waiting to find out what price you have to pay to get out of going through all these things twice."

"The one was Texas medicine, the other was just a railroad gin. And, like a fool, I mixed them; and it strangled up my mind."

"Your debutante just knows what you need, but I know what you want."

"You see, you're just like me. I hope you're satisfied."

"Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're trying to be so quiet?"

"We sit here stranded, though we're all doin' our best to deny it."

"He's sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all"

"Inside the museums, infinity goes up on trial. Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while But Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues You can tell by the way she smiles"

"The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face."

"Name me someone that's not a parasite and I'll go out and say a prayer for him."

"But these visions of Johanna, they make it all seem so cruel."

"She is good to me And there's nothing she doesn't see She knows where I'd like to be But it doesn't matter"

"Well, I see you got your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat Yes, I see you got your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat Well, you must tell me, baby How your head feels under somethin' like that Under your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat"

"I asked the doctor if I could see you It's bad for your health, he said Well, I disobeyed his orders, I came to see you but I found him there instead Well, I don't mind him cheating on me but I sure wish he'd take that off his head Your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat"

"She takes just like a woman, yes she does She makes love just like a woman, yes she does And she aches just like a woman But she breaks just like a little girl."

"You say you love me and you're thinking of me, but you know you might be wrong."

"But to live outside the law, you must be honest."

"And now here I stand, looking at your yellow railroad, in the ruins of your balcony"

"Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands, Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes, My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums, Should I leave them by your gate, Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?"

"With your sheets like metal and your belt like lace, And your deck of cards missing the jack and the ace, And your basement clothes and your hollow face, Who among them can think he could outguess you?"

""There must be some way out of here," said the Joker to the Thief"

"All along the watchtower, princes kept the view While all the women came and went, barefoot servants too Outside in the distance, a wild cat did growl Two riders were approaching. The wind began to howl."

"I put my fingers against the glass, and bowed my head and cried"

"Nothing is revealed"

"Lay, lady, lay. Lay across my big, brass bed."

"Whatever colors you have in your mind, I'll show them to you and you'll see them shine."

"His clothes are dirty, but his hands are clean, and you're the best thing that he's ever seen."

"Throw my ticket out the window, Throw my suitcase out there too, Throw my troubles out the door, I don't need them anymore, 'Cause tonight I'll be staying here with you."

"Ev'rybody's in despair, Ev'ry girl and boy But when Quinn the Eskimo gets here, Ev'rybody's gonna jump for joy."

"Come all without, come all within, You'll not see nothing like the mighty Quinn."

"Time passes slowly up here in the mountains"

"Some day everything is gonna be different, when I paint my masterpiece."

"May you build a ladder to the stars and climb on every rung. May your song always be sung, May you stay forever young."

"May your hands always be busy. May your feet always be swift. May you have a strong foundation when the winds of changes shift. May your heart always be joyful. May your song always be sung. May you stay forever young."

"Early one mornin' the sun was shinin', I was layin' in bed Wond'rin'if she'd changed at all If her hair was still red."

"Tangled up in blue..."

"Lord knows I've paid some dues gettin' through..."

"I helped her out of a jam, I guess, but I used a little too much force..."

"And every one of them words rang true and glowed like burnin' coal. Pourin' off of every page, like it was written in my soul from me to you..."

"The only thing I knew how to do was to keep on keepin' on like a bird that flew..."

"All the people we used to know, they're an illusion to me now..."

"Don't know how it all got started, I don't know what they do with their lives..."

"We always did feel the same, we just saw it from a different point of view..."

"But all the while I was alone The past was close behind, I seen a lot of women But she never escaped my mind,"

"I lived with them on Montague Street In a basement down the stairs There was music in the cafes at night And revolution in the air."

"You're an idiot, babe. It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe."

"I can't help it if I'm lucky."

"Visions of your chestnut mare shoot through my head and are makin' me see stars."

"I waited for you on the running boards, near the cypress trees, while the springtime turned slowly into autumn."

"Idiot wind, blowing through the buttons of our coats, blowing through the letters that we wrote. Idiot wind, blowing through the dust upon our shelves, We're idiots, babe. It's a wonder we can even feed ourselves."

"It was gravity which pulled us in and destiny which broke us apart"

"You tamed the lion in my cage but it just wasn't enough to change my heart"

"Down the highway, down the tracks, down the road to ecstacy, I followed you beneath the stars, hounded by your memory and all your ragin' glory"

"You'll never know the hurt I suffer, nor the pain I rise above, and I'll never know the same about you..."

"I kiss good-bye the howling beast on the borderline which separated you from me."

"I'm going out of my mind, oh, oh; with a pain that stops and starts; like a corkscrew to my heart; Ever since we've been apart"

"A change in the weather is known to be extreme; but what's the sense in changing horses in mid-stream?"

"Time is a jetplane — it moves too fast. Oh but what a shame that all we've shared can't last..."

"Love is so simple, to quote a phrase; you've known it all the time, I'm learnin' it these days."

"I know where I can find you — in somebody's room. It's the price I have to pay, you're a big girl all the way."

"Backstage the girls were playin' five-card stud by the stairs, Lily had two queens, she was hopin' for a third to match her pair. Outside the streets were fillin' up, the window was open wide, A gentle breeze was blowin', you could feel it from inside. Lily called another bet and drew up the Jack of Hearts."

"'Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood When blackness was a virtue, the road was full of mud. I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form, 'Come in,' she said, 'I'll give you shelter from the storm.'"

"Beauty walks a razor's edge, someday I'll make it mine."

"Try imagining a place where it's always safe and warm..."

"I always have respected her for doin' what she did and gettin' free"

"Say for me that I'm all right though things get kind of slow She might think that I've forgotten her don't tell her it isn't so."

"Sundown yellow moon I replay the past I know every scene by heart they all went by so fast"

"If she's passing back this way I'm not that hard to find Tell her she can look me up if she's got the time."

"Well, it's sugar for sugar And salt for salt If you go down in the flood It's gonna be your own fault"

"Take care of all your memories. said my friend Mick, For you cannot relive them."

"If your mem'ry serves you well, we were gonna meet again and wait, so I think I'll just unpack my bags and sit before it gets too late. No man alive will come to you with another tale to tell, but you know that we shall meet again, if your mem'ry serves you well."

"If your memory serves you well, I was gonna confiscate your lace and wrap it up in a sailor's knot and hide it in your case. And if I knew for sure that it was yours, it was oh so hard to tell, and you know that we shall meet again, if your memory serves you well."

"If your memory serves you well, I remember you're the one who called out me to call out them to get your business done. And after every plan has failed, and there was nothing left to tell, well you knew that we shall meet again if your memory serves you well."

"Wheels on fire, rolling down the road, best notify my next of kin, this wheel shall explode!"

"Here comes the story of The Hurricane, the man the authorities came to blame for something that he never done. Put in a prison cell, but one time he coulda been the champion of the world."

"Meanwhile, far away in another part of town, Rubin Carter and a couple of friends are drivin’ around. Number one contender for the middleweight crown, Had no idea what kinda shit was about to go down. When a cop pulled him over to the side of the road, Just like the time before and the time before that. In Paterson that’s just the way things go: If you’re black you might as well not show up on the street ’Less you wanna draw the heat."

"Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land, where justice is a game."

"There's lots of pretty girls in Mozambique."

"Don't turn away, you'll create sorrow, Time is an ocean but it ends at the shore, You may not see me tomorrow."

"Gentlemen, he said I don't need your organization, I've shined your shoes I've moved your mountains and marked your cards But Eden is burning either get ready for elimination Or else your hearts must have the courage for the changing of the guards Peace will come with tranquility and splendor on the wheels of fire But will offer no reward when her false idols fall And cruel death surrenders with its pale ghost retreating Between the King and the Queen of Swords"

"Señor, señor, can you tell me where we’re heading? Lincoln County Road or Armageddon?"

"Do you love me, or are you just extending good will?"

"I have dined with kings, I've been offered wings, and I've never been too impressed"

"It may be the Devil or it may be the Lord, but you're gonna have to serve somebody."

"You may call me Bobby; you may call me Zimmy..."

"Now there's spiritual warfare, flesh and blood breaking down. You either got faith or you got unbelief, and there ain't no neutral ground."

"The enemy is subtle. How be it we're deceived? When the truth's in our hearts and we still don't believe."

"My so-called friends have fallen under a spell: they look me squarely in the eye and say, "Well; all is well.""

"We are covered in blood, girl. You know both our forefathers were slaves. Let us hope they've found mercy in their bone-filled graves."

"They'd like to drive me from this town; they don't want me around, 'cause I believe in you."

"I believe in you even on the morning after."

"Have they counted the cost it'll take to bring down all the earthly principles they're gonna have to abandon?"

"All that foreign oil controlling American soil. Look around you, it's just bound to make you embarrassed: sheiks walking around like kings, wearing fancy jewels and nose rings, deciding America's future from Amsterdam and to Paris."

"In the home of the brave, Jefferson turning over in his grave."

"Man's ego's inflated, his laws are outdated. They don't apply no more. You can't rely no more to be standing around waiting."

"Fools glorify themselves, trying to manipulate Satan."

"The enemy I see wears a cloak of decency."

"People starving and thirsting; grain elevators are bursting. You know, it costs more to store the food than it do to give it."

"They talk about a life of brotherly love? Show me someone who knows how to live it."

"It sure do bother me to see my loved ones turning into puppets."

"(Alternate version.) A brave man will kill you with a sword, a coward with a kiss."

"Don't wanna judge nobody — don't wanna be judged."

"You got some big dreams, baby, but in order to dream you gotta still be asleep."

"Counterfeit philosophies have polluted all of your thoughts; Karl Marx has got you by the throat, and Henry Kissinger's got you tied up into knots."

"You got innocent men in jail, your insane asylums are filled."

"Do you ever wonder just what God requires? You think he's just an errand boy to satisfy your wandering desires."

"They tell you "Time is money," as if your life was worth its weight in gold."

"When you gonna wake up and strengthen the things that remain?"

"Truth is an arrow, and the gate is narrow that it passes through."

"In the fury of the moment I can see the Master's hand In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand"

"I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand"

"Freedom just around the corner for you, but with truth so far off, what good will it do?"

"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread, both of their futures so full of dread."

"Shedding off one more layer of skin, keeping one step ahead of the persecutor within."

"You go to Sodom and Gomorrah, but what do you care? Ain't nobody there would want to marry your sister."

"You look into the fiery furnace, see the rich man without any name."

"The book of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the law of the jungle and the sea are your only teachers."

"The rifleman's stalking the sick and the lame; preacherman seeks the same. Who'll get there first is uncertain."

"A woman just gave birth to a prince today and dressed him in scarlet. He'll put the priest in his pocket, put the blade to the heat, take the motherless children off the street and place them at the feet of a harlot."

"A woman like you should be at home. That's where you belong, taking care of somebody nice who don't know how to do you wrong."

"Just how much abuse will you be able to take? Well, there's no way to tell by the first kiss."

"They say in your father's house there's many mansions; each one of 'em got a fireproof floor."

"They say that patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings."

"Steal a little and they throw you in jail; steal a lot and they make you king."

"There's only one step down from here, baby. It's called the Land of Permanent Bliss."

"Sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace."

"Nobody sees through him — no, not even the chief of police."

"He could be standing next to you, the person that you notice least."

"He's following a star, the same one that the three men followed east."

"Some one else is speaking with my mouth, but I'm listening only to my heart."

"Took a stranger to teach me to look into justice's beautiful face, and to see an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."

"A lot of people complaining that there is no work. I say, "Why you say that for?" When nothin' you got is US-made — they don't make nothin' here no more."

"Capitalism is above the law; it's said it don't count 'less it sells."

"It's sundown on the union that was made in the USA. Sure was a good idea till greed got in the way."

"Democracy don't rule the world; you'd better get that in your head. This world is ruled by violence."

"Yesterday's just a memory; tomorrow's never what it's supposed to be."

"Man thinks 'cause he rules the earth, he can do with it as he please. And if things don't change soon, he will."

"For man has invented his doom; first step was touching the moon."

"Man is opposed to fair play: he wants it all, and he wants it his way."

"What looks large from a distance, close up ain't never that big."

"I live in another world, where life and death are memorized."

"I can hear another drum beating for the dead that rise, whom Nature's beast fears as they come."

"Time is short and the days are sweet and passion rules the arrow that flies."

"All I see are dark eyes."

"If you want somebody you can trust, trust yourself."

"I've been deceived by the clown inside of me. I thought that he was righteous but he's vain."

"My patron saint is a-fighting with a ghost. He's always off somewhere when I need him most."

"Let me feel your love one more time before I abandon it."

"I was just too stubborn to ever be governed by enforced insanity."

"If I thought about it, I never would have done it, I guess I would have let it slide."

"The old Rounder in the iron mask slipped me the master key, somebody had to unlock your heart, he said it was up to me."

"It frightens me the awful truth of how sweet life can be."

"When you bite off more than you can chew, you pay the penalty, somebody's got to tell the tale, I guess it must be up to me."

"Somebody's got to cry some tears, I guess it must be up to me."

"Forgive me, baby, for what I didn't do."

"[Recounting a scene in The Gunfighter] Turn him loose, let him go, let him say he outdrew me fair and square — I want him to feel what it's like to every moment face his death."

"I can't believe we've lived so long and are still so far apart."

"I know she ain't you, but she's here, and she's got that dark rhythm in her soul."

"She said, "Welcome to the land of the living dead," but you could tell she was so brokenhearted — she said, "Even the swap meets around here are getting pretty corrupt.""

"We're going all the way, till the wheels fall off and burn, till the sun peels the paint and the seat covers fade and the water moccasins die."

"I didn't know whether to duck or to run, so I ran."

"When I saw you break down in front of the judge and cry real tears, it was the best damn thing I saw anybody do."

"I've always been the kind of person who doesn't like to trespass, but sometimes you just find yourself over the line."

"I feel pretty good, but that ain't saying much — I could feel a whole lot better, if you were just here by my side to show me how."

"The only thing we knew for sure about Henry Porter was that his name wasn't Henry Porter."

"Strange how people who suffer together have stronger connections than those who are most content."

"You always said people don't do what they believe in; they just do what's most convenient, then they repent."

"Tweeter and the Monkey Man were hard up for cash They stayed up all night selling cocaine and hash To an undercover cop who had a sister named Jan Who for reasons unexplained she loved the Monkey Man"

"Jan had told him many times "it was you to me who taught: in Jersey anything's legal as long as you don't get caught""

"We live in a political world Where peace is not welcome at all It's turned away from the door to wander some more Or put up against the wall."

"Ring them bells Sweet Martha For the poor man's son Ring them bells so the world will know That God is one Oh, the shepherd is asleep Where the willows weep And the mountains are filled with lost sheep."

"There are no mistakes in life, some people say And it's true, sometimes you can see it that way People don't live or die, people just float She went with the man in the long black coat."

"There’s smoke on the water, it’s been there since June Tree trunks uprooted, 'neath the high crescent moon Feel the pulse and vibration and the rumbling force Somebody is out there beating on a dead horse"

"Seen a shooting star tonight, and I thought of you."

"They'll kick you when you're up and knock you when you're down."

"Your mind is your temple, keep it beautiful and free. Don't let an egg get laid in it by something you can't see."

"Let me die in my footsteps before I go under the ground."

"I'd throw all the guns and the tanks in the sea, for they are mistakes of a past history."

"The whole world's a bottle, And life's but a dram, When the bottle gets empty, It sure ain't worth a damn."

"When you cease to exist, then who will you blame?"

"Well, God is in His heaven And we all want what's his But power and greed and corruptible seed Seem to be all that there is I'm gazing out the window Of the St. James Hotel And I know no one can sing the blues Like Blind Willie McTell"

"Drinkin' man listens to the voice he hears, In a crowded room full of covered up mirrors, Lookin' into the lost forgotten years For dignity"

"I'm sick of love, and I'm in the thick of it."

"Last night I danced with a stranger, but she just reminded me you were the one."

"Behind every beautiful thing there's been some kind of pain"

"I know it looks like I'm moving, but I'm standing still Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb I can't even remember what it was I came here to get away from."

"I been down on the bottom of a whirlpool of lies"

"Don't even hear the murmur of a prayer. It's not dark yet, but it's getting there."

"I could hold you for a million years"

"When you think that you’ve lost everything, you find out you can always lose a little more."

"She says, you don’t read women authors do you?... I said, You’re way wrong. She says, Which ones have you read then? I say, I read Erica Jong!"

"Insanity is crashing up against my soul."

"Feel like falling in love with the first woman I meet... Putting her in a wheel barrow and wheeling her down the street."

"People are crazy and times are strange I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range, I used to care, but things have changed."

"You can hurt someone and not even know it"

"I been walkin forty miles of bad road. If the Bible is right the world will explode. I've been trying to get as far away from myself as I can"

"My clothes are wet, tight on my skin. Not as tight as the corner that I've painted myself in."

"You can always come back, but you can't come back all the way."

"I'm walking through the leaves falling from the trees, Feelin' like a stranger nobody sees."

"So many things that we never will undo I know you're sorry, I'm sorry too."

"I'm drownin' in the poison, got not future got no past."

"But my heart is not weary; it's light and it's free I've got nothing but affection for those who've sailed with me."

"Everybody movin', if they ain't already there. Everyboy got to move somewhere."

"Things should start to get interesting right about now."

"Politician's got on his jogging shoes, he must be running for office, got no time to lose"

"I'm sittin' on my watch so I can be on time."

"The future for me is already a thing of the past."

"I'm gonna baptize you in fire so you can sin no more."

"Funny how the things you have the hardest time parting with are the things you need the least."

"I'm gonna spare the defeated—I'm gonna speak to the crowd I'm gonna spare the defeated, boys, I'm going to speak to the crowd I am goin' to teach peace to the conquered I'm gonna tame the proud"

"Down over the window Comes the dazzling sunlit rays Through the back alleys, through the blinds Another one of them endless days"

"My old man he's like some feudal lord, got more lives than a cat."

"Jump into the wagon, love, throw your panties overboard."

"I can write you poems, make a strong man lose his mind."

"As great as you are, man, you’ll never be greater than yourself."

"Don’t reach out for me, she said. Can’t you see I’m drowning too?"

"Last night across the alley there was a pounding on the wall It must have been Don Pascuale making a two a.m. booty call"

"Gonna forget about myself for a while, gonna go out and see what others need."

"Feel like my soul is beginning to expand. Look into my heart and you will sort of understand."

"The world of research has gone berserk. Too much paperwork."

"Some people never work a day in their lives, don't know what work even means."

"If I catch my opponents ever sleepin', I'll just slaughter 'em where they lie."

"I'm listening to Billy Joe Shaver And I'm reading James Joyce Some people they tell me I've got the blood of the land in my voice"

"The door has closed for evermore, If indeed there ever was a door."

"Just give to me my gravestone With it clearly carved upon: "I'm a long time a-comin' An' I'll be a long time gone""

"She left one too many a boy behind He committed suicide"

"It's soon after midnight, and I got a date with a fairy queen"

"Another politician pumpin' out the piss."

"He bent in the middle like a twisted pin"

"Long before the First Crusade, way back before England or America was made."

"Mr. Freud with his dreams, Mr. Marx with his ax."

"Who cleared the path for Presley to sing Who carved out the path for Martin Luther King"

"I lit the torch, I looked to the east, and I crossed the Rubicon."

"I’m so deep in love that I can hardly see."

"Well, it might not be the thing to do, but I’m sticking with you through and through."

"Bob Dylan's enormous influence on mid-'60s rock not only led directly to the birth of folk rock but also inspired the psychedelic rockers who followed."

"He might rarely pick up a six-string these days, but back in the day, Dylan started a folk revolution with nothing but a beat-up old acoustic and a suitcase full of songs. Dylan made it look so easy that a legion of earnest young strummers picked up the guitar. They discovered the truth when they started trying to play like him, though. Elaborate fingerpicking, open tunings, ear-catching runs and an impeccable sense of rhythm were the foundation that the Dylan legend was built on. He sourced his skills from legends of folk and blues, and combined them into something bitingly original. Hands down the best singer-songwriter ever to do it."

"It took Bob Dylan to break the ice between the [country and rock music] camps. [...] While it would be a stretch to call Blonde on Blonde a country-rock record, the fact that Dylan, arguably the most important person in rock at the time, cut an album in the home of country music soon brought an influx of other musicians to Nashville. As Charlie McCoy, the multi-instrumentalist who starred on Blonde told Nashville Scene in 2011, “That's when the floodgates opened.""

"The Nobel Prize for Literature is yet another step towards immortality for Bob Dylan. The rebellious, reclusive, unpredictable artist/composer is exactly where the Nobel Prize for Literature needs to be. His gift with words is unsurpassable. Out of my repertoire spanning 60 years, no songs have been more moving and worthy in their depth, darkness, fury, mystery, beauty and humour than Bob's. None has been more of a pleasure to sing. None will come again."

"A voice like sand and glue."

"To me, [giving the Nobel Prize to Bob Dylan] is like pinning a medal on Mount Everest for being the highest mountain."

"I relied on Bob Dylan as a seer who literally channeled the mood of the revolution. His John Wesley Harding album, named for a famous outlaw, had thrilled me the year before, especially "All Along the Watchtower," which seemed to me a coda for revolution. Some of the women in our group and many in the new women's movement had turned against Dylan and other artists for their misogyny, and I couldn't deny its presence in many lyrics."

"In the mid-'60s one of my cousins gave me a record by Bob Dylan and it was a mind-blowing experience. I loved the beat of it, the folk concerns, the pulse of the people in Dylan's music."

"Dylan is to me the perfect symbol of the anti-artist in our society. He is against everything—the last resort of someone who doesn't really want to change the world. ... I think his poetry is punk. It's derivative and terribly old hat. ... Dylan songs accept the world as it is."

"Bob Dylan took a lot of air out of the room when it came to songwriters. Everybody had a tough row to hoe distinguishing themselves once Bob invented our job."

"I saw Bob Dylan a couple of weeks ago (this being, what, December 1994?) and he was saying… “Who owns all the money? Who owns the media?”. As he travels around the world, he notices that all the media change their story every week, and someone is directing that. And “Who owns all the money?”, he was saying. And it was like he knew that he had a great deal of power, to influence people’s psyches, or minds, or thinking, or psychology, or opinion-ation, and yet his power was miniscule, compared to the power of the moguls of the media. And in America it’s only 22 people who run… who own… 80 percent of the mass-media, so that the… it would be very difficult for a poem… for a poet… to overcome that barrage of bullshit. On the other hand, poetry is the only place where you get an individual person telling his subjective truth, what he really thinks, as distinct from what he wants people to think he thinks (like a politician or someone preparing an editorial in a dignified newspaper). So if you need the historical truth of what people think inside, you have to follow Shelley (and his admonition is that poets are the “unacknowledged legislators of the race”) — or what William Carlos Williams said more acutely was, “The government is of words”. After all, the people making political speeches, they’re writing prose, if not poetry, and they are trying to get a little flowery language in there, but the language is shifty, and the language is manipulative, and people who are advertising, or even doing ordinary mass-media, are still inhibited and can’t say what they really think, but the poet can say what he really thinks, authentically, and that’s the advantage, and it’s longer-lasting than the immediate radio-broadcast or television-broadcast, because a poem is like a radio that can broadcast continually, for thousands of years. And so, in the long run, it may have an ameliorating effect on the spirit."

"What I wanted to do with Bobby was just to get him to sound in the studio as natural, just as he was in person, and have that extraordinary personality come thru. ... After all, he's not a great harmonica player, and he's not a great guitar player, and he's not a great singer. He just happens to be an original. And I just wanted to have that originality come thru."

"The minute you try to grab hold of Dylan, he's no longer where he was. He's like a flame: If you try to hold him in your hand you'll surely get burned. Dylan's life of change and constant disappearances and constant transformations makes you yearn to hold him, and to nail him down. And that's why his fan base is so obsessive, so desirous of finding the truth and the absolutes and the answers to him — things that Dylan will never provide and will only frustrate. ... Dylan is difficult and mysterious and evasive and frustrating, and it only makes you identify with him all the more as he skirts identity."

"Slight, wiry, his blond, curly hair worn long, Bob Dylan never wears a tie and never lets anyone else make decisions for him. His unshakable independence courses through his songs—some of them wryly irreverent, others harshly critical of what he regards as hypocrisy and cruelty. His voice is acrid but curiously compelling, and he has become the most influential folksinger among today's teenagers—as well as among older dissenters. [...] Now 24, he is less the angry preacher of causes than he was two years ago. His songs have become more warmly personal and more deftly witty. He is cactus on the outside and romantic revolutionary within. He has no ideology except that of inner freedom. He is his own man."

"He had a lovely voice, but he was also, I think, a great poet. And he was the background music to a lot of people of my age. I don't take a lot of stock in generational thought, as you know. I think generational solidarity is the lowest form of solidarity there is. But I think that for every decade or so, every generational set, there is a special voice. And certainly for my lot, it was him."

"My hero was and still is Bob Dylan."

"I defy you to say what he'll be doing six months from now. He's just driven by pure art. You know, his son said to me..."There is no doubt that if my dad had never made it, if he was sitting on the side of the sidewalk with his guitar and a hat out in front of him, he would be doing precisely doing the same songs. His whole career would be exactly the same." Now, there is certainly hyperbole in that, but it's kind of, sort of true... If we have anybody who's Shakespeare in our time, it's Dylan, and he just speaks to me more and more, and he once said in an interview that the purpose of art was to inspire, and when you see a Dylan show...You would think he's so good, you know—if you go see a jazz cat who's so good playing bass, you can leave that show going, "Why even pick up a bass again?" But for some reason—and I'm not the only one that feels this—at the end of the Dylan show, art just seems so good. I want to go write a play, or write a novel. I'll stay up all night and write a song. And you don't care that it's not as good. The other thing that I love about Dylan is he is a freak, not a cheerleader... Dylan just stands there and says, "I am speaking for me. Maybe some of this is true for you to. I don't know. But I'm digging so deep." All of his mining, you know, is going towards his heart and deeper into his brain. He makes no attempt, that I can tell, to say, "Oh yeah, this is gonna kill 'em. This is what they'll like." And that's where universality has to live. You can't be universal if you're trying to please other people. You can only be universal if you have so clearly who you are, and Dylan has no idea who he is, but he's still searching and he's sharing that process with us."

"The conversation was flat. Suddenly, however, Dylan leapt to his feet and started berating me. He said, for example, something like, 'You'll never understand it; it happens so fast it'll go right past you,' and more of the same. I was startled, yes, but kept on trying to ask sensible, interesting questions; the attack persisted. I shrugged and left. The whole episode was entirely unprovoked... That evening, I went to the concert. My opinion then and now was that the music was unpleasant, the lyrics inflated, and Dylan a self-indulgent whining show-off."

"Musically, Dylan's not very gifted; he's borrowed his voice from old hillbillies. He's got a lot of borrowed things. He's not a great guitar player. He’s invented a character to deliver his songs ... it's a mask of sorts."

"He's one of the great artists of the century."

"I can still picture Bob Dylan, with just a bassist, a piano player, and his guitar, tenderly reworking "The Times They Are a-Changin'." When finished, he stepped off the stage, shook my hand, gave a little grin and bow in front of me and Michelle, and vanished without a word."

""The stage is the only place where I'm happy." But this has its own sadnesses, like so much love. He is the one person who has to be at a Dylan concert and the one person who can't go to a Dylan concert."

"A day doesn't go by when I don't listen to Dylan or at least think about him and his art. I just think we're terrifically lucky to be alive at a time when he is."

"Five years ago [Dylan] played a concert here at the university and I had no hand in arranging it; I was told about it rather late and could have killed the organizers. Shortly before the concert I received word to come backstage, so my wife and I went half an hour before the show. And Dylan said: "Mr Ricks, we meet at last." My reply was: "Have you read any good books lately?" [...] and he said: "Richard III". [...] Dylan wasn't at all surprised by my question and he really did want to talk about Richard III."

"Dylan creates a mythic atmosphere out of the land around us. The land we walk on every day and never see until someone shows it to us."

"Dylan has invented himself. He's made himself up from scratch. That is, from the things he had around him and inside him. Dylan is an invention of his own mind. The point isn't to figure him out but to take him in. He gets into you anyway, so why not just take him in? He's not the first one to have invented himself, but he's the first one to have invented Dylan..."

"Dylan was a revolutionary. Bob freed your mind the way Elvis freed your body. ... To this day, wherever great rock music is being made, there is the shadow of Bob Dylan."

"since I've been working in the theatre and listening over to some of his music and to his lyrics, I am getting quite a respect for him as a poet. I'm not happy about a lot of diffused, little cheating lines, second rate realism, that he sometimes offered. But in the same context, where the music is in a thriving rock culture, he's in that soft rock or whatever culture. Then he is a poet working within the same conditions that a Third World poet is working in because he is close to music and he's closer to the beat of the thing."

"Dylan's heart rests in his vocation. He is a white bluesman par excellence. His voice is born out of that vocation, informed by a vision rooted in reaching and teaching as many people as possible."

"Dylan is free now to work on his own terms. It would be foolish to predict what he will do next. But hopefully he will remain a mediator, using the language of pop to transcend it. If the gap between past and present continues to widen, such mediation may be crucial. In a communications crisis, the true prophets are the translators."

"I'll never be Bob Dylan. He's the master. If I'd like to be anyone, it's him. And he's a great writer, true to his music and done what he feels is the right thing to do for years and years and years. He's great. He's the one I look to. I'm always interested in what he's doing now, or did last, or did a long time ago that I didn't find out about. The guy has written some of the greatest poetry and put it to music in a way that it touched me, and other people have done that, but not so consistently or as intensely. Like me, he waits around and keeps going, and he knows that he doesn't have the muse all the time, but he knows that it'll come back and it'll visit him and he'll have his moment."

"There was a new popular music of protest. Pete Seeger had been singing protest songs since the forties, but now he came into his own, his audiences much larger. Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, singing not only protest songs, but songs reflecting the new abandon, the new culture, became popular idols. A middle-aged woman on the West Coast, Malvina Reynolds, wrote and sang songs that fit her socialist thinking and her libertarian spirit, as well as her critique of the modern commercial culture."

"You don't know someone's changing the world until the world's been changed."

"And the war rages on in a land called somewhere And Generals order their men to kill And to fight for a cause they've long ago forgotten While a little cloud weeps on the side of a hill."

"I like them all. … They're all pictures of me when I wrote them. … I have no favorite songs."

"I wanted to sing other types of songs that Simon and Garfunkel wouldn't do. "Mother and Child Reunion" for example, is not a song that you would have normally thought that Simon and Garfunkel would have done. It's possible that they might have. But it wouldn't have been the same, and I don't know if I would have been so inclined in that direction. So for me it was a chance to break out and gamble a little bit … The breakup had to do with a natural drifting apart as we got older and the separate lives that were more individual. We weren't so consumed with recording and performing. We had other activities … there was no great pressure to stay together other than money, which exerted very little influence upon us. … We didn't need the money."

"There was always some kind of strain, but it was workable. The bigger you get, the more of a strain it is, because in your everyday life, you're less used to compromising. As you get bigger, you have your own way. But in a partnership you always have to compromise. … When you get into a partnership, you're not the boss. There's no boss. That makes it hard."

"Instead of thinking in terms of chords, I think of voice-leading; that is, melody line and bass line, and where the bass line goes. If you do that, you'll have the right chord. [These voices] will give you some alternatives, and you can play those different alternatives to hear which one suits your ear... Keep the bass line moving so you don't stay in one spot: if you have an interesting bass line and you roll it against the melody, the chords are going to come out right."

"I didn't want to repeat the same notes in the second verse that I used in the first, so I wrote out all the notes of the song and all the notes that were missing in the scale, given that there are twelve notes from octave to octave. All those notes that weren't in the scale were the ones I wanted in for the next verse. The listener isn't aware that they are new notes, but the sound is pleasing to the ear. I change the key, and somehow it's fresh because you haven't heard those notes before."

"Well its great to do a neighborhood concert. I hope everyone can hear us. I hope that the sound is good. I hope we are blasting Central Park West and Fifth avenue pretty much away. I just want to thank the police department and the fire department and the parks commissioner, and Ed Koch [Audience boos] — and particularly, you know, people that never get recognized for doing good things for the city, a group of people that have donated half of the proceeds that they're making tonight — the guys who are selling loose joints are giving the city half of their income tonight."

"I am editing myself as we go along"

"I have gone through different phases in my music writing. There was a time when I used a little exercise — incorporating all of the twelve notes in the chromatic scale — to get me going. I used this technique for a while, but I don't any longer because I am going back to simpler melodies. Originally I moved away from the simple songs because I thought they were too simple."

"I write from instinct, from inexplicable sparkle. I don't know why I'm writing what I'm writing. Usually, I sit and I let my hands wander on my guitar. And I sing anything. I play anything. And I wait till I come across a pleasing accident. Then I start to develop it. Once you take a piece of musical information, there are certain implications that it automatically contains — the implication of that phrase elongated, contracted, or inverted or in another time signature. So you start with an impulse and go to what your ear likes."

"[Rock 'n' roll] really is not given to thinking — and resents thinking. Which I believe is the big error of rock 'n' roll. It's always aspired to be the music of the working class. And it's never been looked upon as a vocabulary for art and artistic thinking... We have to be able to expand the vocabulary to express more complex thoughts."

"This is near enough true bliss."

"Slip slidin' away Slip slidin' away. You know the nearer your destination The more you're slip slidin' away."

"God only knows God makes his plan The information's unavailable To the mortal man. We work our jobs Collect our pay Believe we're gliding down the highway When in fact we're slip slidin' away."

"Hello darkness, my old friend I've come to talk with you again Because a vision softly creeping Left its seeds while I was sleeping And the vision that was planted in my brain Still remains Within the sound of silence."

"And in the naked light I saw Ten thousand people maybe more People talking without speaking People hearing without listening People writing songs that voices never shared No one dared Disturb the sound of silence."

""Fools," said I, "you do not know Silence like a cancer grows Hear my words that I might teach you Take my arms that I might reach you" But my words like silent raindrops fell And echoed in the wells of silence."

"And the people bowed and prayed To the neon god they made And the sign flashed out its warning In the words that it was forming And the sign said "The words of the prophets Are written on the subway walls And tenement halls And whispered in the sound of silence""

"A winter's day In a deep and dark December; I am alone, Gazing from my window to the streets below On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow. I am a rock, I am an island."

"I’ve built walls, A fortress deep and mighty, That none may penetrate. I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain. It’s laughter and it’s loving I disdain."

"I am shielded in my armor Hiding in my room safe within my womb I touch no one and no one touches me. I am a rock. I am an island. And a rock feels no pain. And an island never cries."

"I'm sitting in the railway station. Got a ticket to my destination. On a tour of one-night stands my suitcase and guitar in hand. And ev'ry stop is neatly planned for a poet and a one-man band."

"Home where my thought's escaping, Home where my music's playing, Home where my love lies waiting Silently for me."

"Tonight I'll sing my songs again, I'll play the game and pretend. But all my words come back to me in shades of mediocrity Like emptiness in harmony I need someone to comfort me."

"Slow down, you move too fast. You got to make the morning last. Just kicking down the cobblestones. Looking for fun and Feelin' Groovy."

"Let us be lovers we'll marry our fortunes together. I've got some real estate here in my bag. So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner's pies, And we walked off to look for America"

"Laughing on the bus, playing games with the faces, She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy, I said, 'Be careful, his bowtie is really a camera.'"

"Preserve your memories, they're all that's left you."

"And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson, Jesus loves you more than you will know. Whoa, whoa, whoa God bless you, please, Mrs. Robinson, Heaven holds a place for those who pray. Hey hey hey, hey hey hey."

"Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? A nation turns it's lonely eyes to you Ooo ooo ooo. What's that you say, Mrs. Robinson? "Joltin' Joe has left and gone away." Hey hey hey, hey hey hey."

"Time, time, time, see what's become of me, While I looked around for my possibilities, I was so hard to please, But look around, the leaves are brown, And the sky is a hazy shade of winter."

"Hang on to your hopes, my friend. That's an easy thing to say, But if your hopes should pass away Simply pretend that you can build them again."

"Seasons change with the scenery; Weaving time in a tapestry. Won't you stop and remember me At any convenient time?"

"Someone told me It's all happening at the zoo. I do believe it, I do believe it's true."

"The monkeys stand for honesty, Giraffes are insincere, And the elephants are kindly but They're dumb. Orangutans are skeptical Of changes in their cages, And the zookeeper is very fond of rum."

"Zebras are reactionaries, Antelopes are missionaries, Pigeons plot in secrecy, And hamsters turn on frequently."

"When you're weary Feeling small When tears are in your eyes I will dry them all I'm on your side When times get rough And friends just can't be found Like a bridge over troubled water I will lay me down."

"I'll take your part When darkness comes And pain is all around."

"Sail on Silver Girl, Sail on by Your time has come to shine All your dreams are on their way See how they shine If you need a friend I'm sailing right behind..."

"I'd rather be a sparrow than a snail Yes I would, if I could, I surely would I'd rather be a hammer than a nail Yes I would, if I only could, I surely would"

"Cecilia, you're breaking my heart You're shaking my confidence daily Oh, Cecilia, I'm down on my knees I'm begging you please to come home."

"In the clearing stands a boxer And a fighter by his trade And he carries the reminders Of ev'ry glove that laid him down Or cut him till he cried out In his anger and his shame "I am leaving, I am leaving." But the fighter still remains."

"I get all the news I need from the weather report."

"No I would not give you false hope On this strange and mournful day But the mother and child reunion Is only a motion away, Oh, little darling of mine I can't for the life of me Remember a sadder day I know they say let it be But it just don't work out that way..."

"When the papa found out, he began to shout, and he started the investigation It's against the law, it was against the law What the mama saw, it was against the law."

"I'm on my way, I don't know where I'm goin', I'm on my way, I'm takin' my time, but I don't know where. Goodbye to Rosie, the Queen of Corona See you, me and Julio down by the schoolyard."

"A young girl in a parkin' lot was preaching to a crowd Singing sacred songs and reading from the Bible Well, I told her I was lost and she told all about the Pentecost And I seen that girl as the road to my survival... Even now that sweet memory lingers"

"Peace like a river ran through the city Long past the midnight curfew We sat starry-eyed We were satisfied... You can beat us with wires You can beat us with chains You can run out your rules But you know you can't outrun the history train"

"When I look back on all the crap I learned in high school, It's a wonder I can think at all, And though my lack of education hasn't hurt me none, I can read the writing on the wall."

"Kodachrome, They give us those nice bright colours, Give us the greens of summers, Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, Oh, yeah, I got a Nikon camera, I love to take a photograph, So Mama, don't take my Kodachrome away."

"Come on, take me to the Mardi Gras, Where the people sing and play, Where the music is elite and there's dancing in the street, Both night and day."

"Some people never say those words "I love you". It's not their style to be so bold. Some people never say those words "I love you". But like a child, they're longing to be told."

"When I was a little boy, (when I was just a boy) And the devil would call my name (when I was just a boy) I'd say "Now who do, Who do you think you're fooling?""

"And if I was the President, (was the President) And if'n the Congress called my name (was the President) I'd say "Now who do, Who do you think you're fooling?""

"I met my old lover on the street last night, She seemed so glad to see me, I just smiled, And we talked about some old times, and we drank ourselves some beers, Still crazy after all these years, Oh, still crazy after all these years."

"Now I sit by my window and I watch the cars I fear I’ll do some damage One fine day But I would not be convicted By a jury of my peers Still crazy Still crazy Still crazy after all these years."

"In my little town I grew up believing God keeps his eye on us all."

"The problem is all inside your head, she said to me The answer is easy if you take it logically I'd like to help you in your struggle to be free There must be fifty ways to leave your lover."

"Just slip out the back, Jack, make a new plan, Stan Don't need to be coy, Roy, just listen to me Hop on the bus, Gus, don't need to discuss much Just drop off the key, Lee, and get yourself free."

"She said, why don't we both just sleep on it tonight And I believe, in the morning you'll begin to see the light And then she kissed me and I realized she probably was right There must be fifty ways to leave your lover, fifty ways to leave your lover"

"Then I learned to play some lead guitar, I was underage in this funky bar And I stepped outside to smoke myself a j When I came back to the room, everybody just seemed to move And I turned my amp up loud and I began to play."

"First thing I remember when you came into my life I said I wanna get that girl, no matter what I do Well I guess I've been in love before and once or twice have been on the floor But I've never loved no-one the way that I love you."

"One and one half wandering Jews, Free to wander wherever they choose, Are travelling together in the Sangre de Christo, The blood of Christ mountains of New Mexico, On the last leg of a journey they started a long time ago, The arc of a love affair, Rainbows in the high desert air."

"Mountain passes slipping into stones, Hearts and bones."

"Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance Everybody thinks its true."

"Two disappointed believers Two people playing the game Negotiations and love songs Are often mistaken for one and the same."

"And what is the point of this story? What information pertains? The thought that life could be better Is woven indelibly into our hearts and our brains."

"These are the days of miracle and wonder, This is the long distance call, The way the camera follows us in slo-mo, The way we look to us all, The way we look to a distant constellation That's dying in a corner of the sky, These are the days of miracle and wonder And don't cry, baby, don't cry, don't cry."

"It's a turn-around jump-shot, It's everybody jump-start, it's, Every generation throws a hero up the pop-charts, Medicine is magical and magical is art, Think of the boy in the bubble and the baby with the baboon heart..."

"The Mississippi Delta was shining like a National guitar, I am following the river down the highway Through the cradle of the Civil War."

"I'm going to Graceland, Graceland, Memphis, Tennessee, Well, I'm going to Graceland. Poor boys and pilgrims with families And we are going to Graceland, And my travelling companion is nine years old, He is the child of my first marriage, But I've reason to believe We both will be received in Graceland."

"And she said 'Losing love is like a window in your heart, Everybody sees you're blown apart, Everybody feels the wind blow.'"

"She said, 'Don't I know you from the cinematographer's party?' I said, 'Who am I to blow against the wind?'"

"I said 'Hey, is this my problem? Is this my fault?' If that's the way its gonna be I'm gonna call the whole thing to a halt"

"She's a rich girl, She don't try to hide it, Diamonds on the soles of her shoes, He's a poor boy, Empty as a pocket, Empty as a pocket with nothing to lose, Sing ta-na-na, ta-na-na-na, She got diamonds on the soles of her shoes."

"A man walks down the street He says why am I soft in the middle now Why am I soft in the middle The rest of my life is so hard I need a photo opportunity I want a shot at redemption Don’t want to end up a cartoon In a cartoon graveyard."

"If you’ll be my bodyguard I can be your long lost pal I can call you Betty And Betty when you call me You can call me Al."

"A man walks down the street He says why am I short of attention Got a short little span of attention And woe my nights are so long"

"There were incidents and accidents There were hints and allegations..."

"A man walks down the street It’s a street in a strange world Maybe it’s the third world Maybe it’s his first time around … He looks around around He sees angels in the architecture Spinning in infinity He says Amen and Hallelujah."

"Homeless, homeless, Moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake."

"Well I'm accustomed to a smooth ride, Or maybe I'm a dog that's lost its bite, I don't expect to be treated like a fool, no, no, I don't expect to sleep long nights, Some people say a lie is just a lie but I say, Why deny the obvious child?"

"Sonny sits by his window and thinks to himself, How it's strange that some rooms are like cages, Sonny's yearbook from high school is down from the shelf, And he idly thumbs through the pages, Some have died, some have fled from themselves, On a struggle from here to get there, Sonny wanders beyond his interior walls, Runs his hands through his thinning brown hair."

"Never been lonely, Never been lied to, Never had to scuffle in fear, Nothing to dive to, Born at the instant, The church bells chime, The whole world whispering, You're born at the right time."

"Moves like a fist through traffic, Anger and no-one can kill it, Shoves a little bump to the momentum, It's just a little lump but you feel it In the creases and the shadows, With a rattling deep emotion. The cool, cool river Sweeps the wild, wide ocean."

"And sometimes even music Cannot substitute for tears."

"How can you live in the Northeast? How can you live in the South? How can you build on the banks of a river When the flood water pours from the mouth? How can you be a Christian? How can you be a Jew? How can you be a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Hindu? How can you?"

"If the answer is infinite light, Why do we sleep in the dark?"

"Locked in a struggle for the right combination Of words in a melody line, I took a walk along the riverbank of my imagination. Golden clouds were shuffling the sunshine."

"We don't mean to mess things up, But mess them up we do. And then it's "Oh, I'm sorry." Here's a smiling photograph Of love when it was new. At a birthday party. Make a wish and close your eyes: Surprise, surprise, surprise."

"I shoot a thought into the future, and it flies like an arrow, through my lifetime. And beyond. If I ever come back as a tree, or a crow, or even the wind-blown dust; find me on the ancient road in the song when the wires are hushed. Hurry on and remember me, as I'll remember you. Far above the golden clouds, the darkness vibrates. The earth is blue. And everything about it is a love song. Everything about it."

"It's outrageous to line your pockets off the misery of the poor. Outrageous, the crimes some human beings must endure. It's a blessing to wash your face in the summer solstice rain. It's outrageous a man like me stand here and complain. But I'm tired."

"Take me. I'm an ordinary player in the key of C. And my will was broken by my pride and my vanity. Who's gonna love you when you're looks are gone? God will. Like he waters the flowers on your window sill."

"Prayers offered in times of peace are silent conversations, Appeals for love, or love's release, in private invocationsBut all that is changed now. Gone like a memory from the day before the fires. People hungry for the voice of God Hear lunatics and liars.Wartime prayers. Wartime prayers In every language spoken. For every family scattered and broken."

"Because you cannot walk with the holy, If you're just a halfway decent man. But I don't pretend that I'm a mastermind With a genius marketing plan.I'm trying to tap into some wisdom, Even a little drop would do. I want to rid my heart of envy And cleanse my soul of rage Before I'm through."

"Snowman sittin' in the sun doesn't have time to waste."

"Little kid dancin' in the grass, legs like rubber band. It's summertime, summertime. There's a line at the candy stand. Keep an eye on them children, eye on them children in the pool. You'd better keep an eye on them children, eye on them children in the pool."

""The universe loves a drama," you know. And ladies and gentlemen this is the show."

"Maybe the heart is part of the mist. And that's all that there is or could ever exist. Maybe and maybe and maybe some more. Maybe's the exit that I'm looking for."

"Once upon a time there was an ocean. But now it's a mountain range. Something unstoppable put into motion. Nothing is different, but everything's changed."

"The light through the stained glass was cobalt and red. And the frayed cuffs and collars were mended by halos of golden thread. The choir sang, "Once Upon a Time There Was An Ocean." And all the old hymns and family names came fluttering down as leaves of emotion. As nothing is different, but everything's changed."

"I am walking up the face of the mountain. Counting every step I climb. Remembering the names of the constellations. Forgotten is a long, long time."

"I'm gonna watch you shine, gonna watch you grow. Gonna paint a sign so you'll always know. As long as one and one is two. There could never be a father who loved His daughter more than I love you."

"Trust your intuition. It's just like goin' fishin'. You cast your line and hope you get a bite. But you don't need to waste your time worrying about the marketplace, Try to help the human race. Struggling to survive its harshest hour."

"It's easy to be generous when you're on a roll It's hard to be grateful when you're out of control"

"The bedroom breathes in clicks and clacks Uneasy heartbeat, can't relax But then your hand takes mine Thank God I found you in time"

"They say all roads lead to a river Then one day the river comes up to your door How will the builder of bridges deliver us all To the faraway shore?"

"We are who we are Or we're not But at least We'll eventually all fall asleep Eventually all fall asleep"

"So, what in the world are we whispering for? Everyone's naked, there's nothing to hide"

"My boy and me We're refugees of sorts From my hometown They don't like different there They would've mowed us down"

"He doesn't talk much anymore Just to the voices in his head The boy just gazed down at the floor And nodded once or twice At what she said"

"This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ours, cause we don't give a darn. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do."

"Ever'body might be just one big soul, Well it looks that a-way to me. Everywhere that you look, in the day or night, That's where I'm a-gonna be, Ma, That's where I'm a-gonna be.Wherever little children are hungry and cry, Wherever people ain't free. Wherever men are fightin' for their rights, That's where I'm a-gonna be, Ma. That's where I'm a-gonna be."

"One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple By the Relief Office I saw my people — As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering if God blessed America for me."

"All you can write is what you see."

"THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS."

"I worked in your orchards of peaches and prunes I slept on the ground in the light of the moon On the edge of the city you'll see us and then We come with the dust and we go with the wind"

"I'm blowing, and just as wild and whirling as you are, and lots of times I've been picked up, throwed down, and picked up; but my eyes has been my camera taking pictures of the world and my songs has been my messages that I tried to scatter across the back sides and along the steps of the fire escapes and on the window sills and through the dark halls..."

"I'm gonna tell all you fascists, you may be surprised People all over this world are getting organized You're bound to lose You fascists are bound to lose Race hatred cannot stop us, this one thing I know Poll tax and Jim Crow and greed have got to go You're bound to lose You fascists are bound to lose ... People of every color marching side by side Marching across these fields where a million fascists died You're bound to lose You fascists are bound to lose ... I'm going into this battle, take my union gun Gonna end this world of slavery before this war is won You're bound to lose You fascists are bound to lose"

"I have hoped as many hopes and dreamed so many dreams, seen them swept aside by weather, and blown away by men, washed away in my own mistakes, that — I use to wonder if it wouldn't be better just to haul off and quit hoping. Just protect my own inner brain, my own mind and heart, by drawing it up into a hard knot, and not having any more hopes or dreams at all. Pull in my feelings, and call back all of my sentiments — and not let any earthly event move me in either direction, either cause me to hate, to fear, to love, to care, to take sides, to argue the matter at all — and, yet … there are certain good times, and pleasures that I never can forget, no matter how much I want to, because the pleasures, and the displeasures, the good times and the bad, are really all there is to me. And these pleasures that you cannot ever forget are the yeast that always starts working in your mind again, and it gets in your thoughts again, and in your eyes again, and then, all at once, no matter what has happened to you, you are building a brand new world again, based and built on the mistakes, the wreck, the hard luck and trouble of the old one."

"No matter how bad the wicked world has hurt you, in the long run, there is something gained, and it is all for the best … The note of hope is the only note that can help us or save us from falling to the bottom of the heap of evolution, because, largely, about all a human being is, anyway, is just a hoping machine, a working machine, and any song that says, the pleasures I have seen in all of my trouble, are the things I never can get — don't worry — the human race will sing this way as long as there is a human to race. The human race is a pretty old place."

"Let me be known as just the man that told you something you already knew."

"Okemah was one of the singiest, square dancingest, drinkingest, yellingest, preachingest, walkingest, talkingest, laughingest, cryingest, shootingest, fist fightingest, bleedingest, gamblingest, gun, club and razor carryingest of our ranch towns and farm towns, because it blossomed out into one of our first Oil Boom Towns."

"I ain't a communist necessarily, but I been in the red all my life."

"I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard traveling. … I am out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work. And the songs that I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts of folks just about like you. I could hire out to the other side, the big money side, and get several dollars every week just to quit singing my own kind of songs and to sing the kind that knock you down still farther and the ones that poke fun at you even more and the ones that make you think you've not any sense at all. But I decided a long time ago that I'd starve to death before I'd sing any such songs as that. The radio waves and your movies and your jukeboxes and your songbooks are already loaded down and running over with such no good songs as that anyhow."

"This land is your land, this land is my land From California to the New York Island From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters This land is made for you and me."

"As I go walking this ribbon of highway I see above me the endless skyway And all around me the wind keeps saying: This land is made for you and me."

"When the sun came shining as I was strolling, And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling, As the fog was lifting a voice come chanting: This land was made for you and me."

"Nobody living can ever stop me As I go walking my freedom highway Nobody living can make me turn back This land was made for you and me."

"This Land is My Land (1993), a picture book written and illustrated by the Canadian Cree artist George Littlechild, ... refers to Woody Guthrie's Depression-era song, "This Land Is Your Land," which is far from an unproblematic expression of patriotic love for country but (especially in its seldom-sung fourth and sixth verses) ironizes the line "This land was made for you and me" by pointing to distinctions between those who have access to the bounty of the land and those who do not. Through his intertextual reference to Woody Guthrie's song, Littlechild acknowledges traditions of resistance in white culture, even as he draws attention to the effects of colonization upon Native Americans."

"I'm just a lonesome traveler, The Great Historical Bum. Highly educated from history I have come. I built the Rock of Ages, 'twas in the Year of One And that was about the biggest thing that man had ever done. I worked in the Garden of Eden, that was the year of two, Joined the apple pickers union, I always paid my due; I'm the man that signed the contract to raise the rising sun, And that was about the biggest thing that man had ever done"

"I'd better quit my talking, 'cause I told you all I know, But please remember, pardner, wherever you may go, The people are building a peaceful world, and when the job is done That'll be the biggest thing that man has ever done."

"I better quit my talking now; I told you all I know, But please remember, pardner, wherever you may go, I'm older than your old folks, and I'm younger than the young, And I'm about the biggest thing that man has ever done."

"As I drove across the New Mexico Painted Desert, I found myself singing softly, "This land is your land, this land is my land...," the Woody Guthrie alternative anthem that was enjoying a revived popularity. It made me think, no, this is not your land. I was driving through the Navajo Nation as a guest, not an owner. I wondered how the Navajos or other Indians would feel about that song."

"[Guthrie's songs] made my head spin[,] made me want to gasp. ... He was so poetic and tough and rhythmic. ... The songs themselves, his repertoire, were really beyond category. They had the infinite sweep of humanity in them. ... For me it was an epiphany... I could sing all these songs, every single one of them and they were all that I wanted to sing. It was like I had been in the dark and someone had turned on the main switch of a lightning conductor."

"Guthrie, he had a particular sound. And besides that, he said something to go along with his sound. That was highly unusual to my ears. He was a radical, his songs had a radical slant. I thought, "Ooh", you know, like... "That's what I want to sing. I want to sing that." I couldn't believe that I'd never heard of this man. You could listen to his songs, and actually learn how to live."

"Woody Guthrie was what folks who don't believe in anything would call an anomaly. Admittedly, the intersection of space and time at the corner of July 14, 1912, and Okemah, Oklahoma, was a long shot to produce anything like a national treasure. Woody was born in one of the most desolate places in America, just in time to come of age in the worst period in our history. … He became the living embodiment of everything a people's revolution is supposed to be about: that working people have dignity, intelligence and value above and beyond the market's demand for their labor. … For me personally, Woody is my hero of heroes and the only person on earth that I will go to my grave regretting that I never met."

"Of course I remember when I was a little kid, I started writing my songs, my dad took me aside one time, and said "Arlo, you know if you can't be great, it's better to belong." I'm still thinking about that."

"Now they sing out his praises on every distant shore, But so few remember what he was fightin' for. Oh why sing the songs and forget about the aim, He wrote them for a reason, why not sing them for the same? And now he's bound for a glory all his own, And now he's bound for glory."

"I remember the night he wrote the song "Tom Joad." He said, "Pete, do you know where I can get a typewriter?" I said, "I'm staying with someone who has one." "Well, I got to write a ballad," he said. "I don't usually write ballads to order, but Victor wants me to do a whole album of Dust Bowl songs, and they say they want one about Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath." … Woody had a half-gallon jug of wine with him, sat down and started typing away. He would stand up every few seconds and test out a verse on his guitar and sit down and type some more. About one o'clock my friend and I got so sleepy we couldn't stay awake. In the morning we found Woody curled up on the floor under the table; the half gallon of wine was almost empty and the completed ballad was sitting near the typewriter. And it is one of his masterpieces."

"We must look beyond the songs to find the full importance of Woody Guthrie. As a song-maker, he has earned the stature he deserves. But his reputation as a writer, poet and philosopher is still underground and must he brought into the light. When his songs, poems, and essays are studied in our American literature classes, this omission may be righted."

"Woody is just Woody. Thousands of people do not know he has any other name. He is just a voice and a guitar. He sings the songs of a people and I suspect that he is, in a way, that people. Harsh voiced and nasal, his guitar hanging like a tire iron on a rusty rim, there is nothing sweet about Woody, and there is nothing sweet about the songs he sings. But there is something more important for those who will listen. There is the will of the people to endure and fight against oppression. I think we call this the American spirit."

"This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender."

"We'll walk hand in hand We'll walk hand in hand We'll walk hand in hand some day... The whole wide world around some day."

"To everything (turn, turn, turn) There is a season (turn, turn, turn) And a time for every purpose under heaven."

"A time to gain, a time to lose A time to rend, a time to sew A time of love, a time of hate A time of peace... I swear it's not too late."

"Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing? Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago? Where have all the flowers gone? Young girls have picked them every one. Oh, when will they ever learn?"

"Where have all the soldiers gone? Gone to graveyards, every one. Oh, when will they ever learn? Oh, when will they ever learn?"

"I have been singing folksongs of America and other lands to people everywhere. I am proud that I never refused to sing to any group of people because I might disagree with some of the ideas of some of the people listening to me. I have sung for rich and poor, for Americans of every possible political and religious opinion and persuasion, of every race, color, and creed. The House committee wished to pillory me because it didn’t like some few of the many thousands of places I have sung for."

"A good song can only do good, and I am proud of the songs I have sung. I hope to be able to continue singing these songs for all who want to listen, Republicans, Democrats, and independents."

"If I've got a talent, it's for picking the right song at the right time for the right audience. And I can always seem to get people to sing with me."

"Every time I read the paper those old feelings come on. We are waist deep in the Big Muddy and the big fool says to push on."

"One blue sky above us One ocean lapping all our shore One earth so green and round Who could ask for more And because I love you I'll give it one more try To show my rainbow race It's too soon to die."

"... And this is the origin of pop music: it's a professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music as well."

"In the largest sense, every work of art is protest. … A lullaby is a propaganda song and any three-year-old knows it. … A hymn is a controversial song — sing one in the wrong church: you'll find out. …"

"All songwriters are links in a chain."

"I like to say I'm more conservative than Goldwater. He just wanted to turn the clock back to when there was no income tax. I want to turn the clock back to when people lived in small villages and took care of each other."

"I still call myself a communist, because communism is no more what Russia made of it than Christianity is what the churches make of it. But if by some freak of history communism had caught up with this country, I would have been one of the first people thrown in jail."

"When I meet people who say, "Oh, there's no hope, Peter, look at the things that are going wrong, and those stupid people in Bosnia, there are going to be things like that all around the world, power-hungry people says I know how to handle this, just give me the bomb. There's no hope." But I say to them, I said, "Did you ever think that our great Watergate president would leave office the way he did?" "No, I guess I didn't think that." I said, "Did you think that the Berlin Wall would come down so peacefully?" "No, I didn't think that would happen, yeah." I said, "Did you think Mandela would be president of South Africa?" "No, I didn't predict that." "Well, if you couldn't predict those three things, then don't be so confident that there's no hope." And I give them a bumper sticker. It says, "There's No Hope, But I May Be Wrong.""

"I'd really rather put songs on people's lips than in their ears."

"The world would never amount to a hill of beans if people didn't use their imaginations to think of the impossible."

"There's no hope, but I may be wrong."

"The world will be saved by people fighting for their homes."

"I feel most spiritual when I'm out in the woods. I feel part of nature. Or looking up at the stars. [I used to say] I was an atheist. Now I say, it's all according to your definition of God. According to my definition of God, I'm not an atheist. Because I think God is everything. Whenever I open my eyes I'm looking at God. Whenever I'm listening to something I'm listening to God."

"Technology will save us if it doesn't wipe us out first."

"The key to the future of the world, is finding the optimistic stories and letting them be known."

"If it can't be … reused, repaired … then it should be … redesigned or removed from production."

"Shh. Listen to the sounds that surround you. Notice the pitches, the volume, the timbre, the many lines of counterpoint. As light taught Monet to paint, the earth may be teaching you music."

"A productive mistake is: (1) made in the service of mission and vision; (2) acknowledged as a mistake; (3) learned from; (4) considered valuable; (5) shared for the benefit of all."

"The easiest way to avoid wrong notes is to never open your mouth and sing. What a mistake that would be."

""So, are you going to practice today?" asks my inner mom. "Well, sure. But I've got one more phone call to make. The dishes are dirty. I have to feed the cat." I don't hate practicing. I resist it. The goddess of procrastination can seduce me by lifting one eyebrow. After decades of practicing or avoiding the same, walking over to the piano remains the hardest part."

"At the audition, your assignment is to find something new in the song. Something you've never noticed before. A breath carried over, a thought that ties the whole thing together. Then take the risk and do it."

"If singing were all that serious, frowning would make you sound better."

"If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning I'd hammer in the evening, All over this land. I'd hammer out danger, I'd hammer out a warning, I'd hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters, All over this land... Well I got a hammer, And I got a bell, And I got a song to sing, all over this land. It's the hammer of Justice, It's the bell of Freedom, It's the song about Love between my brothers and my sisters, All over this land."

"my first experience with Pete Seeger was weaning me from rhythm and blues, which — as my parents badly wanted to do. They were horrified. They thought all rhythm and blues singers were dope addicts, even though they didn’t know what dope addicts were. So my auntie — they spirited me away with my auntie to a Pete Seeger show. And it was like a vaccine. Either it was going to take or not. And it took. And I loved the music, and I discovered that this man did what my family, in a sense, had done for many years, which was, having become Quakers when I was eight years old, fused everything with their politics. And this was music and politics in a way that I had never known. But it was so natural to me, his music and what he did with his life. And I understood that very quickly. And when I found out at an early age — I don’t know if this is myth or not, but when the press went to his house for an interview at one point, that he was on the roof tacking a few of the last shingles on, and he wouldn’t come down, and he was ready. I knew this was a man I wanted to follow for his political and musical events that he did. And so, I did. There was Harry Belafonte, Odetta and Pete. And I listened to Pete’s music endlessly and heard the stories about him and learned his songs and followed him."

"the first time I heard Pete Seeger was on TV with the Weavers doing the Hootenanny. But I didn’t know him as Pete Seeger...I met him as a human being because of the Albany, Georgia civil rights movement in the 1960s. And he actually thought the singing in Southwest Georgia was so powerful that they should organize a singing group. And he talked about the Almanac Singers and the Weavers and said to Jim Forman of SNCC, “If you organized a group, you would have a group that could travel all over the country singing songs about the movement, and they might also bring financial support to the movement”...The other thing that Seeger taught me was the idea of a working singer, that you did not have to be a star. You had to know you were a singer. You had to know what your music was. And you had to be willing to do it for the rest of your life, as long as you had voice. And people would keep up with you. They would catch up with you if you did not go away. And it was a very important model for a young singer. And as a Freedom Singer, we made $10 a week. It was the perfect way to start my career as a musician, but it was looking at Pete Seeger and his years and years of doing music as a part of struggle that really inspired me. He was a very important model. And what’s incredible is that he has not — he has not broken stride in any way."

"There was a new popular music of protest. Pete Seeger had been singing protest songs since the forties, but now he came into his own, his audiences much larger. Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, singing not only protest songs, but songs reflecting the new abandon, the new culture, became popular idols. A middle-aged woman on the West Coast, Malvina Reynolds, wrote and sang songs that fit her socialist thinking and her libertarian spirit, as well as her critique of the modern commercial culture."

"Once I got the open tunings for some reason, I began to get the harmonic sophistication that I heard that my musical fountain inside was excited by. [...] Once I got some interesting chords to play with, my writing began to come.”"

"You're twiddling and you find the tuning. Now the left hand has to learn where the chords are, because it's a whole new ballpark, right? So you're groping around, looking for where the chords are, using very simple shapes. Put it in a tuning and you've got four chords immediately— open, barre five, barre seven, and your higher octave, like half fingering on the 12th. Then you've got to find where your minors are and where the interesting colors are — that's the exciting part."

"“That's one thing that's always, like, uh, the major difference between the performing arts to me, and being a painter, you know. Like, a painter does a painting, and he does a painting — and that's it, you know. He’s had the joy of creating it, and he hangs on a wall, and somebody buys it, somebody buys it again, or maybe nobody buys it, and it sits up in a loft somewhere until he dies. But he’s never, you know, nobody ever says to him, you know, nobody ever said to Van Gogh, 'Paint a Starry Night again, man!' You know? He painted it, and that was it.”"

"I need to explore and discover and so that has given me, really, to some what seems like courage, but really it's just in my stars, there's nothing I can do about it . . . . I guess I'll just take my award and run now."

"I don't like being too looked up at or too looked down on. I prefer meeting in the middle to being worshipped or spat out."

"…This is a period of relaxation for me, but there are still some weeds that need pulling. I kind of go with Thumper, you know, from Bambi. “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” That was my philosophy for a long time as a young person. However, I lost Thumper’s guidance as I grew older…He returns from time to time."

"…It’s, you know, the words to the song are your script. You have to bring the correct emotion to every word. You know, if you sing it pretty – a lot of people that cover my songs will sing it pretty – it’s going to fall flat. You have to bring more to it than that."

"…I liked playing the coffeehouses, where I could step off the stage and go sit in the audience and be comfortable, or where there wasn’t a barrier between me and my audience in the clubs. The big stage had no appeal for me; it was too great a distance between me and the audience, and I never really liked it. I didn’t have a lot of fame in the beginning, and that’s probably good because it made it more enjoyable."

"…The later work is much richer and deeper and smarter, and the arrangements are interesting too. Musically I grow, and I grow as a lyricist, so there’s a lot of growth taking place. The early stuff – I shouldn’t be such a snob against it. A lot of these songs, I just lost them. They fell away. They only exist in these recordings. For so long I rebelled against the term: “I was never a folk singer.” I would get pissed off if they put that label on me. I didn’t think it was a good description of what I was. And then I listened, and – it was beautiful. It made me forgive my beginnings…"

"(Do you ever make yourself cry when you write?) No, never. I’m not a weeper. I’m a snarler. I just put all the weeping in the words. The words are the weeping."

"Truth and beauty. That’s what I hope to deliver."

"(Would you like to shatter any preconceptions?) I do have this reputation for being a serious person. I’m a very analytical person, a somewhat introspective person; that’s the nature of the work I do. But this is only one side of the coin, you know. I love to dance. I’m a rowdy. I’m a good-timer...But as far as shattering preconceptions, forget it. I feel that the art is there for people to bring to it whatever they choose."

"All I knew was, whatever it was that I felt was the weak link in the previous project gave me my inspiration for the next one. I wrote poetry and I painted all my life. I always wanted to play music and dabbled with it, but I never thought of putting them all together. It never occurred to me. It wasn’t until Dylan began to write poetic songs that it occurred to me you could actually sing those poems."

"The way I saw the educational system from an early age was that it taught you what to think, not how to think. There was no liberty, really, for free thinking. You were being trained to fit into a society where free thinking was a nuisance."

"Art. They think it’s a pretentious word from the giddyap. To me, words are only symbols, and the word art has never lost its vitality. It still has meaning to me. Love lost its meaning to me. God lost its meaning to me. But art never lost its meaning. I always knew what I meant by art."

"I thought, “You don’t even know who I am. You want to worship me?” That’s why I became a confessional poet. I thought, “You better know who you’re applauding up here.” It was a compulsion to be honest with my audience."

"I remember being at the Philadelphia Folk Festival and having this sensation. It was like falling to earth. It was about the time of my second album. It felt almost as if I’d had my head in the clouds long enough. And then there was a plummeting into the earth, tinged with a little bit of apprehension and fear. Shortly after that, everything began to change. There were fewer adjectives to my poetry. Fewer curlicues to my drawing. Everything began to get more bold. And solid in a way."

"Many, many times as a writer, I’ve come to a day where I say, “None of this has any meaning.” If you maintain that point of view, if you hold onto it and possess it, that’s it for you. There’s a possibility that you can come firmly to that conclusion, as Rimbaud did, and give it up."

"If I experience any frustration, it’s the frustration of being misunderstood. But that’s what stardom is – a glamorous misunderstanding. All the way along, I know that some of these projects are eccentric. I know that there are parts that are experimental, and some of them are half-baked. I certainly have been pushing the limits and – even for myself – not all of my experiments are completely successful. But they lay the groundwork for further developments. Sooner or later, some of those experiments will come to fruition. So I have to lay out a certain amount of my growing pains in public."

"I feel frustrated sometimes. I feel bitterness, but I’m not embittered. Feelings pass. A lot of the humor in the music is missed. They insist on painting me as this tragic . . . well not even a tragic, because in this town people don’t understand tragedy. All they understand is drama. You have to be moral to understand tragedy [laughs]."

"Hejira was an obscure word, but it said exactly what I wanted. Running away, honorably. It dealt with the leaving of a relationship, but without the sense of failure that accompanied the breakup of my previous relationships. I felt that it was not necessarily anybody’s fault. It was a new attitude."

"as an artist I say to myself, “If you’re that good, how come you can’t be yourself?”"

"I can put my dukes up now if I have to in life, but out of appreciation for honesty. I won’t settle for anything less in the studio. So much of music is politics. It’s going for the big vote. It amounts to a lot of baby kissing."

"I’m still obsessed with pushing the perimeters of what entails a pop song. I can’t really let go of that impulse yet. I don’t know where I’m going. I never really do. My songs could come out any shape at this point."

"Misery knows no rent bracket"

"it’s a funny time for women. We demand a certain sensitivity. We’ve made our outward attacks at machoism, right, in favor of the new sensitive male. But we’re just at the fledgling state of our liberty where we can’t handle it. I think we ask men to be sensitive and equal, but deep down think it’s unnatural. And we really want them to be stronger than us. So you get into this paradoxical thing."

"I think if you’re healthy, aging can be quite a beautiful process, and I think we’ve created an artificial problem for ourselves."

"I like to work myself up to a state of enthusiasm about anything I do, otherwise, what’s the point?"

"any acts of frustration or concern or anxiety in my life are all peripheral to a very solid core. A very strong, continuing course I’ve been following. All this other stuff is just the flak that you get for engaging in the analytical process in the first place. Even Freud knew that; to me it was the hippest thing he ever said: “Dissection of personality is no way to self-knowledge.” All you get out of that is literature, not necessarily peace of mind. It’s a satisfying, but dangerous, way to learn about yourself."

"It’s a funny thing about happiness. You can strive and strive and strive to be happy, but happiness will sneak up on you in the most peculiar ways. I feel happy suddenly. I don’t know why. Some days, the way the light strikes things. Or for some beautifully immature reason like finding myself running to the kitchen to make myself some toast. Happiness comes to me even on a bad day. In very, very strange ways. I’m very happy in my life right now."

"(about the label "female songwriter") It implies limitations...They tend to lump me always with groups of women. I always thought, “They don’t put Dylan with the Men of Rock; why do they do that to me with women?”"

"I was kind of a media dropout. I was lucky if I could name the president. I was much more inner-world oriented."

"I don’t think of myself as confessional. That’s a name that was put on me. The confessional poets like [Sylvia] Plath, whom I read later when they started calling me confessional, most of their stuff seemed contrived to me and not as greatly honest as it was touted to be. I never wanted to act the part of the poet, with pearls of language and wisdom falling from my lips...I’ve always used the songwriting process as a self-analysis of sorts. Like the Blue album – people were kind of shocked at the intimacy. It was peculiar in the pop arena at that time, because you were supposed to portray yourself as bigger than life. I remember thinking, “Well, if they’re going to worship me, they should know who they’re worshiping.”"

"I don’t think of myself as an intellectual...It’s a nice place to visit; I wouldn’t want to live there. I spend as little time there as possible."

"I feel more ambidextrous: I suffer, I enjoy; I suffer, I enjoy."

"I've always been a painter. I didn't come to it late. I was always the school artist. I came to music late, you know, relatively. I mean, I picked up — I tried it at 8. I took a year of piano lessons and wrote my first song when I was 8, wrote it out in notes."

"I've got nervous energy like a kid, still."

"at that point, that's when I forged my identity as an artist. At 8, I, you know, rebelled against the church and I rebelled against the educational system. I stepped outside the box and forged my identity as an artist."

"(about her experience as a student in school) All they did was, she said something and you said something back. From here on in, I'm not even going to try unless they ask us a question that nobody knows the answer to."

"(about "River.") We needed a sad Christmas song, didn't we?"

"(about "Both Sides Now") I wrote it when I was 21. I took a lot of ridicule, too. "What do you know about life? You're only 21." You know, but I really think it took me to — that was done in my 50s — to, you know, it took a mature woman to bring it to life...I grew into that song."

"I sing my sorrow and paint my joy."

"Like Van Gogh's paintings were a diary of his life, my paintings are kind of a diary of my life. And they're all good moments that I've preserved, and I've got them around me."

"Any time I make a record it's followed by a painting period. It's good crop rotation."

"I was demanding of myself a deeper and greater honesty, more and more revelation in my work in order to give it back to the people where it goes into their lives and nourishes them and changes their direction and makes light bulbs go off in their head and makes them feel. And it isn't vague, it strikes against the very nerves of their life and in order to do that you have to strike against the very nerves of your own."

"There's been a tremendous amount of growth. An actress is not expected to continue to play her ingenue roles, you know, I've written myself roles to grow into gracefully, but there is no growing into gracefully in the pop world. Basically the reason I'm so unruly in this business is because I never wanted to be a human jukebox."

"In our possessive coupling So much could not be expressed So now I'm returning to myself These things that you and I suppressed."

"You go down to the pick up station Craving warmth and beauty You settle for less than fascination A few drinks later you're not so choosy When the closing lights strip off the shadows On this strange new flesh you've found Clutching the night to you like a fig leaf You hurry To the blackness And the blankets To lay down an impression And your loneliness."

"Oh, you're in my blood like holy wine, You taste so bitter and so sweet Oh I could drink a case of you, darling And I would still be on my feet I would still be on my feet."

"Rows and flows of angel hair, And ice cream castles in the air, And feather canyons ev’rywhere, I’ve looked at clouds that way. But now they only block the sun, They rain and snow on ev’ryone, So many things I would have done But clouds got in my way."

"I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now, From up and down, and still somehow It’s cloud illusions I recall, I really don’t know clouds at all."

"Tears and fears and feeling proud, To say "I love you" right out loud, Dreams and schemes and circus crowds, I’ve looked at life that way. But now old friends are acting strange They shake their heads, they say I’ve changed Well something’s lost, but something’s gained In living ev’ry day."

"I’ve looked at love from both sides now From give and take, and still somehow, It’s love’s illusions I recall I really don’t know love at all."

"And the seasons they go round and round, And the painted ponies go up and down, We’re all captive on the carousel of time We can’t return we can only look behind From where we came And go 'round and 'round and 'round In the circle game."

"I came upon a child of god, He was walking along the road And I asked him, where are you going And this he told me: "I’m going on down to Yasgur’s farm I’m going to join in a rock ’n’ roll band I’m going to camp out on the land, I’m going to try an’ get my soul free."

"I don't know who I am / but you know, life is for learning."

"We are stardust, We are golden, And we’ve got to get ourselves Back to the garden."

"By the time we got to Woodstock We were half a million strong And everywhere there was song and celebration. And I dreamed I saw the bombers Riding shotgun in the sky And they were turning into butterflies Above our nation."

"They paved paradise And put up a parking lot With a pink hotel, a boutique and a swinging hot spot."

"Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you've got Till it's gone. They paved paradise, And put up a parking lot."

"They took all the trees And put them in a tree museum And they charged all the people A dollar and a half just to see 'em."

"Hey farmer, farmer, Put away that DDT now Give me spots on my apples But leave me the birds and the bees Please!"

"I remember the time you told me, you said "Love is touching souls," Surely you've touched mine, cause Part of you pours out of me In these lines from time to time."

"I wanna be strong, I wanna laugh along, I wanna belong to the living. Alive, alive, I wanna get up and jive, Wanna wreck my stockings in some jukebox dive."

"Secrets and sharing soda, That's how our time began. Love is a story told to a friend It's second hand."

"Some are friendly Some are cutting Some are watching it from the wings Some are standing in the centre giving to get something."

"Laughing and crying, you know it's the same release."

"Friends have told her "Not so proud" Neighbors trying to sleep are yelling "Not so loud" Lovers in anger, "Block of ice" Harder and harder just to be nice."

"It's coming on Christmas, They're cutting down trees. They're putting up reindeer And singing songs of joy and peace. I wish I had a river I could skate away on"

"Joni, you have more class than Richard Nixon, Mick Jagger, and Gomer Pyle combined!"

"She is of course well past the stage of having to prove herself artistically. She is in possession of one of the most extraordinary song catalogs of the past half-century. Her chords break harmonic rules, have no technical names and defy Western musical theory. Her voice is an instrument that has grown sublimely heavier and huskier over the decades. . . .Once you get past the security gates, Ms. Mitchell's house feels like a pocket of middle-class comfort in the midst of zillionaire Beverly Hills. In some ways life is still as it was in 1974, when she bought the house: She has no computer, no voice mail, no cellphone and no e-mail. At one point, when we tried to remember one of her lyrics, we scrolled through my iPod. She said it was the first time she had listened to one."

"Joni Mitchell said in an interview, Everything I am,/I'm not."

"That's the music that I play at home all the time, Joni Mitchell. Court and Spark I love because I'd always hoped that she'd work with a band. But the main thing with Joni is that she's able to look at something that's happened to her, draw back and crystallize the whole situation, then write about it. She brings tears to my eyes, what more can I say? It's bloody eerie. I can relate so much to what she says. "Now old friends are acting strange/They shake their heads/They say I've changed"."

"If you're looking to wade into Joni [Mitchell's] musical waters, open D is an essential first step. Often, you see the same Joni songs transcribed in open E, as it's the same tuning one step down, and just requires different capo placement."

"Joni, what fucking chords were you playing on Court and Spark? I could never figure them out."

"I spent a week there one afternoon."

"I never really drove a cab, but I do have a hack license in case of emergencies – like no money."

"The major thing I'm afraid of is being 65 and saying, 'Gee, I wish I had done this and that, and that.' I want to face old age knowing I've tried all I wanted to try."

"This commitment to end world hunger, and my music and story songs, are ways of dealing with the world as I see it. I'm playing 200 concerts per year-- half of them benefits-- all of them attempts at getting across the footlights to people I would enjoy spending time with in non-concert situations. And over the past 4 years of musical fun, millions of dollars have been raised for things I believe in. Telling stories of our time, building a lasting body of work, new songs, new records, new audiences, new challenges, and still that painfully exciting process of growth that can make one's life into a richly woven tapestry."

"It took a while, but she looked in the mirror, And she glanced at the license for my name. A smile seemed to come to her slowly, It was a sad smile, just the same. And she said, "How are you Harry?" I said, "How are you Sue? Through the too many miles and the too little smiles I still remember you.""

"There was not much more for us to talk about, Whatever we had once was gone. So I turned my cab into the driveway, Past the gate and the fine trimmed lawns. And she said we must get together, But I knew it'd never be arranged. And she handed me twenty dollars, For a two fifty fare, she said "Harry, keep the change." Well another man might have been angry, And another man might have been hurt, But another man never would have let her go... I stashed the bill in my shirt."

"And she walked away in silence, It's strange, how you never know, But we'd both gotten what we'd asked for, Such a long, long time ago."

"You see, she was gonna be an actress And I was gonna learn to fly. She took off to find the footlights, And I took off for the sky. And here, she's acting happy, Inside her handsome home. And me, I'm flying in my taxi, Taking tips, and getting stoned, I go flying so high, when I'm stoned."

"He looks at the city where no one had known him. He looks at the sky where no one looks down. He looks at his life and what it has shown him. He looks for his shadow it cannot be found."

"And the broad who served the whisky She was a big old friendly girl. And she tried to fight her empty nights By smilin' at the world."

"I am the midnight watchman down at Miller's Tool and Die. And I watch the metal rusting, and I watch the time go by. A week ago at the diner I stopped to get a bite. And this here lovely lady she sat two seats from my right. And Lord, Lord, Lord she was alright. Oh she was so damned beautiful that she'd warm a winter's frost. But she was long past lonely, and well nigh unto lost. Now I'm not much of a mover, or a pick-em-up easy guy, But I decided to glide on over, and give her one good try. And Lord, Lord, Lord she was worth a try."

"And it shamed me into silence, as quietly she said, "If you want me to come with you, then that's all right with me. Cause I know I'm going nowhere, and anywhere's a better place to be. Anywhere's a better place to be.""

"The moonlight shown upon her as she lay back in my bed. It was the kind of scene I only had imagined in my head. I just could not believe it, to think that she was real. And as I tried to tell her she said "Shhh.. I know just how you feel. And if you want to come here with me, then that's all right with me. 'Cause I've been oh so lonely, lovin' someone is a better way to be. anywhere's a better way to be.""

"The waitress took a bar rag, and she wiped it across her eyes. And as she spoke her voice came out as something like a sigh. She said "I wish that I was beautiful, or that you were halfway blind. And I wish I weren't so dog-gone fat, I wish that you were mine. And I wish that you'd come with me, when I leave for home. For we both know all about loneliness, and livin' all alone.""

"All my life's a circle; Sunrise and sundown; Moon rolls thru the nighttime; Till the daybreak comes around."

"All my life's a circle; But I can't tell you why; Season's spinning round again; The years keep rollin' by."

"No straight lines make up my life; And all my roads have bends; There's no clear-cut beginnings; And so far no dead-ends."

"I found you a thousand times; I guess you done the same; But then we lose each other; It's like a children's game; As I find you here again; A thought runs through my mind; Our love is like a circle; Let's go 'round one more time."

"Short stories that's all it's ever been Don't you worry 'bout the ending Babe, before we begin I have seen the sun That's behind the rain I have felt the joy That's behind the pain."

"You know I need a dream Like I need my breath We need to take the life Before we get the death You know I need your love Like I need the light Yes I need the chance Can it be tonight?"

"I am the morning DJ... At W.O.L.D. Playin' all the hits for you... Wherever you may be. The bright good morning voice... Who is heard, but never seen! Feelin' all of 45.... Goin' on 15."

"Sometimes I get this crazy dream And I just take off in my car But you can travel on ten thousand miles And still stay where you are."

"Music was his life, it was not his livelihood, And it made him feel so happy and it made him feel so good. And he sang from his heart and he sang from his soul. He did not know how well he sang; It just made him whole."

"Mr. Martin Tanner, a baritone, of Dayton, Ohio made his Town Hall debut last night. He came well prepared, but unfortunately his presentation was not up to contemporary professional standards. His voice lacks the range of tonal color necessary to make it consistently interesting. Full time consideration of another endeavor might be in order."

"My child arrived just the other day, He came to the world in the usual way. But there were planes to catch, and bills to pay. He learned to walk while I was away. And he was talking 'fore I knew it, and as he grew, He'd say, "I'm gonna be like you, dad. You know I'm gonna be like you.""

"And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon, Little boy blue and the man in the moon. "When you coming home, dad?" "I don't know when, But we'll get together then. You know we'll have a good time then.""

"I've long since retired and my son's moved away. I called him up just the other day. I said, "I'd like to see you if you don't mind." He said, "I'd love to, dad, if I could find the time. You see, my new job's a hassle, and the kid's have the flu, But it's sure nice talking to you, dad. It's been sure nice talking to you." And as I hung up the phone, it occurred to me, He'd grown up just like me. My boy was just like me."

"I come fresh from the street, fast on my feet, kind a lean and lazy; not much meat on my bones, and a whole lot alone, and more than a little bit crazy. The old six string was all I had to keep my belly still, and for each full hour lesson I gave I got a crisp ten dollar bill."

"She was married for seven years to a concrete castle king. She said she wanted to learn to play the guitar and to hear her children sing. So I'd show up about once a week in my faded tight-legged jeans with a backlog full of hobo stories and dilapidated dreams."

"She said, "I wanna learn a love song full of happy things." She said, "I wanna learn a love song; won't you let me hear you sing?" She said, "I wanna learn a love song, I wanna hear you play." She said, "I wanna learn a love song before you go away.""

"Oh, he was the sun burning bright and brittle And she was the moon shining back his light a little He was a shooting star She was softer and more slowly He could not make things possible But, she could make them holy."

"He was dancing to some music No one else had ever heard He'd speak in unknown languages She would translate every word And then when the world was laughing At his castles in the sky She'd hold him in her body Till he once again could fly."

"He was a young driver, just out on his second job. And he was carrying the next day's pasty fruits for everyone in that coal-scarred city where children play without despair in backyard slag-piles and folks manage to eat each day about thirty thousand pounds of bananas..."

"He was picking speed as the city spread its twinkling lights below him. But he paid no heed as the shivering thoughts of the nights delights went through him. His foot nudged the brakes to slow him down. But the pedal floored easy without a sound. He said "Christ!" It was funny how he had named the only man who could save him now. He was trapped inside a dead-end hellslide, riding on his fear-hunched back was every one of those yellow green I'm telling you thirty thousand pounds of bananas. Yes, there were thirty thousand pounds of bananas."

"And he said "God, make it a dream!" as he rode his last ride down. And he sideswiped nineteen neat parked cars, clipped off thirteen telephone poles, hit two houses, bruised eight trees, and Blue-Crossed seven people. it was then he lost his head, not to mention an arm or two before he stopped."

"You know the man who told me about it on the bus, as it went up the hill out of Scranton, Pennsylvania, he shrugged his shoulders, he shook his head, and he said (and this is exactly what he said) "Boy that sure must've been something. Just imagine thirty thousand pounds of bananas. Yes, there were thirty thousand pounds of mashed bananas. Of bananas. Just bananas. Thirty thousand pounds. of Bananas—not no driver now. Just bananas!""

"She sings the songs without words Songs that sailors, and blind men, and beggars have heard She knows more of love than the poets can say And her eyes are for something that won't go away."

"It was the town that made America famous. The churches full and the kids all gone to hell. Six traffic lights and seven cops and all the streets kept clean. The supermarket and the drug store and the bars all doing well."

"Something's burning somewhere. Does anybody care?"

"We were the kids that made America famous. The kind of kids that long since drove our parents to dispair. We were lazy long hairs dropping out, lost confused, and copping out. Convinced our futures were in doubt and trying not to care."

"I went to sleep with the hope that made America famous. I had the kind of a dream that maybe they're still trying to teach in school. Of the America that made America famous...and Of the people who just might understand That how together yes we can Create a country better than The one we have made of this land, We have a choice to make each man who dares to dream, reaching out his hand A prophet or just a crazy God damn Dreamer of a fool."

"There's a vacancy, won't you come to me And fill my empty spaces I'm a motel man in a promised land That's filled with empty faces So won't you bring your sorrows bring your dreams, It's a place for you to be There's no more tomorrow or that's how it seems Won't you come to me? I've got a vacancy"

"The very day I purchased it, I christened my guitar as my monophonic symphony, six string orchestra."

"I'd play at all the talent nights, I'd finish, they'd applaud. Some called it muffled laughter, I just figured they were odd. So I went up for an encore, but they screamed they'd had enough. Or maybe I just need a group to help me do my stuff."

"And so I'd dream a bass will join me, and fill the bottom in. And maybe now some lead guitar so it would not sound so thin. I need some drums to set the beat and help me keep in time. And way back in the distance, some strings would sound so fine."

"And we would play together, like fine musicians should, And it would sound like music, and the music would sound good. But in real life I'm stuck with that same old formula, me and my monophonic symphony, six string orchestra."

"The rock is gonna fall on us," he stood and told the class The professor put his chalk down and peered out through his glasses But he went on and said; "I've seen it, high up on the hill If it doesn't fall this year then very soon it will!"

"We've more important studies than your fantasies and fears You know that rock's been perched up there for a hundred thousand years."

"He went up on the mountain beside the giant stone They knew he was insane so they left him alone He'd given up enlisting help for there was no one else He spent his days devising ways to stop the rock himself One night while he was working building braces on the ledge The ground began to rumble the rock trembled on the edge."

"But high up on the mountain When the wind is hitting it If you're watching very closely The rock slips a little bit..."

"The Mayor of Candor lied When he offered me his only daughter The Mayor of Candor tried To take her off across the water What a thing to do to a young man in love What a thing to do to your daughter."

"I was quite surprised to find out all the places that he knew And so I asked the townfolk if his stories were true They said— Old John was born here, he's lived here all his life He's never had a woman, let alone a wife. And very soon you'll find out as you check around That no one named Corey's ever lived in this town So I chided the old man 'bout the truth that I had heard He smiled and said— Reality is only just a word."

"They put the cold dirt over him and left me on my own And when at last I looked up I saw I was not alone So I said— If you're a relative, he had a peaceful end. She said— My name is Corey— you can say I'm just a friend."

"Corey's coming, no more sad stories coming My midnight-moonlight-morning-glory's coming aren't you girl? And like I told you, when she holds you She enfolds you in her world."

"I'm in the Dance Band on the Titanic Singing "Nearer my God to thee" and the icebergs on the starboard bow Won't you dance with me?"

"You see, I have no real complaints of how you've left your past behind I guess what gets me worried is you've erased him from your mind."

"You see, dream-lover of a lady, what shakes me to the core Is the thought as you caress me, you've done this all before I think about the future with me out and others in Will I, too, have disappeared like I've never ever been?"

"Strum your guitar sing it kid Just write about your feelings not the things you never did Inexperience, it once had cursed me But your youth is no handicap it's what makes you thirsty"

"When I started this song I was still thirty-three The age that Mozart died and sweet Jesus was set free Keats and Shelley too soon finished, Charley Parker would be And I fantasized some tragedy'd be soon curtailing me Well just today I had my birthday I made it thirty-four Mere mortal, not immortal, not star-crossed anymore I've got this problem with my aging I no longer can ignore A tame and toothless tabby can't produce a lion's roar."

"Hello my Country I once came to tell everyone your story Your passion was my poetry And your past my most potent glory Your promise was my prayer Your hypocrisy my nightmare And your problems fill my present Are we both going somewhere?"

"Step right up young lady Your two hundred birthdays make you old if not senile And we see the symptoms there in your rigor mortis smile With your old folks eating dog food and your children eating paint While the pirates own the flag and sell us sermons on restraint."

"And while blood's the only language that your deaf old ears can hear And still you will not answer with that message coming clear Does it mean there's no more ripples in your tired old glory stream And the buzzards own the carcass of your dream?"

"Good dreams don't come cheap You've got to pay for them."

"Oh God they got you gun shy You know your skin's as cold as ice Your eyes are double filtered babe You're so afraid to be nice There's no way you're ready To let your defenses down Though I won't come on heavy There is a lesson that I've found."

"If you try to look But you don't touch Then you won't touch But you'll never feel And if you don't feel You'll never cry And if you don't cry Then you'll never heal."

"There are lessons to life That the lovers got to learn There are corners out there You know they're waitin' somewhere And you've got to be prepared to turn There are callouses that come That the lovers got to earn In the years of your youth You can't be fire proof You know you've got to get burned."

"Now if a man tried To take his time on Earth And prove before he died What one man's life could be worth, Well I wonder what would happen to this world."

"And if a woman She used a life line As something more than Some man's servant mother wife time Well I wonder what would happen to this world."

"And if our future Lies on the final line Are we brave enough To see the signals and the signs?"

"If we say that no one's out there And we say we're goin' nowhere And we avoid the question Is this all that it means?"

"Oh, if a man tried To take his time on earth And prove before he died What one man's life could be worth, I wonder what would happen to this world."

"And I know you're frightened By my laughter But you're not afraid To hold my pain You see I'm never sure Just what you're after, Babe But it seems you only love me When it rains. How come you only love me when it rains?"

"Why did the little girls grow crippled While the little boys grow strong The boys allowed to come of age The girls just came along The girls were told sing harmonies The boys could all sing songs That's why little girls grew crippled While little boys grew strong."

"Why were the little girls all frightened To be just what they are The boys were told to ask themselves How high how far The girls were told to reach the shelves While the boys were reaching stars That's why little girls were frightened To be just what they are."

"The little boy went first day of school He got some crayons and started to draw He put colors all over the paper For colors was what he saw And the teacher said.. "What you doin' young man?" "I'm paintin' flowers" he said She said... "It's not the time for art young man And anyway flowers are green and red There's a time for everything young man And a way it should be done You've got to show concern for everyone else For you're not the only one.""

"And she said... "Flowers are red young man Green leaves are green There's no need to see flowers any other way Than they way they always have been seen.""

"But the little boy said... "There are so many colors in the rainbow So many colors in the morning sun So many colors in the flowers and I see every one.""

"But there still must be a way to have our children say... "There are so many colors in the rainbow So many colors in the morning sun So many colors in the flower and I see every one." (Live version)"

"Somebody said...We got to find the words Got to, got to be an answer there Somebody said that...You never get heard 'Cause nobody really cares."

"Somebody said...Where are the dreamers Somebody said...Dead Somebody said...Here comes the holy rollers Tryin' to sell us all the screamers instead."

"You see, ten years ago it was the front seat Drivin' stoned and feelin' no pain. Now here I am straight and sittin' in the back Hitting Sixteen Parkside Lane."

"And the look on her face as she opened the door Was like an old joke told by a friend. It'd taken ten more years but she'd found her smile And I watched the corners start to bend."

"She said I've heard you flying high on my radio I answered "It's not all it seems" That's when she laughed and she said, "It's better sometimes When we don't get to touch our dreams.""

"That's when I asked her where was that actress She said "That was somebody else" And then I asked her why she looked so happy now She said "I finally like myself, at last I like myself.""

"I guess it's a sequel to our story From the journey 'tween heaven and hell With half the time thinking of what might have been and half thinkin' just as well. I guess only time will tell."

"And the wind will whip your tousled hair, The sun, the rain, the sweet despair, Great tales of love and strife. And somewhere on your path to glory You will write your story of a life."

"And all the trips you know you missed And all the lips you never kissed Cut through you like a knife. And now you see stretched out before thee Just another story of a life."

"Now sometimes words can serve me well Sometimes words can go to hell For all that they do. And for every dream that took me high There's been a dream that's passed me by. I know it's so true And I can see it clear out to the end And I'll whisper to her now again Because she shared my life. For more than all the ghosts of glory She makes up the story, She's the only story Of my life."

"Remember when the music Came from wooden boxes strung with silver wire And as we sang the words, it would set our minds on fire, For we believed in things, and so we'd sing."

"Oh all the times I've listened, and all the times I've heard All the melodies I'm missing, and all the magic words, And all those potent voices, and the choices we had then, How I'd love to find we had that kind of choice again."

"And I feel that something's coming, and it's not just in the wind. It's more than just tomorrow, it's more than where we've been, It offers me a promise, it's telling me "Begin", I know we're needing something worth believing in."

"And because my teeth don't bite, I can take them out dancing I can take my little teeth out and show them a real good time"

"Each strand of her hair Is really insect eyes And each hole in her tongue Is always occupied By the milk of the sun"

"Little yellow spider, laughing at the snow. Maybe that spider knows something i don't know, 'cause i'm goddamn cold."

"And hey there little sexy pig, you made it with a man And now you've got a little kid with hooves instead of hands."

"Cook me in your breakfast, and put me on your plate, 'cause you know i taste great."

"Put me in your dry dreams or put me in your wet If you haven't yet."

"I heard somebody say that the war ended today, but everybody knows it's going still."

"I see so many little boys I wanna marry, I see plenty little kids I've yet to have."

"Now if I lived in my land, which I do, if I lived in Iceland, if I lived in Greensland I'd still have Chinese children, but out of my ears my little grey baby hears."

"Cripple crow say something for our grieving, where do we go once we start leaving. Well close that wound or else keep on bleeding and change your tune, it's got no meaning."

"I never fuck with Facebook. I absolutely despise social networking. I think it's truly going to result in the destruction of mankind. Sometimes I just wish I didn't live in this time. Before, there was so much more freedom and privacy, and you could truly escape places."

"The world's become a little too mean."

"And me I'm in my bedroom drawing in my notebook Because my hand thinks I'm an artist But my heart knows I'm a poet It's just words they mean so little to me."

"My Brother went to college To become a doctor And if he studies hard enough He'll end up just like papa, who hates his life."

"And me I'm in the bathroom crying out my eyelids because it's hard to be a man when you're scared, just like a little kid."

"If I die tonight, then I guess I die tonight Let me go on."

"I started to sink like the moon tends to do if you stare at it too long Then you blink and it's gone"

"I swear that I'm dying slowly but it's happening, and if the perfect spring is waiting somewhere... just take me there."

"In a coma, you don't dream, you just hope that someone sits with you."

"I had a brother once, he drowned in a bathtub, before he'd ever learned how to talk. And I don't know what his name was but my mother does, I heard her say it once, she said, "Padraic, my prince, I have all but died from the sheer weight of my shame: you cried but no-one came.""

"I find that life is easier when it is just a blur With no details to confuse who or what or where I was So when the ending comes the full regret will be obscure"

"Well morning came, and it dressed the sky in a lovely yellow gown. Shopping malls are opening in that narrow hallway of downtown, filled with people who are shopping for their lovers and their friends, singing "I won't ever be lonely again""

"There's a cat in the window, of the house of my lover. Well she sleeps there alone now, or perhaps with another. Oh I try no to think about that, I try not to think at all!"

"My parents ask if I'm alright; I say "I've just been staying up too late. I need to sleep" I need to do something! To get this awful weight up off my chest, keep her pretty ghost from chasing me!"

"So you say there are spaces, opening wide? Oh believe me, there's day longer than nights. And you could be happy, if only you'd try. But you don't try. No you don't try."

"And you speak of a fever, that burns you inside, as you explain to your mother, how you've wanted to die. So she kisses your fingers, and says "My darling, but why? When there is so much more. There is so much more.""

"You could be happy, the minute you try. Why won't you try? Oh won't you try?"

"And the sad act like lepers They stick to the shadows They long to ring bells of warning To tell of their coming So that the pure can shut their doors."

"I drug your ghost across the country, and we plotted out my death. Every city and memory we whispered "Here is where you rest." Well I was determined in Chicago but I dug my teeth into my knees And I settled for a telephone, sang into your machine: "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.""

"And I sing and sing of awful things The pleasure that my sadness brings."

"For a sunrise or a sunset, you're manic or you’re depressed. Will you ever feel ok?"

"I think it is more like a ghost that has been following us both. Something vague that we're not seeing, something more like a feeling."

"There was this book I read and loved, The story of a ship Who sailed around the world and found That nothing else exists Beyond its own two sails And wooden shell And what is held within. All else is sure to pass. We clutch and grasp And debate what's truly permanent."

"I sing and drink and sleep on floors And try hard not to be annoyed By all these people worrying about me. So when I'm suffering through some awful drive, You occasionally cross my mind. It's my hidden hope that you are still among them. Well, are you?"

"If you wanna see the future, Go stare into a cloud."

"Well is it your fear of being buried that makes you so afraid to speak?"

"So you can try and live in darkness but you will never shake the light. It will greet you every morning and make you more aware with its absence at night"

"The hook is in deep boys, there is no more time. So you can struggle in the water and be too stubborn to die, or you could just let go and be lifted to the sky."

"If the world could remain within a frame Like a painting on a wall, Then I think we would see the beauty, then We would stand staring in awe At our still lives posed Like a bowl of oranges, Like a story told By the fault lines and the soil."

"Ambition, I’ve found, can lead only to failure. I do not read the reviews. No, I am not singing for you."

"The animals laugh from the dark of the wilderness."

"I’ve seen a child, he's caught in the sad trap of gravity. He falls from the lowest branch of the apple tree and lands in the grass and weeps for his dignity. Next time he will not aim so high. Yeah, next time, neither will I."

"Well, I stood dropping a coin into the pit of a well. And I would throw my whole billfold if I thought it would help."

"Honesty" "Accuracy" is just "Popular Opinion."

"Well, ABC, NBC, CBS: Bullshit. They give us fact or fiction? I guess an even split."

"And each new act of war is tonight's entertainment. We're still the pawns in their game."

"As they take eye for an eye until no one can see, we must stumble blindly forward, repeating history."

"Love's an excuse to get hurt and to hurt. Do you like to hurt? I do, I do then hurt me."

"So you think I need some discipline, well, I had my share. I have been sent to my room. I've been sat in a chair. I held my tongue. I didn't plug my ears. No, I got a good talking to. And now I don't know why, but I still try to smile when they talk at me like I'm just a child. Well, I'm not a child. No, I am much younger than that. And now I have read some books and have grown quite brave. If only I could just speak up I think I would say that there is no truth. There is only you and what you make the truth."

"He once cut one of my nightmares out of paper. I thought it was beautiful, I put it on a record cover."

"It is clear to see that it is not them but me, who had lost my self-identity. As I hide behind these books I read, while scribbling my poetry, like art could save a wretch like me, with some ideal ideology that no one can hope to achieve. And I am never real; it is just a sketch of me. And everything I have made is trite and cheap and a waste of paint, of tape, of time"

"My head's a carousel of pictures and The spinning never stops."

"For a song I was bought Now I lie when I talk With a careful eye on the cue card. Onto a stage I was pushed, With my sorrow well rehearsed. So give me all your pity and your money, now (all of it)."

"But where was it when I first heard that sweet sound of humility? It came to my ears in the goddamn loveliest melody! How grateful I was, then, to be part of the mystery, To love, and to be loved! Let’s just hope that is enough."

"But you should never be embarrassed by your trouble with living Cause it's the ones with the sorest throats Laura, who have done the most singing."

"It's not a movie, no private screening This method acting, well, I call that living"

"If I could act like This was my real life, And not some cage where I've been placed, Well then, I could tell you The truth like I used to And not be afraid of sounding fake."

"And it's too hard to focus through all this doubt I keep making this to-do list but nothing gets crossed out Working on the record seems pointless now When the world ends who's gonna hear it?"

"Everything that happens is supposed to be And it's all pre-determined, can't change your destiny Guess I'll just keep moving, someday maybe I'll get to where I'm going"

"So hurry up and run to the one that you love. And blind him with your kindness. And he'll make war, oh war, On who you were before. And he'll claim all that has spoiled in your heart."

"Because the truth is that gossip is as good as gospel in this town. You can save face but you won't ever save your soul. And that's a fact."

"It was a small mistake Sometimes that is all it takes."

"But, I was as helpless as a chess piece when I was lifted up by someone's hand And delivered from the corner my enemies had got me in But in all of my salvation I still felt imprisoned inside that holding cell that is myself"

"So I wait for the day when I'll hear the key as it turns in the lock And the guard will say to me, "Oh my patient prisoner you waited for this day and finally, you are free! You are free! You are free!""

"We're all too busy working, entertaining ourselves With forty hours, television and prescription pills Well, I take two a day to help my brain behave It never does, but who's to say? At least my doctor gets paid."

"'Cause a costume can be comfortable It can make you feel more beautiful It can even make you look like someone else But it's still you, so there's nothing you can do Like a bad habit, the one you couldn't kick, there it always is And it's nothing that no doctor's gonna fix."

"I know you have a heavy heart, I can feel it when we kiss So many men stronger than me Have thrown their backs out trying to lift it But me I'm not a gamble You can count on me to split The love I sell you in the evening by the morning won't exist."

"I'd rather be working for a paycheck, than waiting to win the lottery. Besides, maybe this time it's different, I mean, I really think you like me."

"If you walk away I'll walk away first tell me which road you will take I don't want to risk our paths crossing someday so you walk that way I'll walk this way"

"I found a liquid cure for my landlocked blues"

"And there's kids playing guns in the streets And one's pointing his tree branch at me So I put my hands up I say "Enough is enough, If you walk away I walk away." And he shot me dead."

"But greed is a bottomless pit And our freedom's a joke we're just taking a piss And the whole world must watch the sad comic display If you're still free start runnin' away 'cause we're comin' for ya!"

"You'll be free child once you have died from the shackles of language and measurable time"

"And I never thought this life was possible,You're the yellow bird that I've been waiting for."

"In polaroids you were dressed in women's clothes Were you made ashamed, why'd you lock them in a drawer? Well, I don't think that I ever loved you more"

"Well let the poets cry themselves to sleep And all their tearful words will turn back into steam"

"The sound of loneliness makes me happier"

"Well, I could have been a famous singer If I had someone else's voice But failure's always sounded better Let's fuck it up, boys, make some noise!"

"The sun came up with no conclusions Flowers sleepin' in their beds The city cemetery's hummin' I'm wide awake, its mornin'"

"i keep drinking the ink from my pen and i'm balancing history books up on my head but it all boils down to one quotable phrase if you love something give it away"

"a good woman will pick you apart a box full of suggestions for your possible heart and you may be offended. and you may be afraid but don't walk away, don't walk away"

"we made love on the living room floor with the noise in the background of a televised war and in that defeaning pleasure i thought i heard someone say if we walk away they'll walk away"

"So don't be fooled, so don't get lied to Love was always cruel And don't act strange, don't be a stranger It happened to me, now it's happening to you But if you'd take that train underwater Then we could talk it through"

"Yeah, I was a postcard, I was a record I was a camera until I went blind"

"I guess the best that I can do now is to pretend that I've done nothing wrong and to dream about a train that's gonna take me back where I belong"

"So I go back and forth forever All my thoughts they come in pairs Oh I will, I won't, I doubt, I don't, I'm not surprised but I never feel quite prepared"

"Now I'm hunched over a typewriter I guess you call that paintin' in a cave And there's a word I can't remember and a feeling I cannot escape"

"I dreamt this ship was sinkin' there was people screaming all around And I awoke to my alarm clock it was a pop song it was playin' loud"

"So I will find my fears and face them or I will cower like a dog I will kick and scream or kneel and plead I'll fight like hell to hide that I've given up"

"I want to be the surgeon who cuts you open Who fixes all of life's mistakes I want to be the house that you were raised in The only place where you feel safe."

"I wanna be a shower in the morning That wakes you up and makes you clean I know I'm just the weather against your window As you sleep through a winter's dream"

"I hear if you make friends with Jesus Christ, you will get right up from that chalk outline. And then you'll get dolled up, and you'll dress in white all to take your place in his chorus line. And then in you'll come with those marching drums in a saintly compromise. No more whiskey slurs, no more blonde-haired girls for your whole eternal life. And you'll do the dance that was choreographed at the very dawn of time. Singing "I told you son, the day would come you would die, you'd die you'd die you'd die you'd die"."

"Sometimes I worry that I've lost the plot My twitching muscles tease my flippant thoughts I never really dreamed of heaven much Until we put him in the ground."

"There is nothing as lucky, as easy, or free"

"You took off your clothes and left on the light, You stood there so brave, you used to be shy, Each feature improved, each movement refined, And eyes like a showroom."

"There is no Hell when you die so don't look so worried"

"so immagine what you want and hold onto that thought cause thats as close as it will ever come and believe you're were you're are keep acting out the part but at the end of the day the trees all get wheeled away and you'll be standing alone in a blank, blank space"

"so believe you're who you are and stay in character but at the end of the play the audience walks away and ill be shivering cold on a well lit stage"

"The drunk kids, the catholics They’re all about the same They’re waiting for something Hoping to be saved"

"And I'm sorry about the phone call and needing you Some decisions you don't make I guess it's just like breathing or not wanting to There are some things you can't fake"

"I'm sorry about the phone call; and waking you. I know that it is late, But thank you for talking, because I needed to. Some things just can't wait."

"So I want to get myself attached to something bolted down, So that these winds of circumstance won't keep blowing me around. From when I land to when I leave there is enough time to sleep and sing. I keep running around, when all I want is to lay motionless."

"Future markets, holy wars Been tried ten thousand times before If you think that god is keeping score, hooray!"

"And, you know, it's kind of like with people and the tarot cards. Just because you get the death card doesn't mean death or dying. It means transformation. It means changing things around and starting something new."

"Your class, your caste, your country, sect, your name or your tribe There's people always dying trying to keep them alive"

"Squatters made a mural of a Mexican girl With fifteen cans of spray paint and a chemical swirl She's standing in the ashes at the end of the world Four winds blowing through her hair"

"The Bible's blind, the Torah's deaf, the Qur'an's mute If you burned them all together you'd get close to the truth still They're pouring over Sanskrit under ivy league moons While shadows lengthen in the sun"

"I never thought of running My feet just led the way"

"I'm a repeat first time offender Who has rewritten history"

"I tried to pass for nothing But my dreams gave me away"

"Oh, I've made love, yeah, I've been fucked, so what? I'm a cartoon, you're a full moon, let's stay up"

"Death doesn't ask It don't owe you that Some things you lose You don't get back So just know what you have"

"Saw the wave of the future through the crack of the dam Drowned the soul singer in the session band Bless the soul singer in the session band"

"Now the sky is a torn up denim and the clouds are just splattered paint It's a room I'm renovating; it's a name I got to change"

"I traveled though the atmosphere As a wall of feedback climbed The pegs were gold, the band was old They played in half time"

"Hear the chimes, did you know that the wind when it blows It is older than Rome and our joy and our sorrow"

"Little soldier, little insect You know war it has no heart It will kill you in the sunshine Or happily in the the dark Where kindness is a card game Or a bent up cigarette In the trenches, in the hard rain With a bullet and a bet"

"In the South the Sun is shining Back in the East the lights went out Out in the West the cars are crashing Up in the North the ice gave out"

"They locked the devil in the basement, threw god up into the air Yeah, everything it must belong somewhere"

"It comes to me in fragments, even those still split in two Under the leaves of that old lime tree I stood examining the fruit Some were ripe and some were rotten, I felt nauseous with the truth"

"Do what you want, when you want, with whoever you wanted to"

"The sun is eclipsed as silence swoons"

"Is it midnight or high noon?"

"You’ve been a father to me. Your 1960’s speak. Gives me comatose joy like re-run TV. While the mountainside was shining. Wild colors of my destiny"

"And in the morning when the sun rise. Look in the water, see the blue sky. As if heaven has been laid there at our feet."

"I wanna be your happiness. I wanna be your common sense pain."

"If I loved you, well that's my fault"

"I'm growing old and I wanna go home. I'm growing old and I don't wanna know."

"The world hums on at its breakneck pace; People fly in their lifelong race. For them there's a future to find, But I think they're leaving me behind."

"Time has told me You're a rare, rare find, A troubled cure for a troubled mind."

"So I'll leave the ways that are making me be What I really don't want to be. Leave the ways that are making me love What I really don't want to love."

"Going to see the river man, Going to tell him all I can About the plan For lilac time. If he tells me all he knows 'Bout the way his river flows, And all night shows In summertime."

"Going to see the river man. Going to tell him all I can About the ban On feeling free.If he tells me all he knows About the way his river flows, I don't suppose It's meant for me."

"Have you seen the land living by the breeze? Can you understand the lights upon the trees? Tell me all that you may know Show me what you have to show Tell us all today if you know the way to blue..."

"When the day is done, Down to earth then sinks the sun, Along with everything that was lost and won, When the day is done."

"Fame is but a fruit tree: So very unsound. It can never flourish Till its stalk is in the ground. So men of fame Can never find a way Till time has flown Far from their dying day. Forgotten while you're here, Remembered for a while. A much updated ruin From a much outdated style."

"Life is but a memory, Happened long ago. Theatre full of sadness For a long forgotten show. Seems so easy Just to let it go on by Till you stop and wonder Why you never wondered why."

"Safe in the womb of an everlasting night, You find the darkness can give the brightest light. Safe in your place deep in the earth, That's when they'll know what you were really worth."

"And what will happen in the morning when the world it gets So crowded that you can't look out the window in the morning?"

"And at the chime of the city clock Put up your road block. Hang on to your crown. For a stone in a tin can Is wealth to the city man Who leaves his armour down."

"I could have been a sailor, could have been a cook, A real live lover, could have been a book, I could have been a signpost, could have been a clock, As simple as a kettle, steady as a rock. I could be here and now, I would be, I should be, but how? I could have been one of these things first."

"Do you curse where you come from? Do you swear in the night? Will it mean much to you If I treat you right? Do you like what you're doing? Would you do it some more? Or will you stop once and wonder What you're doing it for? Hey slow Jane, make sense. Slow, slow, Jane, cross the fence."

"Please give me a second grace. Please give me a second face. I've fallen far down The first time around. Now I just sit on the ground in your way."

"Please tell me your second name. Please play me your second game. I've fallen so far For the people you are. I just need your star for a day."

"I never felt magic crazy as this, Never saw moons, knew the meaning of the sea, I never held emotion in the palm of my hand, Or felt sweet breezes in the top of a tree, But now you're here. Brighten my northern sky."

"Would you love me for my money? Would you love me for my head? Would you love me through the winter? Would you love me 'til I'm dead? Oh, if you would and you could, Come blow your horn on high."

"Saw it written and I saw it say Pink moon is on its way And none of you stand so tall Pink moon's gonna get ye all."

"And I was strong, strong in the sun I thought I'd see when day is done. Now I'm weaker than the palest blue Oh, so weak in the need for you."

"Don't be shy you learn to fly. And see the sun when day is done. If only you see Just what you are beneath a star That came to stay one rainy day In autumn for free. Yes, be what you'll be."

"And now we rise And we are everywhere."

"Since Nick Drake's death, his eerie, jazz-tinged folk music has had an ever-growing cult following."

"Even if you’d never heard of Nick Drake, his music would tell you everything you needed to know. The tragic singer-songwriter was in possession of a singular vision and dedication to his art that produced some of the most affecting acoustic music ever recorded. Drake’s melancholy moods and labyrinthine tunings twisted longstanding English folk traditions into mesmerising new shapes. Never a note out of place, and never a song that didn’t need to be sung."

"Mercenaries of the shrine, who are you to speak for God? With haughty eyes and lying tongues and hands that shed innocent blood. Who delivered you the power to interpret Calvary? You gamble away our freedom to gain your own authority."

"I went to see a doctor of philosophy With a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to his knees. He never did marry or see a B-grade movie. He graded my performance, he said he could see through me. I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind, got my paper And I was free."

"Every five years or so I look back on my life and I have a good laugh."

"I offer thanks to those before me. That's all I've got to say. 'Cause maybe you squandered big bucks in your lifetime Now I have to pay."

"The Mississippi's mighty But it starts in Minnesota At a place that you could walk across with five steps down."

"Galileo's head was on the block... The crime was looking up for truth... And then you had to bring up reincarnation... How long 'til my soul gets it right... Can any human being ever reach that kind of light... I call on the resting soul of Galileo... King of night vision, king of insight... I'm not making a joke, you know me...I take everything so seriously... If we wait for the time 'til all souls get it right... Then at least I know there'll be no nuclear annihilation... Can any human being ever reach the highest light... Except for Galileo — God rest his soul... Except for the resting soul of Galileo..."

"I squeeze the sky out but there’s not a star appears"

"They stole my land They won't steal my soul"

"They said "We've been looking for illegal immigrants, Can we check your car?" I said "You know it's funny, I think we were on the same boat back in 1694.""

"We're sculpted from youth, the chipping away makes me weary"

"Come on, the summer's coming. Rain's been heavy and the river's running. Loose the cuff It's been tough, But it's fast improving. We got sticks to hollow piles. We got stories- lead to smiles We gotta twirl With this world, I can feel it moving."

"I don't know what to believe I just show up and breathe Anymore"

"The only thing that's been a worse flop than the organization of nonviolence has been the organization of violence."

"You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now."

"I went to jail for 11 days for disturbing the peace; I was trying to disturb the war."

"Some Vietnam veterans have told me what they did over there when they were animals. They have been giving testimony about it to the public, to juries, to judges. Some of the juries cry, and so do some of the judges. One Ex-Marine has a face like a Puerto Rican angel and a body count of 390. That means he and his unit killed 390 people in a variety of hideous ways, and the angel got to go count the dead bodies for the record. And now he and a lot of his buddies are trying to make up for what we made them do. We paid the taxes that bought the war that hired the men and dropped the fire that burned the huts and killed the people who then were the bodies that Scott counted. It's a rotten thing to brainwash someone into doing the dirty part of killing while we stay at home. It's a rotten thing to pretend the war is coming to an end when it's only taken to the air. And in 1972 if you don't fight against a rotten thing you become a part of it. What I'm asking you to do is take some risks. Stop paying war taxes, refuse the armed forces, organize against the air war, support the strikes and boycotts of farmers, workers and poor people, analyze the flag salute, give up the nation state, share your money, refuse to hate, be willing to work … in short, sisters and brothers, arm up with love and come from the shadows."

"If we survive this century it will only be because you and I refuse to become Nazis."

"Bangladesh, Bangladesh When the sun sinks in the west Die a million people of the Bangladesh"

"The only thing you can do about memory is just be very humble about it because it may not have much to do with reality."

"(about Woodstock) I think it was fantastic. I think the only way its been overdone was thinking it changed the world, politically and as far as the war went. It was only a part of things. It wasn’t it."

"I’ve never taken much time to do nothing, which I think is pretty important, especially at my age, and sort of contemplating what is coming. In this culture, we spend most of our time trying to avoid it. I would like to have more of a Buddhist approach."

"We are left in the dust right now and I don’t know if disappointed is the word. I’d say “overwhelmed” because nobody back in the 1960s or 1970s could have imagined anything this fuckin’ awful."

"I just sing when I feel like singing, feels sort of like exploding."

"(If you could speak to your younger self, what would you tell her?) Take it easy. Take a break. Relax a little."

"I tend more towards Buddhist and Native American thought. For me, the spirits are quite real."

"Blessed are the persecuted And blessed are the pure in heart Blessed are the merciful And blessed are the ones who mourn"

"Against us is the law With its immensity of strength and power Against us is the law! Police know how to make a man A guilty or an innocent Against us is the power of police! The shameless lies that men have told Will ever more be paid in gold Against us is the power of the gold! Against us is racial hatred And the simple fact that we are poorMy father dear, I am a prisoner Don't be ashamed to tell my crime The crime of love and brotherhood And only silence is shame"

"Rebellion, revolution don't need dollars They need this instead Imagination, suffering, light and love And care for every human being You never steal, you never kill You are a part of hope and life The revolution goes from man to man And heart to heart And I sense when I look at the stars That we are children of life Death is small"

"Yes, your father and Bartolo They have fallen And yesterday they fought and fell But in the quest for joy and freedom And in the struggle of this life you'll find That there is love and sometimes more Yes, in the struggle you will find That you can love and be loved alsoForgive me all who are my friends I am with you I beg of you, do not cry"

"Here's to you, Nicola and Bart Rest forever here in our hearts The last and final moment is yours That agony is your triumph"

"We both know what memories can bring They bring diamonds and rust"

"Well you burst on the scene Already a legend The unwashed phenomenon The original vagabond You strayed into my arms And there you stayed Temporarily lost at sea The Madonna was yours for free Yes the girl on the half-shell Would keep you unharmed"

"Now you're telling me You're not nostalgic Then give me another word for it You who are so good with words And at keeping things vague Because I need some of that vagueness now It's all come back too clearly Yes I loved you dearly And if you're offering me diamonds and rust I've already paid"

"Miracles bowl me over And often will they do so Now I think I was asleep till I heard The voice of the great CarusoBring infinity home Let me embrace it one more time Make it the lilies of the field Or Caruso in his prime"

"With the precision of a hummingbird's heart Was the lord of the monarch butterflies One-time ruler of the world of art"

"True he was a vocal miracle But that's only secondary It's the soul of the monarch butterfly That I find a little bit scary"

"Perhaps he's just a vehicle To bear us to the hills of Truth That's Truth spelled with a great big T And peddled in the mystic's booth There are oh so many miracles That the western sky exposes Why go looking for lilacs When you're lying in a bed of roses?"

"We're the children of the 80's, haven't we grown We're tender as a lotus and we're tougher than stone And the age of our innocence is somewhere in the garden"

"Some of us may offer a surprise Recently have you looked in our eyes Maybe we're your conscience in disguise"

"We are the warriors of the sun The golden boys and the golden girls For a better world"

"I was born gifted. I can speak of my gifts with little or no modesty, but with tremendous gratitude, precisely because they are gifts, and not things which I created, or actions about which I might be proud. My greatest gift, given to me by forces which confound genetics, environment, race, or ambition, is a singing voice. My second greatest gift, without which I would be an entirely different person with an entirely different story to tell, is a desire to share that voice, and the bounties it has heaped upon me, with others. From that combination of gifts has developed an immeasurable wealth-a wealth of adventures, of friendships, and of plain joys. Over a period of nearly three decades I have sung from hundreds of concert stages, all over the world: Eastern and Western Europe, Japan, Australia, Northern Africa, South, Central, and North America, Canada, the Middle East, the Far East. I sang in the bomb shelters of Hanoi during the Vietnam War; in the Laotian refugee camps in Thailand; in the makeshift settlements of the boat people in Malaysia. I have had the privilege of meeting some extraordinary citizens of the world, both renowned and unsung: Andrei Sakharov and Elena Bonner; The Mothers of the Disappeared in Argentina, Mairead Corrigan in Belfast, Bertrand Russell, Cezar Chavez, Orlando Letelier; Bishop Tutu, Lech Walesa; Presidents Corazon Aquino, François Mitterrand, Jimmy Carter, and Giscard d'Estaing; the King of Sweden. Through Amnesty International I have met political prisoners who have endured repression and tortures under both right- and left-wing governments and who have astounded me with their humor, good cheer, and courage."

"Martin Luther King, Jr., more than any other public figure helped to solidify my ideas and inspired me to act upon them."

"My personal life has also been complicated-and public-though I am beginning to find more of a sense of peace and self-acceptance than I ever thought possible. Once I wanted to be married and have heaps of kids scrambling around me, licking cake mix off eggbeaters and riding Saint Bernards through the kitchen while I cooked stew over an open fire. Alas, those images bore no relation to my areas of competence, and since my marriage to David Harris dissolved in January of 1974 I have lived mainly alone, with occasional romantic interludes, the best of which are magical and splendidly impractical."

"My art, work, family and friends, my son Gabe, and a curious relationship with God remain the sustaining forces in my life."

"Through all these changes my social and political views have remained astoundingly steadfast. I have been true to the principles of nonviolence, developing a stronger and stronger aversion to the ideologies of both the far right and the far left and a deeper sense of and sorrow over the suffering they continue to produce all over the world."

"I am recording them for myself, to take a hard look back before facing forward in these most bizarre of times."

"I had an affair with a girl when I was twenty-two. It was wonderful. It happened, I assume, after an overdose of unhappiness at the end of an affair with a man, when I had a need for softness and understanding. I assume that the homosexuality within me, which people love to say is in all of us, made itself felt at that time, and saved me from becoming cold and bitter toward everyone. I slowly mended, and since the affair with Kimmie have not had another affair with a woman nor the conscious desire to."

"It seemed a miracle that I would meet, and have the blessing to know and work with, one of the two saints of the phenomenon which had won my heart when I was barely sixteen years old: the concept of radical nonviolence, introduced to the world as a revolutionary political tool by Mahatma Gandhi in India, and reintroduced now by Martin Luther King, Jr., in the United States of America."

"The first time I was in the South was in 1961. I was on a regular concert tour, and was barely aware of the civil rights movement, probably because I hadn't yet made the transition from Michael to the real world. I did discover, however, that no blacks were at any of my concerts, and would not have been allowed in if they had come. The following summer I wrote into the contract that I wouldn't sing unless blacks were admitted into the hall."

"There was a revolution going on all around us, and if a white businessman and his family wanted to hear me sing "Fair and Tender Maidens," they had to come and sit in this boiling hot room and integrate an audience."

"Of the many photographs I have of myself and famous people, there is one which I had framed and have never forgotten. It is of King and me at the head of that line of schoolchildren in Grenada, Mississippi. Ira is in back of me, and Andy, and then a long string of kids, all black."

"I have never been involved in the campaign of any major political candidate, preferring to work entirely outside of the party structure. Occasionally I have slipped a check and a note of encouragement to some brave congressperson who has defied everybody and risked his or her return to office because of principles."

"Seeing that nothing could come of our presence in Vietnam except disaster, I had a quiet revelation and decided to refuse to pay my military taxes."

"What I have to say is this: I do not believe in war. I do not believe in the weapons of war...I am not going yo volunteer 60% of my year's income tax that goes to armaments... Maybe the line should have been drawn when the bow and arrow were invented, maybe the gun, the cannon, maybe. Because now it is all wrong, all impractical, and all stupid. So all I can do is draw my own line now. I am no longer supporting my portion of the arms race . . ."

"one day I told Ira that I did not want to remain an ignoramus forever and asked if he would consider tutoring me more formally. Ira claims that I suggested the next idea, and I think that he did, but the discussion evolved into a proposition that we form a school called the Institute for the Study of Nonviolence."

"There was a great deal of profound joy in my life, but there was practically no fun. I didn't know much about having fun. I felt too guilty, as though I wasn't supposed to start having fun until everyone in the world was fed and clothed."

"I quit reading what the papers said about me because either they portrayed me as more self-sacrificing than I was, or they didn't like me and said, in a variety of ways, that I was a fake."

"Al Capp, creator of the "L'il Abner" comic strip, launched the most imaginative of the negative attacks, introducing a character into his strip called Joanie Phoanie...I asked for a retraction but did not get one."

"I learned to love the Japanese bow, and I use it to this day in concert to thank people for having come to hear me."

"Although I later fell in love with France, and now consider it my second home, the first country to win my young heart and seduce me with its language and beauty and fashion and flowers and intellect and men was Italy."

""Never close the door, you may need this person someday," is one of her favorite expressions. In 1983, at Newsweek's fiftieth anniversary celebration, I was seated across from Mary McCarthy at the head table. The big feature of the evening was a videotaped speech by Henry Kissinger. When he appeared on the big screen I stuffed my stockinged feet into their high heels and left the table, and stood in the lobby until it was finished. My moderation and diplomacy end where Henry's nose begins."

"I am thinking that Ronald Reagan is the same age as my father. They have some things in common. They are both young in spirit, buoyant, well-preserved, and optimistic. Beyond that, I can find only outstanding differences. The President is either ignorant of, or unconcerned by the ills of the world about which my father and I have been speaking. He is particularly immune to any part America may have in engendering these ills, as he dislikes the inconvenience of thinking beyond his own definitions of good-guys/bad-guys, and also doesn't like to be depressed. His pleasant, bumbling demeanor is preferable to the murderous efficiency of Kissinger and Kirkpatrick, but on the other hand, he is involved in the same dark and bloody deeds, all done under the same vast, all-encompassing and convenient banner of anticommunism. He feels that God is on his side, and that he really can do no wrong. What piques me is how this man and his followers can write off someone like my father. Because of my father's protestations about the raping of the Amazon forests, the pollution of our rivers, the misuse and depletion of natural energy, and the poisoning our children's air, people like my father are explained away with the flick of a wrist as a doomsayer, a depressive, a pessimistic liberal."

"there really is no normal, and the things that I do change: study Aikido, take photos, take a dance course, get back cooking, illustrate a songbook, take on a human rights project-write a book. But there are some friends who have remained constant"

"All of us alive are survivors, but how many of us transcend survival? (p. 322)"

"Women’s liberation was not on our radar, although I do remember noting to myself that women were basically running the office of the Boston draft resistance group behind the scenes. I was deeply involved because I had a draft resister boyfriend. That’s how most of us were involved (“Girls say yes to boys who say no,” as Joan Baez said"

"Oh, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Joan Baez. She was the queen of folk music then and now. She took a liking to my songs and brought me with her to play concerts, where she had crowds of thousands of people enthralled with her beauty and voice. People would say, "What are you doing with that ragtag scrubby little waif?" And she'd tell everybody in no uncertain terms, "Now you better be quiet and listen to the songs." We even played a few of them together. Joan Baez is as tough-minded as they come. Love. And she's a free, independent spirit. Nobody can tell her what to do if she doesn't want to do it. I learned a lot of things from her. A woman with devastating honesty. And for her kind of love and devotion, I could never pay that back."

"She was something else, almost too much to take. Her voice was like that of a siren from off some Greek island. Just the sound of it could put you into a spell. She was an enchantress. You'd have to get yourself strapped to the mast like Odysseus and plug up your ears so you wouldn't hear her. She'd make you forget who you were."

"There was a new popular music of protest. Pete Seeger had been singing protest songs since the forties, but now he came into his own, his audiences much larger. Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, singing not only protest songs, but songs reflecting the new abandon, the new culture, became popular idols..."

"And it's the same when there's a war on: it's the men who go to fight Women and children are civilians, when they're killed it's not right Men kill men in uniform, its the way war goes When they run they're cowards, when they stay they are heroes."

"Music’s for grooving man, and music’s not for puttin’ yourself through bad changes, y’know? I mean, you don’t have to go take anybody’s shit, man, just to like music, y’know what I mean? You don’t. So... so if you’re getting’ more shit than you deserve, you know what to do about it man. Y’know, it’s just music. Music’s... music's s’posed to be different than that."

"To sing blues, you've got to be able to, ... be willing to, feel things."

"Fourteen heart attacks and he had to die in my week. In MY week."

"Tomorrow never happens. It's all the same fucking day, man."

"Time keeps movin' on, Friends they turn away. I keep movin' on But I never found out why I keep pushing so hard the dream, I keep tryin to make it right Through another lonely day, whoaa."

"Dawn has come at last, Twenty-five years, honey just in one night, oh yeah. Well, Im twenty-five years older now So I know we can't be right And Im no better, baby, And I cant help you no more Than I did when just a girl."

"Aww, but it don't make no difference, baby, no, no, And I know that I could always try. It don't make no difference, baby, yeah, I better hold it now, I better need it, yeah, Im gonna use it till the day I die, whoa."

"Don't expect any answers, dear, For I know that they don't come with age, no, no. Well, ain't never gonna love you any better, babe. And I'm never gonna love you right, So you'd better take it now, and right now."

"Oh! But it don't make no difference, babe, hey, And I know that I could always try. Theres a fire inside everyone of us, You'd better need it now, I got to hold it, yeah, I better use it till the day I die."

"Honey, I love to go to parties, And I like to have a good time, But if it gets too pale after a while Honey and I start looking to find One good man."

"One good man, Oh ain’t much, honey ain’t much, It’s only everything..."

"An’ I don’t want much outa life, I never wanted a mansion in the south. I just-a want to find someone sincere Who’d treat me like he talks, One good man."

"You say that it's over baby, Lord, You say that it's over now, But still you hang around me, come on, Won't you move over."

"You know that I need a man, honey Lord, You know that I need a man, But when I ask you to you just tell me That maybe you can."

"Please don'tcha do it to me babe, no! Please don'tcha do it to me baby, Either take this love I offer Or honey let me be."

"Oh yeah, make up your mind, honey, You're playing with me, hey hey hey, Make up your mind, darling, You're playing with me, come on now! Now either be my loving man, I said-a let me honey, let me be, yeah!"

"Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz? My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends"

"Well, I’m gonna show you, baby, that a woman can be tough. I want you to come on, come on, come on, come on and take it, Take another little piece of my heart now, baby!"

"You know you got it if it makes you feel good."

"Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose, Nothing don’t mean nothing honey if it ain’t free... And feeling good was easy, lord, when he sang the blues. You know feeling good was good enough for me, Good enough for me and my Bobby McGee."

"Work me Lord, work me Lord. Please don't you leave me, I feel so useless down here With no one to love Though I've looked everywhere And I can't find me anybody to love, To feel my care."

"I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel You were talking so brave and so sweet Giving me head on an unmade bed While the limousines wait in the street. And those were the reasons and that was New York. I was running for the money and the flesh. I was running for the money and the flesh That was called love, for the workers in song And it still is for those of us left."

"Ah, but you got away, didn't you baby You just threw it all to the ground You got away, they can’t pay you now For making your sweet little sound, can they? Making your sweet little sound on the jukebox Making your sweet little sound on the jukebox Making your sweet little sound on the radio Making your sweet little sound."

"Ah but you got away, didn't you babe You just turned your back on the crowd You got away, I never once heard you say I need you, I don't need you I need you, I don't need you And all of that jiving around."

"I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel You were famous, your heart was a legend You told me again you preferred handsome men But for me you'd make an exception. And clenching your fist for the ones like us Who are oppressed by the figures of beauty You fixed yourself, you said, "Well never mind, We are ugly but we have the music.""

"Wow, that's heavy."

"Singer Janis Joplin, who in 1968 was screeching out her voice with a California group called , said that she was not a hippie, because hippies believed in trying to make the world better. Instead she said she was a : "Beatniks believe things aren't going to get better and say, 'The hell with it,' stay stoned, and have a good time.""

"Janis knew more than I did about "how it was", but she lacked enough armor for the inevitable hassles. She was open and spontaneous enough to get her heart trampled with a regularity that took me thirty years to experience or understand. On the various occasions when we were together, she seemed to be holding in something she thought I might not want to hear, like older people do when they hear kids they love saying with absolute youthful confidence, "Oh, that'll never happen to me." Sometimes you know you can't tell them how it is, they have to find out for themselves. Janis felt like an old soul, a wisecracking grandmother whom everybody loved to visit. When I was with her, I often felt like a part of her distant family, a young upstart relative who was still too full of her own sophistry to hear wisdom. Did we compliment each other? Yes, but not often enough."

"A banker's daughter or a runaway girl, A little lady or a honky-tonk Pearl Has to find someplace in this world Where she feels at home. A banker's daughter is so hard to deceive A little lady is so hard to please Honky-tonk Pearl wears her heart on her sleeve, And her heart will not grow cold."

"Here's a wish for a runaway girl; Here's a prayer for honky-tonk Pearl — Hope she finds someplace outta this world Where she feels at home."

""Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose" is as good an epitaph for the counterculture as any; we'll never know how-or if-Janis meant to go on from there. Janis Joplin's death, like that of a fighter in the ring, was not exactly an accident. Yet it's too easy to label it either suicide or murder, though it involved elements of both. Call it rather an inherent risk of the game she was playing, a game whose often frivolous rules both hid and revealed a deadly serious struggle. The form that struggle took was incomplete, shortsighted, egotistical, self-destructive. But survivors who give in to the temptation to feel superior to all that are in the end no better than those who romanticize it. Janis was not so much a victim as a casualty. The difference matters."

"You know why we're stuck with the myth that only black people have soul? Because white people don't let themselves feel things."

"Well, dust off your thinking caps Solar powered plastic plants Pretty pictures of things we ate We are only what we hate But in the long run we have found Silent films are full of sound Inaudibly free Slow down everyone You're moving too fast Frames can't catch you when You're moving like that"

"Inaudible melodies Serve narrational strategies Unobtrusive tones Help to notice nothing but the zone Of visual relevancy Frame-lines tell me what to see Chopping like an axe Or maybe Eisenstein should just relax"

"Well, Plato's cave is full of freaks Demanding refunds for the things they've seen I wish they could believe In all the things that never made the screen"

"Well I know some people's they got a little less than nothing But still find some to spare And other people got more than they could use But they don't share And some people got problems man They got awful complications Other people got perfect situations With no provocation"

"Here comes another one, just like the other one Looking at himself but wishing he was someone else Because the posters on the wall they don't look like him And so he ties it up he tucks it in, he pulls it back and gives a grin Laughing at himself because he knows he ain't loved at all He knows he ain't loved at all"

"You're breaking your mind By killing the time that kills you But you can't blame the time When its only in your mind"

"It seems to me that maybe, It pretty much always means no So don't tell me you might just let it go And often times we're lazy It seems to stand in my way Cause no one no not no one Likes to be let down"

"I know she loves the sunrise No longer sees it with her sleeping eyes And I know that when she said she's gonna try Well it might not work because of other ties and I know she usually has some other ties And I wouldn't want to break 'em, nah, I wouldn't want to break 'em Maybe she'll help me to untie this but Until then well, I'm gonna have to lie too"

"His dreams are like commercials But her dreams are picture perfect and Our dreams are so related though they're often underestimated"

"Well I was eating lunch at the D. L. G. When this little girl came and she sat next to me I never seen nobody move the way she did Well she did and she does and she'll do it again. When you move like a jellyfish Rhythm don't mean nothing You go with the flow You don't stop Move like a jellyfish Rhythm is nothing You go with the flow You don't stop"

"She's the one that stumbles when she talks about The seven foreign films that she's checked out Such a fortunate fool She's just too good to be true She's such a fortunate fool"

"A billion people died on the news tonight But not so many cried at the terrible sight Well mama said It's just make believe You can't believe everything you see So baby close your eyes to the lullabies On the news tonight"

"Why don't the newscasters cry when they read about people who die? At least they could be decent enough to put just a tear in their eyes."

"We used to laugh a lot But only because we thought That everything good always would remain Nothing's gonna change there's no need to complain."

"Look who's laughing now that you've wasted How many years and you've barely even tasted Anything remotely close to Everything you've boasted about Look who's crying now."

"Losing hope is easy When your only friend is gone And every time you look around Well, it all, it all just seems to change But hanging on is easy When you've got a friend to call When nothings making sense at all You're not the only one that's afraid of change"

"Look at all those fancy clothes but these could keep us warm just like those and what about your soul, is it cold is it straight from the mold and ready to be sold and cars and phones and diamond rings, bling bling those are only removeable things and what about your mind, does it shine oh are there things that concern you more than your time"

"And I don't pretend to know what you know no no now please don't pretend to know what's on my mind if we already knew everything that everybody knows we would have nothing to learn tonight and we would have nothing to show tonight oh but everybody thinks that everybody knows about everybody else nobody knows anything about themselves cause they're all worried about everybody else."

"You can't blame me sure the killer was my son but I didn't teach him to pull the trigger of the gun It's the killing on this tv screen you can't blame me it's those images he's seen. Well you can't blame me says the media man Well I wasn't the one who came up with the plan And I just point my camera at what the people want to see Man it's a two way mirror and you can't blame me."

"It was you it was me it was every man We've all got the blood on our hands We only receive what we demand and if we want hell then hells what we'll have."

"Its always better when we're together Somewhere in between together Its always better when we're together Yeah, its always better when we're together."

"Love is the answer at least for most of the questions in my heart Like: why are we here? And where do we go? And how come it's so hard? It's not always easy and sometimes life can be deceiving I'll tell you one thing its always better when we're together."

"Never knowing Shocking but we're nothing We're just moments We're Clever but we're clueless We're just human Amusing but confusing But the truth is All we got is questions We'll Never Know."

"The telephone is singing Ringing it's too early Don't pick it up We don't need to we got everything We need right here And everything we need is enough Just so easy When the whole world fits inside of your arms Don't really need to pay attention to the alarm."

"Where'd all the good people go? I've been changin' channels I don't see them on the TV shows Where'd all the good people go? We got heaps and heaps of what we sow."

"They got this and that with a rattle a tat. Testing, one, two, man whatcha gonna do? Bad news misused, got too much to lose. Give me some truth now, whose side are we on? Whatever you say. Turn on the boob tube, I’m in the mood to obey. So lead me astray."

"And know that if I knew all of the answers I would Not hold them from you. You'd Know all the things that I'd know We told each other, there is no other way."

"Must I always be waiting, waiting on you? Must I always be playing, playing the fool?"

"Well if I was in your position I'd put down all my ammunition I'd wondered why'd it take me so long. But Lord knows that I'm not you And if I was I wouldn't be so cruel Cause waiting on love ain't so easy to do."

"Well I guess you could say That he don't even know where to begin Cause he looked both ways but he was so afraid Diggin' deeper through the ditch With every chance he missed And the mess he made Cause hate is such a strong word And every brick he laid A mistake they say That his walls are getting taller His world is getting smaller."

"Who’s to say what’s impossible? Well they forgot this world keeps spinning. And with each new day, I can feel a change in everything. And as the surface breaks, reflections fade. But in some ways they remain the same. And as my mind begins to spread it’s wings There’s no stopping curiosity."

"I want to turn the whole thing upside down. I’ll find the things they say just can’t be found. I’ll share this love I find with everyone. We’ll sing and dance to mother nature’s songs. I don’t want this feeling to go away."

"With everything ahead of us We left everything behind. But nothing that we needed; At least not at this time. And now the feeling that I’m feeling, Well it’s feeling like my life is finally mine. With nothing to go back to we just continue to drive."

"Well I’m just people watching The other people watching me. And we’re all people watching The other people watching we."

"And the water below gives a gift to the sky And the clouds give back every time they cry And make the grass grow green beneath my toes."

"When you’re so lonely lying in bed, Night’s closed it’s eyes but you can’t rest your head. Everyone’s sleeping all through the house, You wish you could dream but forgot to somehow. Sing this lullaby to yourself."

"I think each person knows what's good for them. I don't think you need to be drastic. But it's finding where's passion in your life. We can't live without dreams."

"I kept getting typified as this Pollyanna neohippie. I think it's because I have a different definition of optimism. I've noticed a belief that somehow optimism lacks intelligence and that optimism stems from a lack of experience and naiveté. I don't believe that. I believe optimism is a choice. Cynicism isn't smarter, it's just safer."

"Pieces of You is not a good record. It's an embarrassing record, ultimately. It's like having your dirty laundry aired out. I didn't think people would hear it. But it made me realize that all people want is to be touched. They don't care if it's Celine Dion or Meat Loaf or me."

"I love supporting women and sports. It’s funny, ya know, I don’t think I started off young as a feminist. I read a lot of books in Alaska, I was pretty isolated where I grew up, and I think that I never thought I was any different than a man; I was raised in a place where pioneer women were very strong still. They’d shoe horses and build their own homes and were very self-sufficient. It wasn’t really until I’ve gotten older that I really became a fan of women. And a fan of what women are capable of balancing and achieving, by just being them. I’m proud to support it in any and every avenue."

"People living their lives for you on TV They say they're better than you, and you agree"

"Another doctor's bill, a lawyer's bill, another cute, cheap thrill You know you love him if you put him in your will, but Who will save your souls?"

"Who will save your souls? After all those lies that you told, boy Now, who will save your souls? If you won't save your own?"

"Another day, another dollar, another war, another tower Went up where the homeless had their homes So we pray to as many different gods as there are flowers But we call religion our friend We're so worried about savin' our souls Afraid that God will take His toll that we forget to begin, but Who will save your souls? When it comes to the beggars now Who will save your souls? After those lies that you told, boy And who will save your souls? If you won't save your own?"

"There are addictions to feed and there are mouths to pay So you bargain with the Devil but you're okay for today Say that you love them take their money and run And say, "It's been swell, sweetheart But it was just one of those things""

"I'd sit on logs like pulpits listen to the sermon of sparrows and find god in Simplicity, there amongst the dandelion and thorn"

"the greatest Grace we can aspire to is the strength to see the wounded walk with the forgotten and pull ourselves from the screaming blood of our losses to fight on undaunted all the more"

"I'm here to change the world, and if I am not, I am probably wasting my time."

"No root, no fruit."

"As I have said so often before, the long memory is the most radical idea in America….""

"We, the American People, are enormously wealthy. You know that? Who owns all of those trees in the national forests? (This is not a rhetorical question.) We do! Who owns all of that off-shore oil you read about in the newspaper, huh? We do! Who owns all of those minerals under the federal lands? We do! It’s public property, you know. But we elect people to go to Washington—who are those assholes?—what have we gotten ourselves into now?—they go to Washington, they lease off what we own, public property, to private companies to sell us back our own stuff for the sake of a greasy buck. That’s dumb."

"You are about to be told one more time that you are America's most valuable natural resource. Have you seen what they do to valuable natural resources?! Have you seen a strip mine? Have you seen a clear cut in the forest? Have you seen a polluted river? Don't ever let them call you a valuable natural resource! They're going to strip mine your soul. They're going to clear cut your best thoughts for the sake of profit unless you learn to resist, because the profit system follows the path of least resistance and following the path of least resistance is what makes the river crooked!"

"But they lived those extraordinary lives that can never be lived again. And in the living of them, they gave me a history that is more profound, more beautiful, more powerful, more passionate, and ultimately more useful, than the best damn history book I ever read."

"I coulda got mad. But then I had to stop and think, well, what did he get in school? What did he get in his work experience? What did he get even from his own union, that gave him some tools to understand what he was seeing on that television?"

"Talking to a conservative is like talking to your refrigerator... You know, the light goes on, the light goes off; it's not going to do anything that isn't built into it... And I'm not going to talk to a conservative anymore than I talk to my damn refrigerator."

"I coulda got mad. But then I had to stop and think, well, what did he get in school? What did he get in his work experience? What did he get even from his own union, that gave him some tools to understand what he was seeing?"

"The earth is not dying, it is being killed, and those who are killing it have names and addresses."

"Our whole culture in this country now is so conformist. I don't even meet that many freaks any more."

"I think it's interesting being American, the expectations for an American guy, and the image that has to be projected. 'Oh, I can't wear pink,' that kind of stuff. There's none of that in Europe."

"We had one night where I wanted a bunch of percussion noises at the end of song. We went into this room with three cases of percussion. Everybody just grabbed different shakers and things and was just throwing them around. A few of the guys in the band got a little carried away and I just remember looking up and somebody was running into a wall. Another guy was leaping head first about three of four feet in the air. But other than that it was pretty sedated."

"I think I gave indications early on that mine wasn't just going to be a commercial, er, career. If that were the case, then the first record would have been 10 versions of 'Loser.' I always thought it would be interesting if there was no such thing as gold and platinum records, or record deals, and people were just making music. What would the music sound like?"

"I don't need to cry so much. I think whatever you let loose with crying, I let loose with singing. I tend to be the one who wants... I'm trying to say this without sounding too touchy-feely. I'm usually the one who's better at comforting the person who's crying, you know?"

"I'm not good at the protocols of dating. [laughs] I'm not really experienced in that. My girlfriend is my second or third girlfriend. I think in the past none of us really knew when we were "dating"-we were just hanging out and doing things. I didn't go to high school so I missed the prom."

"I never really had them. I always get the eccentric kids who dress funny and sit and write poetry for three months in their bedrooms... ...I was going to see tons of shows when I was a teenager, so if I was a girl, would that have made me a groupie? If I wanted to shake Thurston Moore's hand or something?"

"I have a fear of heights, so falling off something very tall. But I've conquered a good amount of my fears. I guess most people would have the fear of getting up in front of a large audience of people and making a fool of themselves. I've gotten over that."

"My mother was mistrustful of the education system, so it was all right with her if we didn't go to school. She was taking us to Truffaut films, and I was busy getting through a Knut Hamsun book or something, so she felt satisfied we weren't wasting our lives watching The Brady Bunch. Because of where we lived, I would've had to go to Belmont High, so the year I was supposed to start high school I tried to get into the High School for the Performing Arts, which had just opened. I sent them a tape of me playing blues guitar and some short stories I'd written, but they didn't want me."

"About a year ago, I started seeing these ads in the paper for 'Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation'. First it was a little ad. The next week, it was twice as big. And after a month, it was a full page-it just took over. Something in that triggered a bunch of associations and projections. Like, what kind of activities do you have to engage in to get to the point where you need to bring a laser into the equation?"

"You'd have to be a total idiot to say, 'I'm the slacker-generation guy. This is my generation.' I'd be laughed out of the room in an instant. I didn't even connect ['Loser'] at all to that kind of message until they were playing it on the radio and I heard it, and they said "This is the slacker anthem," and I thought, 'Oh shit, that sucks.' It's not some anguished transcendental 'cry of a generation.' It's just sitting in someone's living room eating pizza and Doritos."

"I think it would be great to have a mall that looked like stores but you weren't selling things. You were just going to hang out or do things. Or if somebody bought a mall and turned it into a house that people could kind of come to and you could build rooms, and it's all orange furniture. Or you could just build environments. Reclaim a mall just in the name of aesthetics or to make something beautiful or something that has no real purpose. Wouldn't that be amazing?"

"I try not to obsess about recording. I'm definitely the one who will leave all the mistakes-to have that balance between what's undone and done. I try to move on to the next thing. I have friends who have been working on the same song for five, six years. They just won't let the songs go."

"There are so many elements flying in so many different directions that you really have to go with what feels like instinctively. The nature of the universe is fairly whimsical and nonsensical. In the most somber, beatific peacefulness there's complete chaos and maniacal laughter. I think music that doesn't reflect that is boring."

"Oh, the tragedy and the anguish. You just gotta Rage Against the Appliance, man. The toast is burning and you just gotta rip it out and free it before it fills the house with smoke. Rage Against the Toaster."

"We played a gig in the Swiss Alps at a snowboarding convention. Red Bull-this energy sports-fuel drink-sponsored the whole thing. It has some ingredient believed to be bull-testicle extract. We went way off our tour route, had to take two planes and missed a night's sleep. We got up there and there's no snow-it's all mud. You couldn't walk. You'd step and then be up to your knee in mud. So you had several thousand disgruntled snowboarders tanked up to the max on bull-testicle extract. Of course, for some reason, these strapping brutes were made to wait out in the mid and the rain before coming into the tent for the show. When we get up to play, I see this forty-foot gap between us and the audience-they still managed to nail us with empty cans of Red Bull. After a few songs, I wasn't really playing my guitar, I was using it to bay cans back into the crowd of disgruntled sports enthusiasts. It felt like we were A Flock of Seagulls opening for Napalm Death."

"I remember being really shocked after Mellow Gold came out and going on tour, and all these kids were there. It totally disturbed me. Who are all these young people? I'd been playing Mississippi John Hurt covers in coffee shops to a bunch of thirty-, forty-, fifty-year olds. Then all of a sudden there were these teenagers."

"I recently saw The Last American Virgin, one of those early-'80s coming-of-age movies. And the actors, they look like kids you grew up with! Today's teen movies, I didn't know anybody who looked like that. The standards now are so unbelievably high."

"One of the reasons I'm a musician is because music isn't divisive. It's a medium where you don't have to abide by divisions. The whole idea is anarchy and the best music just doesn't give a fuck. And too much music is just so conservative these days. So I really don't want to be careful about anything. And there's so much music that's trying to be offensive these days, trying to be aggressive and abrasive. But it's just cheap and manipulative. So if I can offend someone in a good way and challenge their belief system, then I think that's positive. I mean, I wonder what their problem with it is? I don't have a problem. Wanda Coleman doesn't have a problem with me singing like that."

"But people like to say, Oh, it's in the blood. But art comes from nowhere. It comes from a vague, scary place. It's scary because you don't know when it's coming or if it will ever come again. It's this Other."

"There were definitely lyrics and they were very meaningful. I think."

"Shopping bugs me, for metaphorical reasons I'm sure, because in life as in shopping, you go in looking for one thing. There's one thing you really need, right? But then there's “Blue Light Specials”, you know, and you just get confused, you get distracted, that's all. It's human. You wind up with this armload of shiny junk. You know, and then you're checking out—I mean, checking out—and suddenly you remember, “Huh… there was that one thing I came in for. Oh no, I forgot—I just have this junk—oh no!” “Too late, you're in the express line!”"

"I have a lot of interest in interior rhyming; not just rhyming at the end of the lines, but playing around with rhymes within the lines, playing with where the syllabic emphases in the sentences are, lining those up at strange moments in the line of the song. I’m not sure if that comes across or not."

"I'm not terribly interested in playing harp on other people's music right now. Partly because I feel like many people view the harp as this kind of gimmick. You know, like they have songs that are fully realized, complete songs, and then they think "How do we make this special? - Ooh, let's bring the harp in!" and they kind of want a harpist to play a glissando and play some heavenly noise in the background. I'm really interested in the harp as a fully actualized, self-contained way of presenting songs. That there is a bass in the harp - there is a way to create a rhythmic sense without drums - there's a way to have all sorts of textural variations and expressive variations. I also don't want to feel bound to the harp, I'd be interested in bringing other instruments in at some time. But I think the harp has been viewed in one particular way for so long, and has been limited for so long, that I feel like I am really interested in stretching the boundaries of what it's capable of doing and how it's perceived."

"My voice in combination with the harp - which, by the way, I use because I've played it my entire life, not to make some statement about the harp - somehow has … coloured people's interpretations of the music and projected an idea of childlike or fairytale quality or innocence. Which sometimes prevents people from listening to the songs the way I would like them to be listened to."

"Well, Nabokov is definitely my favorite author, though I feel strange calling him an "influence," since I can't trace the ways in which his writing may or may not have seeped into my own. But I also love William Faulkner, Thomas Pynchon, Kenneth Patchen, Joyce Carol Oates, Philip Roth, Mark Helprin (who wrote a beautiful book called Winter's Tale), and Kurt Vonnegut. My favorite book of all time is The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle."

"[The title] was the last thing that I chose, after all the songs and the cover art were finished. So none of the songs directly allude to that myth. But the main themes that emerge out of that myth are really close to the themes on the record -- mortality, decadence, an excess of water, isolation, rebirth. The myth is also significant to me because of the way that I encountered it, which relates to one of the huge events the record is about. I also liked the power of the word itself. I liked how violent and cryptic it felt; it's such a daunting word to encounter. I like how it contrasted this finely rendered, carefully composed front cover -- the painting is information-dense, formal, and stylized; it looks the way something looks when a painter spends a year on it, which is what Benjamin [Vierling] did. So it has all this detail and carefulness to it, which was really important to me and relates very closely to the record. But I also felt like it needed some sort of ballast, or balance, next to it, to reflect the other elements of the record; its innate violence. I wanted a word that was like throwing a brick at the visual on the front cover; I liked that whenever someone looked at that cover they also had to encounter this short, weird word."

"I don't necessarily see the elements that I invoke on the cover and in the songs as being in binary opposition. I know certain binary tensions emerge between these elements, but a lot of times they're more like archetypal elements; these free-standing, huge forces. Mortality, standing alone, as a thing; as opposed to, "Over here's life; over here's death. Here's bad luck, but here's blessing and redemption. Here's water; here's fire." Certainly those things come up again and again in the songs, but it's not intentional, and probably has more to do with the fact that those things emerge in real life, without any effort on our part whatsoever, than they are derived from any classical tradition. I think classicism in general might reflect more closely the natural order of human life, while postmodernism is somehow removed from the natural order, more cerebral and sterile, removed from real life on some level. So what seems like classicism in some of these songs might be just what I view as an accurate reflection of real life on this planet."

"I can't call them linear narratives, and I can't call them chronological in a traditional, classical sense; I'm sure there's plenty of stuff I borrow more from William Faulkner than William Shakespeare. I just find it funny that at this point, we see a collection of highly charged, highly potent symbols as referring back to a classical aesthetic, because to me they seem deeply connected to the pedestrian actuality of real life."

"We sailed away on a winter's day With fate as malleable as clay But ships are fallible, I say And the nautical, as all things, fades."

"And a thimble's worth of milky moon Can touch hearts larger than a thimble."

"I killed my dinner with karate kicked him in the face,taste the body, shallow work is the work that I do."

"And all that we built, and all that we breathed And all that we spilled or pulled up like weeds Is piled up in back and it burns irrevocably And we spoke up in turns 'til the silence crept over me."

"And the love we hold, and the love we spurn, Will never grow cold, only taciturn"

"Go to sleep, you stunning sky, gently creep, cunning by A quiet hum is amplified by your thumb that you suck dry A hundred raging waters snare the lonely sigh Hold your breath and clasp at Cassiopeia."

"While yonder, wild and blue, the wild blue yonder looms. 'Till we are wracked with rheum, by roads, by songs entombed."

"I do as I please. Now I'm on my knees. Your skin is something that I stir into my tea. And I am watching you and you are starry, starry, starry..."

"Emily, I saw you last night by the river I dreamed you were skipping little stones across the surface of the water Frowning at the angle where they were lost, and slipped under forever In a mud cloud, mica-spangled, like the sky'd been breathing on a mirror."

"And everything with wings is restless, aimless, drunk and dour; butterflies and birds collide, at hot ungodly hours. And my clay-coloured motherlessness rangily reclines; come on home now! All my bones are dolorous with vines!"

"We could stand for a century Staring, with our heads cocked In the broad daylight at this thing Joy Landlocked In bodies that don't keep Dumbstruck with the sweetness of being Until we don't be"

"Now her coat drags through the water, Bagging, with a life's-worth of hunger, limitless minnows In the magnetic embrace, Balletic and glacial, of Bear's insatiable shadow."

"Then the slow lip of fire moves across the prairie with precision While, somewhere, with your pliers and glue, you make your first incision And, in a moment of almost-unbearable vision, doubled over with the hunger of lions 'Hold me close', cooed the dove, who was stuffed now with sawdust and diamonds."

"And though our bones, they may break And our souls separate, why the long face? And though our bodies recoil From the grip of the soil, why the long face?"

"Picking through your pocket lining, well what is this? Scrap of sassafras, eh Sisyphus?"

"Well I'm starvin' and freezin' In this measly old bed (Then I'll crawl across the salt flats To stroke your sweet head) Come across the desert, with no shoes on? (I love you truly, or I love no-one)"

"Water were your limbs And the fire was your hair And then the moon caught your eye, and you rose through the air. Well if you've seen true light, then this is my prayer: Will you call me When you get there?"

"Have you come, then, to rescue me?" He laughed and said, "from what, 'Colleen'?" You dried and dressed most willingly. You corseted, and caught the dread disease by which one comes to know such peace."

"We are blessed and sustained by what is not said"

"By the time you read this I will be so far away Daddy longlegs, how in the world Am I to be expected to stay?"

"We broke our hearts, in the war between St. George and the dragon, but both, in equal part, are welcome to come along. I'm inviting everyone."

"But it can make you feel over, and old (Lord, you know it's a shame), when I only want for you to pull over, and hold me, till I can't remember my own name."

"This is the song for Baby Birch. I will never know you. And at the back of what we've done, there is that knowledge of you."

"held her there, kicking and mewling, upended, unspooling, unsung and blue; told her "wherever you go, little runaway bunny, I will find you." And then she ran, as they're liable to do."

"And if you come and see me, you will upset the order. You cannot come and see me, for I set myself apart. But when you come and see me, in California, you cross the border of my heart."

"A feather of a hawk was bound Bound around my neck A poultice made of fig The eager little vultures pecked"

"Wolf-spider, crouch in your funnel nest. If I knew you, once, now I know you less. In the sinking sand, where we've come to rest, have I had a hand in your loneliness?"

"With the loneliness of you mighty men, with your mighty kiss that might never, never end, while, so far away, in the seat of the West, burns the fount of the heat of that loneliness."

"And, when the bulbs do flash, as bright as morning, the crowd keeps on gathering like an electric storm."

"Driven through by her own sword, summer died last night, alone."

"I may have changed, it's hard to gauge Time won't account for how I've aged Would that I could tie your lying tongue Who says that leaving keeps you young."

"In this life, who did you love, beneath the drifting ashes, beneath the sheeting banks of air that barrenly bore our rations?"

"And, for the sake of that pit of snakes, for whom did you allay your shyness, and spend all your mercy, and madness, and grace, in a day, beneath the bending cypress?"

"Hung from the underbelly of the Earth While the stars skid away below Gormless and brakeless; gravel-loose Falling silent as gavels in the snow."

"It is too short — the day we are born, we commence with our dying."

"Coats of bouclé, jacquard and cashmere; cartouche and tweed, all silver shot — and everything that could remind you of how easy I was not."

"It does not suffice for you to say I am a sweet girl, or to say you hate to see me sad because of you. It does not suffice, to merely lie beside each other, as those who love each other do."

"The tap of hangers, swaying in the closet — unburdened hooks and empty drawers — and everywhere I tried to love you is yours again, and only yours."

"But inasmuch as that light is loaned, insofar as we’ve borrowed bones, must every debt now be repaid in star-spotted, sickle-winged night raids"

"In the folds and the branches, somewhere, out there, I was only just born into open air. Now hush, little babe. You don’t want to be down in the trenches, remembering with me, where you will not mark my leaving, and you will not hear my parting song. Nor is there cause for grieving. Nor is there cause for carrying on."

"Above them, parades mark the passing of days through parks where pale colonnades arch in marble and steel, where all of the Twenty Thousand attending your foot fall (and the Cause that they died for) are lost in the idling birdcalls, and the records they left are cryptic at best, lost in obsolescence"

"In December of that year, the word came down that she was here. The days grew shorter. I was sure, if she came 'round, I’d hold my ground. I'd endure. But they'd alluded to a change that came to pass, and Spring, deranged, weeping grass and sleepless, broke herself upon my windowglass. And I could barely breathe, for seeing all the splintered light that leaked her fissures, fleeing, launched in flight: unstaunched daylight, brightly bleeding, bleached the night with dawn, deleting, in that high sun, after our good run, when the spirit bends beneath knowing it must end."

"What’s redacted will repeat, and you cannot learn that you burn when you touch the heat, so we touch the heat, and we cut facsimiles of love and death (just separate holes in sheets where you cannot breathe, and you cannot see)."

"As the day is long, so the well runs dry, and we came to see Time is taller than Space is wide. And we bade goodbye to the Great Divide: found unlimited simulacreage to colonize!"

"All we saw was that Time is taller than Space is wide. That's why we got bound to a round desert island, 'neath the sky where our sailors have gone. Have they drowned, in those windy highlands? Highlands away, my John."

"lists of sins and solemn vows don't make you any friends."

"And in an infinite regress: Tell me, why is the pain of birth lighter borne than the pain of death?"

"I know we must abide each by the rules that bind us here: the divers, and the sailors, and the women on the pier."

"Recall the word you gave: to count your way across the depths of this arid world, where you would yoke the waves, and lay a bed of shining pearls! I dream it every night: the ringing of the pail, the motes of sand dislodged, the shucking, quick and bright; the twinned and cast-off shells reveal a single heart of white."

"And never will I wed. I'll hunt the pearl of death to the bottom of my life, and ever hold my breath, till I may be the diver's wife."

"Hey little leaf, lying on the ground— now you're turning slightly brown! Why don't you come back on the tree, turn the color green the way you ought to be?"

"In martial wind, and in clarion rain, we minced into battle, wincing in pain; not meant for walking, backs bound in twine: not angel or devil, but level, in time."

"Now the towns and forests, highways and plains, fall back in circles like an emptying drain. And I won't come round this way again, where the lonely wind abides, and you will not take my heart, alive."

"So it would seem to be true: when cruel birth debases, we forget. When cruel death debases, we believe it erases all the rest that precedes. But stand brave, life-liver, bleeding out your days in the river of time. Stand brave: time moves both ways"

"Love is not a symptom of time. Time is just a symptom of love"

"Joy! Again, around—a pause, a sound—a song: a way a lone a last a loved a long. A cave, a grave, a day: arise, ascend. (Areion, Rharian; go free and graze. Amen.) A shore, a tide, unmoored—a sight, abroad: A dawn, unmarked, undone, undarked (a god). No time. No flock. No chime, no clock. No end. White star, white ship—Nightjar, transmit: transcend!"

"Music to me is spontaneous, writing is spontaneous and it's all based on not trying to do it. From beginning to end, whether it's writing a song, or playing guitar, or a particular chord sequence, or blowing a horn, it's based on improvisation and spontaneity."

"Where I feel this has cost me is in the personality situation, where you're expected to be a personality. You not only have to write and record, but you have to go out and sell it. Well, I'm not a salesman, and I'm very bad at selling things. If I had to do that for a living, I'd probably be completely broke. I can't sell myself. And I don't even want to. That's something that's not going to change."

"Someone once described me as a maverick and that's what I would say. I'm a maverick not by choice but by conviction."

"Like I say, the way I write songs is, you know, inspirational. I have to wait for it to happen. And when it happens I get lines, and I just write them down, you know. I'm not sort of a Tin Pan Alley sort of songwriter. I just sort of write down what I get - without censoring or questioning what it is and what it means, you know. Like later on I look at what it means, but not at the time."

"Music is spiritual. The music business is not."

"With Moondance, I wrote the melody first. I played the melody on a soprano sax and I knew I had a song so I wrote lyrics to go with the melody. That's the way I wrote that one. I don't really have any words to particularly describe the song, sophisticated is probably the word I'm looking for. For me, Moondance is a sophisticated song. Frank Sinatra wouldn't be out of place singing that."

"Into the Music was about the first album where I felt, 'I'm starting here'...the Wavelength thing, I didn't really feel that was me."

"The odd time something happens and you go into some kind of enchantment (on stage). But you have to work very hard to get that. Most of the time you're just playing and singing the songs, and there's no guarantee that you are going to get anywhere...."

"When I started studying tenor saxophone as a kid in Belfast, I did so with a guy named George Cassidy, who was also a big inspiration"

"When I was fifteen, I became a professional musician. I got involved with people and did certain things which led me to start making records and touring. And leaving Belfast and going to London and America, one thing led to another and I got caught up in the life that I'm living now...I was very young and i followed something. (1993)"

"There is one thing I don't understand about Astral Weeks. Of all the records I have ever made that one is definitely not rock. You could throw that record at the wall, take it to music colleges, analyze it to death. Nobody is going to tell me that it is a rock album. Why they keep calling it one I have no idea."

"People think I'm eccentric, cranky. If I'm eccentric because I've never been into mainstream things, then I am eccentric."

"I've never been comfortable working live, and I'm still not. I was always more music-oriented and less star-oriented, which is why I've never been comfortable on big stages in big halls."

"The people I was listening to never sold a lot of records. John Lee Hooker was never on the charts, so I was never in it from a commercial point of view. Other people expected things from my records, but I never did."

"I don't think I will ever mellow out. I think if you mellow out, you get eaten up. You become like a commodity. So I don't think I will mellow out. It is not in my blood."

"Hey where did we go, Days when the rains came Down in the hollow, Playin' a new game, Laughing and a running hey, hey Skipping and a jumping In the misty morning fog with Our hearts a thumpin' and you My brown eyed girl, You my brown eyed girl."

"So hard to find my way, Now that I'm all on my own. I saw you just the other day, My how you have grown, Cast my memory back there, Lord Sometimes I'm overcome thinking 'bout Making love in the green grass Behind the stadium with you My brown eyed girl You my brown eyed girl."

"If I ventured in the slipstream, Between the viaducts of your dream, Where immobile steel rims crack, And the ditch in the back roads stop, Could you find me? Would you kiss my eyes? To lay me down, In silence easy, To be born again. To be born again."

"Got a home on high Ain't nothing but a stranger in this world I'm nothing but a stranger in this world I got a home on high In another land So far away."

"Way over on the railroad, Tomorrow all the tipping trucks will unload together, Every scrapbook stuck with glue, And I'll stand beside you, Beside you, child."

"The dynamo of your smile caressed a barefoot virgin child to wander."

"And I shall drive my chariot Down your streets and cry 'Hey, it's me, I'm dynamite And I don't know why' We shall walk and talk In gardens all misty wet with rain And I will never, never, never Grow so old again"

"Yonder comes my lady Rainbow ribbons in her hair Yonder comes my lady Rainbow ribbons in her hair Six white horses and a carriage She's returning from the fair"

"And you know you gotta go On that train from Dublin up to Sandy Row Throwing pennies at the bridges down below And the rain, hail, sleet, and snow Say goodbye to Madame George Dry your eye for Madame George Wonder why for Madame George"

"And this time I forget to slip into your slumber The light is on the left side of your head And I'm standing in your doorway And I'm mumbling and I can't remember the last thing that ran through my head"

"Saw you early this morning With your brand new boy and your Cadillac Saw you early this morning With your brand new boy and your Cadillac You're gone for something And I know you won't be back"

"Well it's a marvelous night for a moondance, With the stars up above in your eyes. A fantabulous night to make romance, 'Neath the cover of October skies. And all the leaves on the trees are falling To the sound of the breezes that blow. And I'm trying to please to the calling Of your heart-strings that play soft and low. And all the night's magic seems to whisper and hush, And all the soft moonlight seems to shine in your blush.Can I just have one more moondance with you, my love? Can I just make some more romance with you, my love?"

"I can hear her heart beat from a thousand miles And the heavens open every time she smiles And when I come to her that's where I belong Yet I'm running to her like a river's song."

"Turn up your radio and let me hear the song Switch on your electric light Then we can get down to what is really wrong I long to hold you tight so I can feel you Sweet lady of the night I shall reveal you."

"And it stoned me to my soul Stoned me just like Jelly Roll And it stoned me And it stoned me to my soul Stoned me just like goin' home. And it stoned me."

"Hark, now hear the sailors cry, Smell the sea and feel the sky. Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic."

"And when that foghorn blows, I will be coming home, When that foghorn blows, I wanna hear it, I don't have to fear it, And I wanna rock your gypsy soul, Just like way back in the days of old, And magnificently we will fold Into the mystic."

"My back was up against the wall And you slowly just walked away You never really heard my call When I cried out that way With my face against the sun You pointed out for me to go Then you said I was the one Had to reap what you did sow."

"When all the dark clouds roll away And the sun begins to shine I see my freedom from across the way And it comes right in on time Well it shines so bright and it gives so much light And it comes from the sky above Makes me feel so free makes me feel like me And lights my life with love."

"I was lost and double crossed, With my hands behind my back. I was longtime hurt and thrown in the dirt, Shoved out on the railroad track. I've been used, abused and so confused, And I had nowhere to run. But I stood and looked, And my eyes got hooked On that beautiful morning sun."

"By the winding stream we shall lie and dream We'll make dreams come true if we want them to Yes all will come play the pipes and drum Sing a happy song and we'll sing along."

"And they'll talk to you while you're in trances And you'll visualize not taking any chances But meet them halfway with love, peace and persuasion And expect them to rise for the occasion."

"Don't want to discuss it, I think it's time for a change. You may get disgusted, some think that I'm strange In that case I'll go underground, get some heavy rest Never have to worry, about what is worst and what is best."

"Someone to hold onto And keep me from all fear Someone to be my guiding light And keep me ever dear To keep me from my selfishness To keep me from my sorrow To lead me on to givingness So I can see a new tomorrow."

"Why did you leave America? Why did you let me down? And now that things seem better off, Why do you come around? You know I just can't see you now In my new world crystal ball. You know I just can't free you now, That's not my job at all."

"And all the girls walk by Dressed up for each other And the boys do the boogie-woogie On the corner of the street And the people passin' by Just stare in wild wonder And the inside juke-box Roars out just like thunder."

"Waiting for the sun to shine And you know sometimes it gets so painful Just like talking to yourself When everything don't seem to have no rhyme or reason we all go Do do loo do do, do do loo do do Waiting for the sun to shine."

"Oh don't it get you Get you when you're through Feel the breezes blowing all around your coat Oh don't it get you When you gotta roam Hear the children singing My daddy's coming home"

"You can't stop us on the road to freedom You can't stop us 'cause our eyes can see Men with insight, men in granite Knights in armor intent on chivalry She's as sweet as Tupelo honey She's an angel of the first degree She's as sweet as Tupelo honey Just like honey, baby, from the bee"

"I'm in heaven, I'm in heaven I'm in heaven when you smile, when you smile."

"Laying underneath the stars Can be so much fun Especially when you're feeling good When you're with the one you love."

"And I shall search my soul, I shall search my very soul, For the lion, For the lion, For the lion, For the lion inside me."

"And we're sailing, we're sailing, Way up to Caledonia, We're from Denmark."

"Oh redwood tree, Please let us under, When we were young we used to go, Under the redwood tree, And it smelled like rain, Maybe even thunder, Won't you keep us from all harm, Wonderful redwood tree."

"Look at the ivy on the cold clinging wall Look at the flowers and the green grass so tall It's not a matter of when push comes to shove It's just an hour on the wings of a dove."

"Put your money where your mouth is Then we can get something going In order to win you must be prepared to lose sometime And leave one or two cards showing."

"Did you ever hear about the great deception? Well the plastic revolutionaries take the money and run. Have you ever been down to love city? Where they rip you off with a smile, And it don't take a gun."

"Leaves of brown they fall to the ground. And it's here, over there leaves around. Shut the door, dim the lights and relax. What is more, your desire or the facts?"

"Fair play to you, Kilarney's lakes are so blue, And the architecture I'm taking in with my mind, So fine."

"And there's only one man knows way to go, And we say 'Geronimo.'"

"Hi-ho, silver! Tit for tat! And I love you for that."

"Linden Arden stole the highlights With one hand tied behind his back. Loved the morning sun and whiskey Ran like water in his veins. Loved to go to church on Sunday, Even though he was a drinkin' man. When the boys came to San Francisco, They were looking for his life. But he found out where they were drinking, Met them face to face outside. Cleaved their heads off with a hatchet, Lord, he was a drinkin' man. And when somebody tried to get above him, He just took the law into his own hands. Linden Arden stole the highlights, And they put his fingers through the glass. He had heard all those stories many, many times before, And he did not care, nor know, to ask. And he loved the little children like they were his very own. You say 'Someday, he may get lonely, Now he's livin', livin' with a gun.'"

"When the ghost comes round at midnight Well you both can have some fun He can drive you mad, he can make you sad He can keep you from the sun When they take him down, he'll be both safe and sound And the hand does fit the glove And no matter what they tell you, There's good and evil in everyone."

"Come here my love And I will lift my spirits high for you I'd like to fly away and spend a day or two Just contemplating the fields and leaves and talking about nothing Just layin' down in shades of effervescent, effervescent odors And shades of time and tide."

"Well let them take you for a clown And they're bound to bring you down. You got to make it through the world if you can. Think they're doing you wrong But you got here on your own. You got to make it through the world if you can."

"In the land of a thousand dances, I dance with you. I was out I was taking my chances When dreams came true When you came into my dream Like from a whisper to a scream."

"And I shall get to know you In these lifetimes In awe and wonder On down through the years The nighttime angel spreads her wings around me I feel the silence And my doubts are cleared."

"To Santa Fe Do you need it? Can you feel it in the same old way? I can feel it from the mountain top Runnin' down to the foamy brine In a rest'rant 'cross a table top Looking into a glass of wine Whispering in the evening breeze Green leaves glist'ning eucalyptus trees Can you hear them? Or get near them?"

"Men saw the stars at the edge of the sea They thought great thoughts about liberty Poets wrote down words that did fit Writers wrote books Thinkers thought about it."

"From the dark end of the street To the bright side of the road We’ll be lovers once again on the Bright side of the road"

"Some people spend their time just runnin' round in circles Always chasing some exotic bird I prefer to spend some time just listening for that special something That I've never ever heard I like a new song to sing, another show or somewhere entirely different to be But baby you make me feel so free."

"Walkin' on a city street who would think you could ever be touched By a total stranger, not me But when you came up to me that day and I listened to your story It reminded me so much of myself It wasn't what you said but the way it felt to me About a search and a journey just like mine."

"When you hear the music ringin' in your soul And you feel it in your heart and it grows and grows And it comes from the backstreet rock & roll and the healing has begun I want you to put on your pretty summer dress You can wear your Easter bonnet and all the rest And I wanna make love to you yes, yes, yes and the healing has begun."

"You know what they're writing about Baby you know what they're writing about It's a thing called love down through the ages Makes you wanna cry sometimes Makes you feel like you wanna lay down and die sometimes Makes you high sometimes But when you really get in it lifts you right up."

"Beside the garden walls, We walk in haunts of ancient peace. At night we rest and go to sleep In haunts of ancient peace. The love and light we seek, The words we do not need to speak, Here in this wondrous way we keep These haunts of ancient peace."

"Open your arms in the early mornin' When the light comes shinin' through Can't you hear my heart beat just for you? It's beating so wild, honey. And light comes shinin' Singin' my song And the band is playin' And the music is tried and true."

"I have seen without perceiving I have been another man Let me pierce the realm of glamour So I know just what I am."

"What's my line? I'm happy cleaning windows Take my time I'll see you when my love grows Baby don't let it slide I'm a working man in my prime Cleaning windows..."

"Rave on, down through the industrial revolution Empiricism, atomic and nuclear age Rave on down through time and space down through the corridors Rave on words on printed page."

"Oh won't you stay Stay a while with your own ones Don't ever stray Stray so far from your own ones 'Cause the world is so cold Don't care nothing for your soul That you share with your own ones."

"Your street, rich street or poor Used to always be sure, on your street There's a place in your heart you know from the start Can't be complete outside of the street Keep moving on through the joy and the pain Sometimes you got to look back To the street again Would you prefer all those castles in Spain? Or the view of your street from your window pane?"

"Showed me pictures in the gallery Showed me novels on the shelf Put my hands across the table Gave me knowledge of myself. Showed me visions, showed me nightmares Gave me dreams that never end Showed me light out of the tunnel When there was darkness all around instead."

"I walked in my greatcoat Down through the days of the leaves. No before after, yes after before We were shining our light into the days of blooming wonder In the eternal presence, in the presence of the flame."

"There's an angel that's watching right over you All your trials have not been in vain Won't you lift your head up to the starry night Finding strength in the things that remain."

"When a man comes through He must do what he's supposed to do When a man comes through. He can't do what everyone expects him to."

"Got my ticket at the airport Well I guess I've been marking time I've been living in another country That operates along entirely different lines Keep me away from porter or whiskey Don't play anything sentimental it'll make me cry I've got to go back my friend Is there really any need to ask why?"

"No Guru, no method, no teacher Just you and I and nature And the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost In the garden wet with rain."

"Thanks for the information Never give a sucker an even break When he's breaking through To a new level of consciousness There always seems to be more Obstacles in the way Thanks for the information I know It's only a combat zone Thanks for the memory, I'll just have To carry on on my own."

"When you come down From your Ivory Tower You will see how it really must be To be like me, to see like me, To feel like me."

"Let go into the mystery Let yourself go You've got to open up your heart That's all I know Trust what I say and do what you're told Baby, and all your dirt will turn Into gold."

"There's a dream where the contents are visible Where the poetic champions compose Will you breathe not a word of this secrecy, and Will you still be my special rose?"

"I forgot that love existed, troubled in my mind. Heartache after heartache, worried all the time. I forgot that love existed Then I saw the light Everyone around me make everything alright."

"I've been travellin' a hard road Baby lookin' for someone exactly like you I've been carryin' my heavy load Waiting for the light to come shining through Someone like you Make it all worth while Someone like you Make me satisfied Someone exactly like you."

"Well I've got to get out of the rat-race now I'm tired of the ways of mice and men And the empires all turning into rust again. Out of everything nothing remains the same That's why I'm cloud hidden Cloud hidden Whereabouts unknown."

"Won't you guide me through the dark night of the soul That I may better understand your way Let me be just and worthy to receive All the blessings of the Lord into my life."

"Sometimes, when the spirit moves me I can do many wondrous things I wanna know when the spirit moves you Did ye get healed?"

"Whenever God shines his light on me Opens up my eyes so I can see When I look up in the darkest night I know everything's going to be alright In deep confusion, in great despair When I reach out for him he is there When I am lonely as I can be I know that God shines his light on me."

"I'd love to write another song Baby especially for you I'd love to write another song And feel things bright and new In poetry I'd carve it well I'd even make it rhyme I'd love to write another song Just to get some peace of mind."

"Have I told you lately that I love you? Have I told you there's no one above you? Fill my heart with gladness, Take away my sadness, Ease my troubles, that's what you do."

"I look at the side of your face as the sunlight comes Streaming through the window in the autumn sunshine And all the time going to Coney Island I'm thinking, Wouldn't it be great if it was like this all the time."

"Ambition will take you And ride you too far and Conservatism bring you to boredom once more Sit down by the river And watch the stream flow Recall all the dreams That you once used to know The things you've forgotten That took you away To pastures not greener but meaner."

"Whatever it takes to fulfill his mission That is the way we must go But you've got to do it your own way Tear down the old, bring up the new."

"These are the days of the endless summer These are the days, the time is now There is no past, there's only future There's only here, there's only now. Oh your smiling face, your gracious presence The fires of spring are kindling bright And the radiant heart and the song of glory Crying freedom, freedom in the night"

"These are the days now that we must savour And we must enjoy as we can These are the days that will last forever You've got to hold them, hold them in your heart"

"Some people say You can make it on your own Oh you can make it if you try I know better now You can't stand up alone Oh baby that is why.I'm real real gone I can't stand up by myself Don't you know I need your help You're a friend of mine And I'm real real gone."

"Enlightenment says the world is nothing Nothing but a dream, everything's an illusion And nothing is real."

"The warm look of radiance on your face And your heart beating close to mine And the evening fading in the candle glow This must be what it's all about Oh this must be what it's all about This must be what paradise is like So quiet in here. So peaceful in here So quiet in here, yeah, so peaceful in here."

"The way you see me walking on That's why I'm telling you in song There's only one way to get ahead You've got to give it up instead Start all over again."

"Say que sera, whatever will be But then I keep on searching for immortality She's so beautiful but she's going to die some day Everything in life just passes away But, precious time is slipping away You know she's only queen for a day It doesn't matter to which God you pray"

"And it's a hard road, it's a hard road daddy-o When my job is turning lead into gold He was born in the back street, born in the back street jelly roll I'm on the road again and I'm searching for The philosophers stone Can you hear that engine Can you hear that engine drone Well I'm on the road again and I'm searching for..."

"I saw you standing with the wind and the rain in your face And you were thinking 'bout the wisdom of the leaves and their grace When the leaves come falling down In September when the leaves, come falling down Oh, the last time I saw Paris in the streets, in the rain And as I walk along the boulevards with you, once again And the leaves come falling down In September, when the leaves come falling down"

"Van Morrison is interested, obsessed with how much musical or verbal information he can compress into a small space, and, almost, conversely, how far he can spread one note, word, sound, or picture."

"They asked me to come to New York to help celebrate Van's induction into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame. I went because I see Van as one of the cats that has kept the faith. Like me, he's always himself — he stays true to the music that means the most to him. It meant a lot to sing "Crazy Love" on stage that evening."

"He extends himself only to express himself. Alone among rock's great figures — and even in that company he is one of the greatest — Morrison is adamantly inward. And unique. Although he freely crosses musical boundaries —R. and B., Celtic melodies, jazz, rave-up rock, hymns, down-and-dirty blues — he can unfailingly be found in the same strange place: on his own wavelength."

"I love Van Morrison because he always seems to be searching, never found. I don't know about his personal life but in his music he gives the listener only a question. The answer lies elsewhere to be attained someday."

"Van Morrison remains a singer who can be compared to no other in the history of modern popular music."

"Van Morrison should be friggin' canonized."

"My first impression of Van Morrison was that he was a terrific singer. No, I take that back. I thought he was a really dirty singer. Everything he did had a real big pair of balls to it."

"A great Irish poet"

"He has this great poetic and fantastic voice and what I love about Van, and what I forget to do sometimes is, well I can tell when Van is just like drifting into sort of a zone he just drifts into a place where the whole world is shut out and you can tell that he's in that spot. It's almost a dream-like, trance-like state, singing sometimes. That's really what music is all about. It's almost a jazz concept if you know what I mean — you just kinda go out and you're just wingin' it and I love that about Van, he will risk that, he will go on and on and on and he won't fade the ending before the magic happens, as it were."

"There was a definite charisma when Van performed. Van always had something about him. Whether you liked it or not, you could never take away from the fact that he was different from all other human beings, and here he is today, still being different."

"Morrison remains a singer who can be compared to no other performer in the history of rock 'n' roll, a singer who can not be pinned down, dismissed or fitted into anyone's expectations. He is a conundrum."

"The softer you sing, the louder you're heard."

"The magic that you hear in tales and things was all based around the Celtic mythology of England, which is Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings. I just drain from that source. I just drain everything. So the magic is there."

"We are magic. It is magic that we're walking around. It's fantastic magic. Some people would call it miracles; I like to call it magic. … Yes, I'm very aware of this. Yes, the more aware I get, the more I can understand how big it is, how big it will get. It'll be harder to comprehend; that's why I have to go along with it, 'cause its so vast. To say to somebody that God is everything that lives and ever has lived and ever will live, and you're never going to touch and see, smell and be everything that is God. Magic is very hard to comprehend."

"It seemed — in 1968 — the possibilities of peace and brotherhood could be realised that very year. We're still working on it."

"In the chilly hours and minutes Of uncertainty I want to be In the warm hold of your lovin' mind. To feel you all around me And to take your hand Along the sand, Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind."

"For me to love you now Would be the sweetest thing, 'Twould make me sing, Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind."

"When rain has hung the leaves with tears I want you near to kill my fears, To help me to leave all my blues behind. For standin' in your heart Is where I want to be And long to be, Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind."

"Sunshine came softly through my a-window today Could've tripped out easy a-but I've a-changed my ways It'll take time, I know it but in a while You're gonna be mine, I know it, we'll do it in style 'Cause I made my mind up you're going to be mine."

"I'll tell you right now Any trick in the book now, baby, all that I can find..."

"I'll pick up your hand and slowly blow your little mind 'Cause I made my mind up you're going to be mine."

"When I look out my window, Many sights to see. And when I look in my window, So many different people to be..."

"You've got to pick up every stitch. Mmm... must be the season of the witch, Must be the season of the witch."

"I'm just mad about Saffron Saffron's mad about me I'm just mad about Saffron She's just mad about me."

"They call me mellow yellow (Quite rightly) They call me mellow yellow..."

"I'm just mad about Fourteen Fourteen's mad about me"

"Electrical banana Is gonna be a sudden craze Electrical banana Is bound to be the very next phase..."

"Wear your love like heaven."

"Lord, kiss me once more, fill me with song Allah, kiss me once more that I may, that I may Wear my love like heaven Wear my love like Wear my love like heaven."

"Thrown like a star in my vast sleep I open my eyes to take a peep To find that I was by the sea Gazing with tranquillity. 'Twas then when the Hurdy Gurdy Man Came singing songs of love..."

"Histories of ages past Unenlightened shadows cast. Down through all eternity The crying of humanity. 'Tis then when the Hurdy Gurdy Man Comes singing songs of love..."

"The great Egyptian age is but a remnant of The Atlantian culture. The antediluvian kings colonised the world All the gods who play in the mythological dramas In all legends from all lands were from fair Atlantis. Knowing her fate, Atlantis sent out ships to all corners of the Earth. On board were the Twelve: The Poet, the Physician, the Farmer, the Scientist, The Magician and the other so-called Gods of our legends. Though gods they were —"

"Let us rejoice and let us sing and dance and ring in the new: Hail Atlantis!"

"Way down below the ocean where I wanna be she may be."

"The most important of my achievements, if you want to call them that, was that I successfully introduced mystical ideas into pop culture, which was my obsession and my compulsion when I was 16 years old. So, behind all of this fame and fortune, there was a seeker, on a spiritual path — a young man who wanted to discover and share with others an alternative way of looking at the world. I wanted to save our culture from the stupidity and the bigotry and the ignorance that threatened it. And there was the Buddhist way, and the Celtic way."

"I found myself at the top of the the ladder, with everything, but with one thing missing: that one thing was a companion. Because, it's cliché to say, but nothing really means anything in the end unless you're really doing what you want to do, and... I walked off a huge world tour, with a yacht and television specials, and record deals, and film deals. I walked away and my whole thing collapsed. I shocked my business world and walked back to my cottage, which I had been renting to two American girls. One of them was Cynthia, and I stayed with her for two days, then her friend Lori came back from Clapton's house, where there had been a party going on for almost a week. Lori came in with another friend, and it was Linda, my Sunshine Supergirl from 1965 whom I'd written all my songs for. We hadn't married then, because she had a child with Brian Jones and wasn't ready for another relationship. And it was good that we didn't marry back then, because my four years of '60's fame would have wrecked the marriage. But we met again, and I went away from fame and into the arms of my muse, my lover, and then my wife, and then the mother of my children."

"I still carry with me the same themes as always — I'm still compelled to present mystic ideas..."

"Up to '67, the drugs were, uh, soft. Marijuana, and even LSD, I considered soft drugs then. But, then, after '67, needle drugs and the strong amphetamines came in, and that's when the Beatles and Donovan stood up and said, 'Try meditation instead.' And I still stick by that, of course. You've got to be very, very careful. I'm talking about naive days, before the drug barons and the dealers took over. It was once a small, bohemian event. But it was when millions started wanting to get high that it got bad. And when Haight-Asbury turned into Skid Row, the Beatles and me stood up and said, 'Give it a rest.' The answer is that each individual must face the problem by himself. And meditation is an alternative. Meditation is a lot better for you, and it's great to be straight."

"When I was 14 or 15 I wanted to be a protest singer like Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie. My father was a socialist and worked with the unions. I thought change was to change the government and to change from one system, capitalism, to socialism and to make the poor of the world happy. But when I opened the book The Way of Zen by Alan Watts and I opened up the Diamond Sutra, and Lao Tsu’s Tao Te Ching, I realized that the problem of suffering was much deeper than governments and social problems. The problems were very deep. They were nothing short of changing the way we look at reality. Therefore I became a teacher, or a reflection of the teachings. Phil Ochs, the great protest singer, said I had given up protest, and Joan Baez said to Bob Dylan, “He’s given up protest.” But what I had given up was looking for the answer in social change. The change was to be a spiritual change. The suffering was coming from an erroneous view of reality..."

"We are one, we are all brothers and sisters, but the people of the world do not know this. So this was the teaching, but how do you teach it? As young people, John Lennon, George Harrison, myself, Carlos Santana and other spiritual seekers in pop music, we wanted to know the answer but we found a question: How do you convince the rest of the western world that they are ill, they are mentally ill, that they have a sickness and that they have lost the way? How do you teach that? You cannot teach that in the normal sense. You have to encourage a spiritual call, so we devoted ourselves to making songs which would have a spiritual call inside of them, hoping to awaken an awareness with this music. And other people in the arts felt the same..."

"Today I can’t comment on what the problem is in China, Russia, or Africa without realizing again and again the Diamond Sutra, which says that we look at the world and see it as separate but in fact, this is an illusion, but the reality is that we are one shining being. Until this can be understood, I can’t see any change. But I see some change now. There is a world consciousness. In the "old" New Age, they talked about the Age of Aquarius being an age of enlightenment. And now when a man goes to the moon he sees the earth. Before when someone did meditation he or she could meditate on the earth and the moon but now a man and a woman can see that we are on one planet and that the water is polluted and that the air is dirty. So these are changes that are important. But when we spoke about these things in the 60s people said we were dreamers."

"African music, though very old, is always being rediscovered in the West."

"I always wanted to leave home. I never knew they were going to stop me from coming back. Maybe, if I knew, I never would have left. It is kind of painful to be away from everything that you've ever know. Nobody will know the pain of exile until you are in exile. No matter where you go, there are times when people show you kindness and love, and there are times when they make you know that you are with them but not of them. That's when it hurts."

"I will probably die singing."

"When I was young, I never bought records because my brother Joseph played saxophone and had a record player. I loved listening to his records: The Dorsey Brothers, Duke Ellington, all the big American jazz bands, and vocalists like Ella Fitzgerald, Ernestine Anderson, and Kitty White, a singer from the US who was a friend of Nina Simone. Nobody in America seems to know about her, but she was quite popular in South Africa."

"My concerts were canceled left and right. Speaking about South African Apartheid was fine, but they were suddenly afraid I might speak about American Apartheid, although I never did. Bookers told me that my shows would finance radical activities and [Reprise Records] told me they were not going to honor my recording contract. I didn’t say anything, but if I was married to a troublemaker, I must be a troublemaker. I’d already lived in exile for 10 years, and the world is free, even if some of the countries in it aren’t, so I packed my bags and left."

"In those years, when I came to the States, people were always asking me why I didn’t sing anymore. I’d tell them, ‘I sing all around the world—Asia, Africa, Europe—but if you don’t sing in the US, then you haven’t really made it.’ That’s why I’ll always be grateful to Paul Simon. He allowed me to bring my music back to my friends in this country."

"I didn’t have much, but I was always happy to share what I did have. It seemed like every African that came to New York City would show up at my apartment door at dinnertime, and I couldn’t turn them away. I wasn’t much older than any of them, but they started calling me ‘Mama Africa’ and the name stuck."

"It is absurd to say that we Africans were not in Africa when white people first came. And secondly, The conqueror writes history. They came, they conquered and they wrote. Now, you don't expect people who came to invade us to write the truth about us. They will always write negative things about us. And they have to do that because they have to justify their invasions in all the countries."

"We don't write our history. It has always been handed down to us orally by our elders."

"The white man, where ever he is, whether he is in the majority or the minority, he rules. It just proves to everyone that we have to keep fighting."

"Everywhere I performed in Brazil, I never saw black people. I only performed to white people. And they (the white people) said it's because they (the black people) can't afford to come here - it's too expensive. That is another form of keeping them from coming to where they can enjoy themselves together with white people. They keep them poor."

"The truth shall never be covered by a lie."

"In New York I heard A Piece of Ground, written by a white South African, Jeremy Taylor. I modified it a little and sang it myself. That song is very special to me because it deals with the land question in southern Africa. We were dispossessed of our land."

"The tragedy of civil wars in countries like Angola and Mozambique is that they left many civilians maimed. Poverty is the reason HIV/AIDS spread so rapidly in the African townships and slums. Poverty is the real killer."

"The man at the desk took my passport. He did not speak to me. He took a rubber stamp and slammed it down. Then he walked away. I picked up my passport. It was stamped 'Invalid'. 'They have done it,' I told myself. 'They have exiled me. I am not permitted to go home — not now, maybe not ever. My family, my home. Everything that has gone into the making of myself, gone'."

"I look at an ant and see myself: a native South African, endowed with a strength much greater than my size, so I might cope with the weight of racism that crushes my spirit."

"That was the only time my mother saw me on stage. At one point in the play I am strangled and my mother jumped from her seat and screamed: 'No. You will not get away with murder. You cannot do this to my daughter.' Friends explained to her that this was not for real — that we were acting. But she made such a fuss. Everyone was so embarrassed. On stage my heart sank."

"I still don't know why they banned me" she says. "I said to them, 'What did I do? I never killed anybody. I was never arrested for anything bad, so why can't I go home?."

"I'm not a political singer. I don't know what the word means. People think I consciously decided to tell the world what was happening in South Africa. No! I was singing about my life, and in South Africa we always sang about what was happening to us — especially the things that hurt us."

"Belafonte sent his people to pick me up and I went back and shook his hand, then went back to my little flat. I was very happy to have met a president of the United States - little me!"

"[Belafonte]'d take me to perform for Martin Luther King's cause. But when they were marching I did not take part, because I was not a citizen"

"[Belafonte] was a good teacher and looked after me. He said, 'You have such great talent, you must try not to be a tornado - be like a submarine. It was good advice when I found myself speaking at the UN Committee Against Apartheid and then the UN General Assembly."

"It was not a ban from the government. It was a cancellation by people who felt I should not be with Stokely because he was a rebel to them. I didn't care about that. He was somebody I loved, who loved me, and it was my life."

"[W]hen the President's visitors came to Guinea, we were all called on to go and entertain them. I've never seen a country that did what Sékou Touré did for artists. Even in South Africa today we are not nurtured like that."

"It's because they want to sound like Americans. I'd like to see them develop our music and sing it their way, but they think sounding American is going to take them higher, but it is not. They have beautiful voices, but they want to sound like Whitney Houston. You can't beat people like that at their own game. And they can't beat me at mine, either!"

"Girls are the future mothers of the , it is important we focus on their wellbeing."

"Her voice and her battles influenced the process of liberation and democratic rebirth in South Africa."

"We will miss her energy and her respectful concern for the world's most vulnerable."

"As you can imagine, over the years I have been asked many times to discuss and explain my song "American Pie" I have never discussed the lyrics, but have admitted to the Holly reference in the opening stanzas. You will find many interpretations of my lyrics but none of them by me. … Sorry to leave you all on your own like this but long ago I realized that songwriters should make their statements and move on, maintaining a dignified silence."

"In light of the recent events in Texas, I have decided it would be disrespectful and hurtful for me to perform for the NRA at their convention in Houston this week. I’m sure all the folks planning to attend this event are shocked and sickened by these events as well. After all, we are all Americans. I share the sorrow for this terrible, cruel loss with the rest of the nation."

"And if she asks you why, You can tell her that I told you That I'm tired of castles in the air. I've got a dream I want the world to share, And castle walls just lead me to despair.Hills of forest green where the mountains touch the sky, A dream come true, I'll live there till I die. I'm asking you to say my last goodbye. The love we knew ain't worth another try."

"Every thread of creation is held in position By still other strands of things living. In an earthly tapestry hung from the skyline Of smouldering cities so gray and so vulgar, As not to be satisfied with their own negativity But needing to touch all the living as well."

"And I love you so The people ask me how How I've lived till now I tell them I don't know.I guess they understand How lonely life has been But life began again The day you took my hand."

"A long long time ago I can still remember how that music used to make me smile And I knew if I had my chance That I could make those people dance And maybe they'd be happy for a while. But February made me shiver With every paper I'd deliver Bad news on the doorstep I couldn't take one more step I can't remember if I cried When I read about his widowed bride But something touched me deep inside The Day the Music Died."

"Do you recall what was revealed The day the music died?"

"So come on, Jack be nimble, Jack be quick Jack Flash sat on a candlestick 'Cause fire is the Devil's only friend Oh, and as I watched him on the stage My hands were clenched in fists of rage No angel born in hell Could break that Satan's spell And as the flames climbed high into the night To light the sacrificial rite I saw Satan laughing with delight The day the music died."

"I met a girl who sang the blues And I asked her for some happy news But she just smiled and turned away I went down to the sacred store Where I'd heard the music years before But the man there said the music woudn't play And in the streets the children screamed The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed But not a word was spoken The church bells all were broken And the three men I admire most The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost They caught the last train for the coast The day the music died."

"Starry starry night, Paint your palette blue and grey Look out on a summer's day with eyes that know the darkness in my soul…"

"Now I understand what you tried to say to me How you suffered for your sanity How you tried to set them free They would not listen — They did not know how, Perhaps they'll listen now."

"Weathered faces lined in pain Are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand. For they could not love you, But still your love was true And when no hope was left in sight, on that starry starry night You took your life as lovers often do, But I could have told you, Vincent, This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you."

"Now I think I know what you tried to say to me How you suffered for your sanity How you tried to set them free They would not listen They're not listening still... Perhaps they never will..."

"I feel like a spinning top or a Dreidel The spinning don't stop when you leave the cradle You just slow down Round and around this world you go Spinning through the lives of the people you know We all slow down."

"No days you can borrow, no time you can buy. No trust in tomorrow. It's a lie."

"Faces come and faces go in circular rotation. But something yearns within to grow beyond infatuation."

"Wonderful baby, nothin' to fear. Love whom you will, but doubt what you hear. They'll whisper sweet things to make untrue. So be good to yourself, that's all you can do.You're a wonderful baby livin' on love The sandman says maybe he'll take you above, Up where the girls fly on ribbons and bows, Where babies float by, just counting their toes."

"I constantly get people telling me I should be selling as much as Katie Melua... but there's a reason she sells that many and I don't - she makes music that's easy on the ear and even easier on the brain. She's the perfect good girl in the middle of the road. I'm not keen to make things too easy for anyone. I like to provoke a response, whether that's someone telling me they love what I do or throwing a bottle at me. The trouble is that the bottle-throwing faction won't buy the album. You've immediately limited your audience."

"We human beings are tuned such that we crave great melody and great lyrics. And if somebody writes a great song, it's timeless that we as humans are going to feel something for that and there's going to be a real appreciation."

"Records have images. There are wet records and dry records. And big records."

"Then I would sing a little in the synagogue. See, if you're a singer, you love to turn your own ears on. You look for those rooms where the reverb is great. I remember the synagogue had a lot of wood and it was a great room. And it was a captive audience and you could sing these minor key songs and make them cry, and that was a thrill."

"Catch a boat to England baby, maybe to Spain. Wherever I have gone, wherever I've been and gone, wherever I have gone... The blues are all the same."

"When I'm not drinkin' baby, you are on my mind. When I'm not sleeping baby, when I'm not sleeping mama, when I'm not sleeping, you know you'll find me cryin'"

"Well there are walls, that make a prison, many names that can bring hate. You tear 'em down and ride 'em over."

"Don't look back, over your shoulder! Keep your eye on freedom shore! Because you know the brave man with you, also pays for the wages of war."

"I want to be alone. I need to touch each stone, face the grave that I have grown. I want to be alone."

"A song is communicating with people. Entertainment is a different area."

"I've always considered myself a failure: I feel I've never done anything wholly right. [...] Everybody will tell you, "Oh no, how can you say that, because ten thousand people clap you on a night?" But part of that is reflex action and part of it is because you're reasonably good. But if you're great, that's a different thing."

"I wouldn't call myself an actor or a singer for that matter, just a journeyman. [...] I feel I must have a talent somewhere for doing something but I'm still not terribly sure what it is. I suppose it's a talent for being myself."

"Ronnie is like the King of Ireland, and we are his subjects."

"We're at that kind of moment where we really have to understand that everyone is totally connected and everyone is important."

"Comedy doesn't really have any meaning without sadness … The most meaningful comedy comes from some really serious pathos."

"The whole world was gathered At the shore of the earth Holding hands and celebrating The little girl’s birth."

"Emptiness is a conductor A conductor of heat A conductor of Anything."

"Why do I hear what I can't see? Why do I fear what I can be? I feel the field of battle within my life!I hear the calvalry of light! I see the sound of endless sight! I feel the field of battle within my life!It was a life that had no end A time of love with you, my friend Begin the age of love you know about!"

"In sorrow there is no rhyme. Dream the kind of a life that you will find The kind of love that lasts forever. Dream the kind of a life that you will find The kind of love that lasts forever. In heaven there is no time."

"I'll never stop a bullet but a bullet might stop me. I'll never drink the ocean but the ocean might drink me. And I'll never raise a portrait to a gentle man in blue And I'll never sing a love song for a love that isn't true.I love how the garden grows And I love the garden rose."

"Open your heart. Tear it apart."

"Well then you thought that the end was in sight And then you thought there was nothing to fight But you had opened your heart with your mind Oooh here comes one."

"On a winter's day we were children all the while ringing one by one All though the day All through the night time And we fell so hard, looking out of the window And we fell so far, into the night When you wake for certain Will you still be hurting?"

"Picture Lucille Ball and Tinkerbell engaged in a duet and you have an apt metaphor for the neo-folk singer Becky Stark, who suggests an impish fairy from a faraway land. Her eyes are wide, and her madcap stories full of exclamation points. She seems perpetually atwitter, at once ditzy and all knowing. She’s the voice and the creative force behind the Los Angeles-based band Lavender Diamond, which just released its quixotic debut album, “Imagine Our Love.”"

"I had the naive, simplistic idea that producers and writers and artists of the time helped in a minuscule way to change the mind-set of America."

"The songwriting style, to me, is superior... there was a certain amount of joy in it, no matter how sad the song is. You get joy in listening to these Buddy Holly or Roy Orbison sad lyrics. I'm attracted to songs that have balance between the darks and the lights and giving them all equal opportunity."

"I treat the act of making a record very much like working in a laboratory, experimenting with sounds and ideas... Whoever chooses to latch onto it, great; whoever doesn't, that's fine, too. The reaction always pales in comparison to the weight of the act of production."

"When you're absolute beginners, It's a panoramic view, From Her Majesty, Mt. Zion, And the Kingdom is for you."

"I should know who I am by now. I walk the record stands somehow. Thinking of winter. Your name is the splinter inside me. While I wait."

"At one time, friends, I had a ma, I even had a pa Well he beat her with a belt once 'cause she cried She told him to take care of me, headed down to Tennessee Well, it's easier than just a-waitin' around to die I came of age and I found a girl in a Tuscaloosa bar Ah, she cleaned me out and hit it on the sly Well, I tried to kill the pain, I bought some wine and hopped a train It seemed easier than just a-waitin' around to die"

"Pancho was a bandit boys His horse was fast as polished steel Wore his gun outside his pants For all the honest world to feel Pancho met his match you know On the deserts down in Mexico Nobody heard his dying words That's the way it goes All the Federales say They could have had him any day They only let him hang around Out of kindness I suppose"

"If I needed you, would you come to me? Would you come to me and ease my pain? If you needed me, I would come to you I'd swim the seas for to ease your pain Well, in the night forlorn, oh, the morning's born And the morning shines with the lights of love And you will miss sunrise if you close your eyes And that would break my heart in two The lady's with me now since I showed her how To lay her lily hand in mine Loop and Lil agree, she's a sight to see A treasure for the poor to find"

"Days, up and down they come Like rain on a conga drum Forget most, remember some But don't turn none away Everything is not enough And nothin' is too much to bear Where you been is good and gone All you keep is the getting there To live is to fly Low and high So shake the dust off of your wings And the sleep out of your eyes"

"The name she gave was Caroline Daughter of a miner Her ways were free It seemed to me That sunshine walked beside her"

"The promise in her smile shames the mountains tall She can bring the sun to shining. She can tell the rain to fall. It's been a long time, Mama, since I heard you call my name, Ah, been a long time since I heard you call my name I got to see my Colorado girl again Be there tomorrow, Mama, don't you cry"

"You have to blow off your family. You have to blow off comfort. You have to blow off money.... You have to blow off your ego. You have to blow off everything except your guitar."

"I'm glad that the Bush years are behind us."

"These days I seem to think a lot About the things that I forgot to do For you And all the times I had the chance to."

"Now if I seem to be afraid To live the life that I have made in song Well it's just that I've been losing so long."

"These days I sit on cornerstones And count the time in quarter-tones to ten, my friend Don't confront me with my failures I had not forgotten them."

"The daughter of a captain on the rolling seas, She would stare across the water from the trees. Last time he was home he held her on his knees And said the next time they would sail away just where they pleased."

"Well I'm running down the road Tryin' to loosen my load, I've got seven women on my mind, Four that wanna own me, Two that wanna stone me, One says she's a friend of mine."

"Take it easy, take it easy Don't let the sound of your own wheels Drive you crazy."

"Well, I'm a standing on a corner In Winslow, Arizona And such a fine sight to see, It's a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford Slowin' down to have a look at me."

"Well, just look at that girl With the lights comin' up in her eyes. She's got to be somebody's baby; She must be somebody's baby."

"I try to shut my eyes But I can't get her outta my sight. I know I'm gonna know her, But I gotta get over my fright. Well, I'm just gonna walk up to her, I'm gonna talk to her tonight.Yeah, she's gonna be somebody's only light, Gonna shine tonight. Yeah, she's gonna be somebody's baby tonight."

"Though Adam was a friend of mine, I did not know him well. He was alone into his distance, he was deep into his well. I could guess what he was laughing at, but I couldn't really tell. Now the stories told that Adam jumped, but I'm thinking that he fell."

"Doctor, my eyes have seen the years And the slow parade of fears without crying. Now I want to understand; I have done all that I could To see the evil and the good without hiding. You must help me if you can.Doctor, my eyes Tell me what is wrong. Was I unwise to leave them open for so long?"

"'Cause I have wandered through this world And as each moment has unfurled, I've been waiting to awaken from these dreams. People go just where they will, I never noticed them until I got this feeling That it's later than it seems."

"Oh people, look around you, the signs are everywhere You've left it for somebody other than you to be the one to care You're lost inside your houses,theres no time to find you now"

"It's such a clever innocence with which you do your sorcery As if somehow the years just bow and let that young girl go free I thought I was a child, until you turned and smiled"

"I thought I knew where I was going, until I heard your laughter flowing And came upon the wisdom in your eyes"

"Honey you shake and I'll rattle and we'll roll on down the line And see if we can't get in touch with a very close friend of mine. But let me clue you in, it ain't like him To argue or pretend-- Honey let me introduce you to my redneck friend."

"Someone's gonna have to explain it to me, I'm not sure what it means. My baby's feelin' funny in the morning; She's having trouble getting into her jeans"

"I told her I had always lived alone and I probably always would. And all I wanted was my freedom. And she told me that she understood. But I let her do some of my laundry, And she slipped a few meals in between. And the next thing I remember, she was all moved in. And I was buying her a washing machine."

"Make it on your own if you think you can. If you see somewhere to go, I understand."

"Everybody's just waiting to hear from the one Who can give them the answers And lead them back to that place in the warmth of the sun Where sweet childhood still dances Who'll come along And hold out that strong But gentle fathers hand?"

"You never knew what I loved in you, I don't know what you loved in me. Maybe the picture of somebody you were hoping I might be."

"Looking through some photographs I found inside a drawer, I was taken by a photograph of you. There were one or two I know That you would have liked a little more, But they didn't show your spirit quite as true. You were turning round to see who was behind you And I took your childish laughter by surprise, And at the moment that my camera happened to find you There was just a trace of sorrow in your eyes."

"What I was seeing wasn't what was happening at all."

"When you see through love's illusions, there lies the danger. And your perfect lover just looks like a perfect fool. So you go running off in search of a perfect stranger, While the loneliness seems to spring from your life Like a fountain from a pool."

"Maybe people only ask you how you're doing 'Cos that's easier than letting on how little they could care."

"Keep a fire for the human race; Let your prayers go drifting into space. You never know what will be coming down, Perhaps a better world is drawing near. Just as easily it could all disappear"

"Into a dancer you have grown From a seed somebody else has thrown. Go on ahead and throw some seeds of your own. And somewhere between the time you arrive And the time you go, May lie a reason you were alive That you'll never know."

"I got a thing or two to say Before I walk on by. I'm feeling good today. But if die a little farther along, I'm trusting everyone to carry on."

"And their feathers once so fine grew torn and tattered And in the end they traded their tired wings For the resignation that living brings."

"Let the music keep our spirits high And let the buildings keep our children dry Let creation reveal its secrets by and by."

"I want to know what became of the changes We waited for love to bring. Were they only the fitful dreams Of some greater awakening? I've been aware of the time going by; They say in the end it's the wink of an eye."

"Out into the cool of the evening, Strolls the Pretender. He knows that all his hopes and dreams Begin and end there"

"I'm going to find myself a girl Who can show me what laughter means. And we'll fill in the missing colors In each other's paint-by-number dreams."

"I'm gonna be a happy idiot And struggle for the legal tender. Where the ads take aim and lay their claim To the heart and the soul of the spender. And believe in whatever may lie In those things that money can buy, Though true love could have been a contender."

"Are you there? Say a prayer for the Pretender. Who started out so young and strong Only to surrender."

"Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels. Looking back at the years gone by like so many summer fields. '65, I was 17 and running up 101. I don't know where I'm running now, I'm just running on."

"Running on, running on empty Running on, running blind. Running on, running into the sun But I'm running behind."

"I look around for the friends that I used to turn to to pull me through. Looking into their eyes I see them running too."

"You love the thunder and you love the rain. You know your hunger like you know your name. I know you wonder how you ever came To be a woman in love with a man in search of the flame."

"Now the seats are all empty, Let the roadies take the stage. Pack it up and tear it down. They're the first to come and the last to leave, Working for that minimum wage. They'll set it up in another town."

"Now roll them cases out and lift them amps, Haul them trusses down and get 'em up them ramps. Cause when it comes to moving me, You know you guys are the champs. But when that last guitar's been packed away, You know that I still want to play. So just make sure you got it all set to go Before you come for my piano."

"She was a friend to me when I needed one. Wasn't for her I don't know what I'd done. She gave me back something that was missing in me. She could of turned out to be almost anyone, Almost anyone-- With the possible exception Of who I wanted her to be."

"Talk about celestial bodies, And your angels on the wing. She wasn't much good at stickin' around--but That girl could sing. She could sing...In the dead of night, She could shine a light On some places that you've never been. In that kind of light, You could lose your sight And believe there was something to win."

"You could hold her tight With all your might, But she'd slip through your arms like the wind. And be back in flight, Back into the night, Where you might never see her again."

"Down on the boulevard they take it hard. They look at life with such disregard. They say it can't be won The way the game is run. But if you choose to stay, You end up playing anyway. It's okay."

"In the morning when I closed my eyes, You were sleeping in paradise. And while the room was growing light, I was holding still with all my might."

"Hold a place for the human race. Keep it open wide. Give it time to fall or climb. But let the time decide. Sometimes you wonder what's in this for you. But you wait and you see. 'Cause its all you can do. Just to hold on. Hold on hold out, hold on."

"I can't keep up with what's been going down, I think my heart must just be slowing down. Among the human beings In their designer jeans, Am I the only one who hears the screams And the strangled cries of lawyers in love?"

"Between the darkness on the street And the houses filling up with light. Between the stillness in my heart And the roar of the approaching night. Somebody's calling after somebody, Somebody turns the corner out of sight, Looking for somebody Somewhere in the night.Tender is the night. When you hold your baby tight, Tender are the motions, tender is the night."

"You internet people scare the shit out of me."

"I don't know much about that whole grunge thing."

"You know, this war on drugs is funded by tobacco and alcohol commissions. It's not what drugs you're strung out on they care about so much as whose. People still dig drugs. I mean, y'all do, anyway. I'm over it."

"Republicans... That's what scares people these days. That, and uh, Democrats."

"They say the average bank robber lives within say about 20 miles of the bank that he robs There's this little bank not so far from here I've been watching now for a while Seems like lately alls I can think about is how bad I wanna go out in style"

"I'm gonna make my last stand This time I can't be bought Then again, on the other hand How much have you got?"

"(Spoken) So I called my brother... he was living in Austin. He had these friends who were letting him stay on their couch, and I figured they might have a couch that I could stay on. So, I got this ride to Austin, Texas and got to this address my brother gave me, and this guy introduced himself as "Bonehead." And I went in and started asking around; turned out they didn't have the second couch, they just had the one couch, uh, for my brother. But they knew where there was a party, and I thought, well, that's good enough."

"(Spoken) He came out, kinda like tonight, like I am, with just a guitar, and sang some songs. I thought, shit, I could do that."

"(Spoken) You get out in the desert and there's no signs. And of course it was just me and all my friends, it was all guys in the car, so we drove about another two and a half hours before we ever pulled over and asked anybody where we was. And we were on this thing called the Devil's Backbone Highway, right, so we finally pull into this place uniquely named "The Devil's Backbone Tavern." We go in, and all the guys say I gotta go in, you know. And so I go in there, and it's one of them bars, like everyone's drinking beer and there are like, say, twenty people in there and they have maybe, say, seventeen teeth total in the whole place. And I'm not a good fighter, or very good at protecting myself at all, you know! And I thought, well this could - this may not work out. So I saw behind the bar there was this one older woman; she looked like she was in her eighties and she kinda hunched over like I remember my grandma started to do, she kinda, she had curly white hair, and she's all... I thought, well, I could take her..."

"Now to fit in on the Seattle scene You had to show people something that they'd never seen So thinkin' up a gimmick one day We decided to be the only band that wouldn't play a note Under any circumstance We called it silence... Music's original alternative Root's grunge"

"With good behavior I'll be out in seven years Don't worry over me or shed any tears I've learned a lot in here and I know what a chance I blew The next time I won't make the same mistake I'll shoot the camera out too I'm learning all kinds of things you can do When you're broke"

"Conservative Christian, right-wing Republican Straight white American males Gay-bashing, black-fearing War-fighting, tree-killing Regional leaders of sales Frat-housing, keg-tapping Shirt-tucking, back-slapping Haters of hippies like me Tree-hugging, peace-loving Pot-smoking, porn-watching Lazy-ass hippies like me"

"I was looking for a job when I found this one Don't need the work like you need the work done You look like you're under pressure I was already looking for a job two weeks ago, when I met you, remember?"

"Making money out of paper, making paper out of trees We’re making so much money we can hardly breathe"

"By the time that he mowed the last man down He was high as he had ever been Laughing to the sounds of the world going around Completely unaware of the win And while the papers would say he was scattered that day He was pretty as a pitcher could be The day Dock Ellis of the pittsburgh pirates Threw a no hitter on lsd"

"A man once said that the pinnacle of success Was when you've finally lost interest In money, compliments, and publicity A noble enough idea I suppose How on Earth he does this heaven only knows I know I need a lot more of all three of those Before I'll ever have the nerve to turn up my nose At any money, or compliments, or publicity"

"It's an issue for me I went to see this therapist She said just do the best you can do Do the best you can do I was hoping for something more specific"

"Todd Snider is a true songwriter, with the heart and humor of John Prine, the wild unpredictability of Roger Miller, and a fresh, original spirit and freedom of imagination that's absolutely his own."

"Todd Snider writes great songs and also is a great performer. He totally connects with every audience. Hardest act to follow since Steve Goodman."

"Of all the young singer-songwriters out there, I think Todd Snider is the best.. by that I mean he has found a way to take his feelings and observations and turn them into songs that can get an audience...he won't quit til he gets the audience and he always gets the audience."

"Train whistle blowin', Makes a sleepy noise; Underneath their blankets Go all the girls and boys. Rockin', rollin', ridin', Out along the bay, All bound for Morningtown, Many miles away."

"And there's doctors and lawyers, And business executives, And they're all made out of ticky tacky And they all look just the same."

"Love is something if you give it away, Give it away, give it away. Love is something if you give it away, You end up having more. It's just like a magic penny, Hold it tight and you won't have any. Lend it, spend it, and you'll have so many They'll roll all over the floor."

"If you are a piano, You will laugh on ev'ry string, And if you are a girl or boy, You'll sing."

"They don't know my head's full of me And that I have my own special thing, And there's no hole in my head. Too bad."

"Little man stood at the Mayor's door, No one had ever seen him before, Dressed in clothes of a gayer mood Than ever are seen in Hollywood."

"There was a little boat sailed down the river, Hull was a cup and sail was a feather, Cum peedle ump pump pay."

"I don't mind failing in this world, I'll stay down here with the raggedy crew, 'Cause getting up there means stepping on you, so I don't mind failing in this world."

"There was a new popular music of protest. Pete Seeger had been singing protest songs since the forties, but now he came into his own, his audiences much larger. Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, singing not only protest songs, but songs reflecting the new abandon, the new culture, became popular idols. A middle-aged woman on the West Coast, Malvina Reynolds, wrote and sang songs that fit her socialist thinking and her libertarian spirit, as well as her critique of the modern commercial culture. Everybody now, she sang, lived in "little boxes" and they "all came out just the same.""

"I'm too involved in making plans for my soul."

"I can only help myself."

"I just want to be not what I am today. I just want to be better than my friends might say. I just want a small part in your passion play."

"Memories fade into dust."

"Ready or not, I'm not what you wanted, I'm what you got."

"I won't measure love from the tears that drip from your face."

"I suppose I should hope that it turns out fine."

"I can't wait for you."

"To this day I still regret how I made you go away."

"I was lost and out of touch, with the way you made me feel."

"I saw the whole world from your eyes, at least the glimpse you let me see. And what a glimpse you let me see."

"You are everything I've waited for."

"A lifetime here with you will seem to short."

"I hope that I can be what you deserve."

"I hope the days get longer and make this love grow stronger."

"You're the bad one from the day you were born."

"You can run, I dont think that you can hide."

"Just another taste of pleasure."

"Waiting on another chance to make it right."

"She waits until her brokenness can break her."

"I'm a slave to my indifference."

"Make no mistake about it, making a good record is pure, unadulterated pain. If you fall and break your leg--that's pain. But I'm telling you, the phase between pain and death? That's making a good record. It's extreme."

"Every time feels like my first time. And I just find that the process of it feeds into one's own self-obsession."

"My band is the best band in the world, period. So, I insist on every song being better then it is on the record. So by the end of the tour, we have to be playing the song better then how it’s recorded."

"You see mama don't watch your damn football And your beer drinkin' just won't do You're just stayin' out late And you're preachin' the hate And you never have been trueYou see mama she want her somebody Who will let her be herself So she's leavin' you And your stinky damn ways Cause she's found somebody else"

"You may write me down in history With your bitter twisted lies You may trod me down in the very dirt And still like the dust I'll rise."

"I believe in a few things: God the devil and love. 'Cause I've looked up from the bottom And I've stared down from above.I have faith in a few things: Divinity and grace. But even when I'm on my knees I know the devil prays.And you're working your way From the ground on down."

"My choice is what I choose to do. And if I'm causing no harm It shouldn't bother you. Your choice is who you choose to be. And if your causin' no harm Then you're alright with me."

"Excuse me Mr. But isn't that your oil in the sea? And the pollution in the air Mr. Whose could that be?So excuse me Mr. But I'm a mister too And you're givin' Mr. a bad name, Mr. like you."

"It will make a weak man mighty; It will make a mighty man fall. It will fill your heart and hands; Or leave you with nothing at all. It's the eyes for the blind And legs for the lame. It is love for hate, And pride for shame.That's the power of the gospel. That's the power of the gospel. That's the power of the mighty power. That's the power of the gospel."

"Listen stranger, passerby, And those I never knew. There's not one day that you are living Has been promised to you."

"In my life I have been blessed In my life I have been cursed I have lived the best of times I have suffered the worst Do you know which road you're traveling? Do you know where you want to be? With so many roads to travel, There's just one can set you free."

"Sometimes I feel I know strangers Better than I know my friends Why must a beginning Be the means to an end?The stones from my enemies These wounds will mend But I cannot survive The roses from my friends."

"Could've sworn I heard you say amen this morning, showing some kind of sign that you believe Did it fall from your tongue without warning or just another trick to fall from your sleeve? Did I hear you say that you believe in angels? I guess I bring the devil out in you. But we can both remove our halos 'cause even an angel needs love too. Even angels need love too."

"Where did you learn to do that so well? Where did you learn to do that so well? I guess that would be like kiss and tell. If it's a secret, why did you show me?"

"Real life has let you down. Real life has let you down. Someone stripped the jewel from your crown. Everybody owes somebody something."

"Now I love to feel that warm southern rain, Just to hear it fall is the sweetest sounding thing. And to see it fall on your simple country dress It's like heaven to me I must confess."

"Now I've been hangin' 'round you for days, Bt when I lean in you just turn your head away. Oh no, you didn't mean that. She said I love the way you think, but I hate the way you act."

"I can change the world With my own two hands Make a better place With my own two hands Make a kinder place."

"A candle throws its light into the darkness In a nasty world, so shines the good deed Make sure the fortune, that you seek Is the fortune you need."

"Take my hand when you are worried Take my hand when you're alone Take my hand and let me guide you Take my hand to lead you home."

"Children come running to the truth But you've got to peel the skin to get the fruit And while one's living high another's grieving But what's sweet by morning is bitter by the evening Oh - What's sweet by morning is bitter by the evening."

"The world awakens on the run And will soon be earning With hopes of better days to come It's a morning yearning."

"Fools will be fools, And wise will be wise. But I will look this world Straight in the eyes.What good is a man Who won't take a stand? What good is a cynic With no better plan?"

"When your whole world is shaken from all the risks we have taken, Dance with me, dance with me into the colors of the dusk."

"The lifetime we've left behind with strangers Promises and lies both have their dangers. I just can't be wrong enough and I can't hide for long enough So far away, but I still feel your pain."

"The very thing that drives you, can drive you insane Got a head full of thought crimes and a number with no name Got an eleventh hour Jesus and a mouth full of blame A casket lined with silver dollars and a number with no name."

"You can run away from home But you can't run away from your pain I sit here alone There's always someone else to blame."

"Now that you've grown up You can finally learn to be a child We made it to the end of the world But we'll never make it out alive."

"Some things You have to let be lost Some battles, some battles You have to leave unfought.Then the truth just wastes away In all we dare not say. And in all we can't explain But I faithfully remain."

"In my mind I'm goin' to Carolina. Can't you see the sunshine? Can't you just feel the moonshine? Ain't it just like a friend of mine To hit me from behind? Yes, I'm goin' to Carolina in my mind."

"And as the moon rises he sits by his fire Thinking about women and glasses of beer. And closing his eyes as the dogies retire, He sings out a song which is soft but it's clear, As if maybe someone could hear.Goodnight you moonlight ladies. Rockabye sweet baby James. Deep greens and blues are the colors I choose. Won't you let me go down in my dreams? And rockabye sweet baby James."

"Take to the highway, won't you lend me your name? Your way and my way seem to be one and the same, child. Mamma don't understand it. She wants to know where I've been. I'd have to be some kind of natural born fool To want to pass that way again. But I could feel it On a country road."

"Just yesterday morning, they let me know that you were gone. Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you. I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song, I just can't remember who to send it to. I've seen fire and I've seen rain. I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end. I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend. But I always thought that I'd see you again."

"Won't you look down upon me, Jesus, You've got to help me make a stand. You've just got to see me through another day. My body's aching and my time is at hand And I won't make it any other way."

"I’ve been walking my mind to an easy time, My back turned towards the sun. Lord knows the cold wind blows it’ll turn your head around. Well, there’s hours of time on the telephone line, To talk about things to come. Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground."

"Where do those golden rainbows end? Why is this song so sad? Dreaming the dreams I've dreamed my friend Loving the love I love To love is just a word I've heard when things are being said Stories my poor head has told me cannot stand the cold And in between what might have been and what has come to pass A misbegotten guess alas and bits of broken glass…"

"Do me wrong, do me right, Tell me lies but hold me tight, Save your goodbyes for the morning light, But don't let me be lonely tonight."

"Most everybody's got seed to sow It ain't always easy for a weed to grow, oh no. So he don't hoe the row for no one. Oh for sure he's always missing. And something is never quite right. Ah, but who would want to listen to you Kissing his existence good night."

"Oh, Mexico. It sounds so sweet with the sun sinking low. Moon's so bright like to light up the night, Make everything all right."

"You can play the game and you can act out the part. Though you know it wasn't written for you. But tell me, how can you stand there with your broken heart, Ashamed of playing the fool? One thing can lead to another; it doesn't take any sacrifice. Oh, father and mother,and sister and brother, If it feels nice, don't think twice."

"Shower the people you love with love. Show them the way that you feel. Things are gonna work out fine if you only will (do as I say, yeah). Shower the people you love with love. Show them the way that you feel. Things are gonna be much better if you only will."

"Whenever I see your smiling face I have to smile myself. Because I love you (Yes, I do). And when you give me that pretty little pout, It turns me inside out. There's something about you, baby (I don't know)."

"I thought I was in love A couple of times before With the girl next door. But that was long before I met you. Now I'm sure that I won't forget you. And I thank my lucky stars That you are who you are. And not just another lovely lady Sent down to break my heart."

"Now, the smoke fills the air In this honky-tonk bar. And I'm thinking 'bout where I'd rather be. But I burned all my bridges; I sank all my ships. And I'm stranded at the edge of the sea."

"The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time. Any fool can do it; There ain't nothing to it. Nobody knows how we got to The top of the hill. But since we're on our way down, We might as well enjoy the ride."

"The secret of love is in opening up your heart. It's okay to feel afraid, But don't let that stand in your way, no. 'Cause anyone knows that love is the only road. And since we're only here for a while yeah Might as well show some style."

"Seems like even her old girlfriends Might be talking her down. She's got her name on the grapevine Running up and down The telephone line Talking 'bout Someone said, someone said Something 'bout, something else Someone might have said about her She always figured that they were her friends But maybe they can live without her."

"True believer that I am I am blind, lead me on (lead me on) Blessed receiver of your love I own my own time And I've been holding on (holding on) Leave the word unspoken And the spell will not be broken."

"When I grow too old and dull to rock 'n roll Like to hold on tight to you darling And when my fires have all burned out I'd like to think I can still think about The things I used to sing about When I was spending all my time alone By myself and on my own Seldom seen and quite unknown."

"If I had stopped to listen once or twice If I had closed my mouth and opened my eyes If I had cooled my head and warmed my heart I'd not be on this road tonight."

"First kiss ever I took Like a page from a romance book. The sky opened and the earth shook."

"At that time my heart was all broke I looked like ashes and smelled like smoke. And I turned away from my loving kind Try to leave my body and live in my mind. But it's much too much emotion To hold it in your hand. They've got waves out on the ocean They're gonna wear away the land."

"I passed on the cocaine, Said bye-bye to my methadone. Put down the bottle for one more day. Backing off of my Tobacco Jones. Still I feel like a hopeless junkie, Like a man who can't say no. I look back and there's that monkey; Rascal won't let go."

"Sweet Baby James laid down the template for ‘singer-songwriter’ when he broke through in the early ‘70s, and has subsequently become an institution. Sensitive and fragile at first blush, Taylor’s songs have steel in the walls that have ensured they’ve passed the test of time. As fine a fingerpicker as there has been, and a songwriter of immense depth and emotional courage, James Taylor is an icon with good reason."

"Love when you can Cry when you have to... Be who you must That's a part of the plan Await your arrival With simple survival And one day we'll all understand... Your conscience awakes and you see your mistakes And you wish someone would buy your confession The days miss their mark and the night gets so dark"

"Dusty day dawning Three hours late Open the curtains And let the rest wait My mind goes running Three thousand miles east I may miss the harvest But I won't miss the feast... And it looks like you're gonna Have to see me again... Cause I've got a woman Who waits for me there And I need a breath of that Sweet country air"

"Changing horses in the middle of a stream Gets you wet and sometimes cold"

"I can see you in the distance And you're heading for a fall Sinking deeper by the minute You're about to lose it all... You better change Before the sun goes down You better leave Before you are the last in town You better raise Your fortresses or tear them down... Tear them down!"

"As the Raven Flies Lyrics I see the raven's made Her nest in your eyes She's got you thinking that Her love is a prize And you'll go under from The weight of her lies"

"Now the wind is still In a moment it will be raging Now my soul is young In a moment it will be aging And high above the pines I wrote several lines And left them in a bottle For you to find"

"Someone's been telling you stories Someone's been telling you stories And they just ain't true No, they just ain't true They just ain't true Someone's been telling you stories]]."

"There's a place in the world For a gambler There's a burden that only he can bear... And he sees. Oh, yes he sees... There's a light in the depths Of your darkness There's a calm at the eye Of every storm There's a light in the depths Of your [[blindness|darkness}} Let it shine Oh, let it shine"

"Gonna pull in the shutters on this heart of mine Roll up the carpets and pull in the blinds And retreat to the chambers that I left behind In hopes there still may be love left to find Still may be love left to find."

"Longer than there've been fishes in the ocean Higher than any bird ever flew. Longer than there've been stars up in the heavens, I've been in love with you."

"Along the road your steps may stumble Your thoughts may start to stray But through it all a heart held humble Levels and lights your way."

"And it's run for the roses As fast as you can Your fate is delivered Your moment's at hand It's the chance of a lifetime In a lifetime of chance And it's high time you joined In the dance It's high time you joined In the dance."

"An only child alone and wild A cabinet maker's son. His hands were meant for different work And his heart was known to none -- He left his home and went his lone and solitary way And he gave to me a gift I know I never can repay."

"The leader of the band is tired And his eyes are growing old But his blood runs through my instrument And his song is in my soul -- My life has been a poor attempt To imitate the man. I'm just a living legacy To the leader of the band."

"We drank a toast to innocence We drank a toast to now. And tried to reach beyond the emptiness But neither one knew how."

"The beer was empty and our tongues were tired And running out of things to say. She gave a kiss to me as I got out And I watched her drive away.Just for a moment I was back at school And felt that old familiar pain And as I turned to make my way back home The snow turned into rain."

"She says no When she means yes And what she wants You know that I can't guess. When we want more You know we ask for less Such is the language of love..."

"Too many hearts have been broken Failing to trust what they feel. But trust isn't something that's spoken And love's never wrong when it's real."

"Looking back now toward the start You said you thought I'd lost my path And I asked if you still considered love an art And you said "No, I think it's more a craft" And I just turned and laughed I just had to turn and laugh."

"Venturing further than the length of your sight Out past the reach of your beginnings There is a gamble in each proud act of flight But the losses pale before the winnings Circling and diving with this freedom you’ve found Illusion blows apart and scatters There is no darkness in this place that we're bound Love is the only thing that matters"

"In 1814 we took a little trip Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip. We took a little bacon an' we took a little beans And we caught the bloody British at the town of New Orleans. We fired our guns an' the British kept a'comin'. There wasn't nigh as many as there was awhile ago. We fired once more an' they begin to runnin' Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico."

"Ole Hickory said we could take 'em by surprise, If we didn't fire our muskets 'til we looked 'em in the eyes. We held our fire 'til we seed their faces well, Then we opened up our squirrel guns an' really gave 'em ...well! Yeah, they ran through the briars an' they ran through the brambles An' they ran through the bushes where the rabbits couldn't go. They ran so fast that the hounds couldn't catch 'em Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico."

"We fired our cannon 'til the barrel melted down, So we grabbed an alligator an' we fought another round. We filled his head with cannon balls an' powdered his behind, An' when they touched the powder off, the 'gator lost his mind."

"Along about eighteen and twenty-five I left Tennessee very much alive I never would have got through the Arkansas mud If I hadn't been a-ridin on the Tennessee stud."

"The Tennessee stud was long and lean The color of the sun and his eyes were green. He had the nerve and he had the blood And there never was a hoss like the Tennessee stud."

"I found that girl with the golden hair And she was ridin' on a Tennessee mare."

"Stirrup to stirrup and side by side We crossed the mountains and the valleys wide. We came to Big Muddy and we forded the flood On the Tennessee mare and the Tennessee stud."

"Pretty little baby on the cabin floor Little hoss colt playin' 'round the door I love the girl with golden hair And the Tennessee stud loves the Tennessee mare."

"A professional entertainer who allows himself to become known as a singer of folk songs is bound to have trouble with his conscience—provided, of course, that he possesses one. As a performing artist, he will pride himself on timing and other techniques designed to keep the audience in his control [...] his respect for genuine folklore reminds him that these changes, and these techniques, may give the audience a false picture of folk music."

"Folk music is not so much a body of art as it is a process, an attitude, and a way of life; its distinguishing features lie not within the songs themselves, but in the relations of those songs to a folk culture."

"The Urban Literate Southern California Sub-Group of the Early Atomic Period has not yet produced a distinct body of folk music of its own."

"The distance between folk society and literate society is ever decreasing, and Teresa Brewer will yet shake hands with Mrs. Texas Gladden. But until that happens—until my own culture, and Teresa Brewer's, develops a folk tradition of its own—If I want to learn something about real folk music, I'll stick with Mrs. Gladden."

"I actually wanted to go to medical school. I actually wanted to be a laboratory biologist. I wanted to study. And I really wanted to find a cure for cancer. My grandmother had died of cancer. And I was always very good at the sciences. And I thought I would go and try and discover the cure for cancer."

"A thing called "Cherry Cherry", was my first big national hit. It was a top five record. And international, as well. And you know, that's what broke the dam. … Boom, as soon as that record hit, I was out on the road. And I've been out on the road… since then. … I didn't realize it at first, but I did want to perform. I liked it. It was fun. You know, I went through all of the growth experiences that you go through in any field. But I did like it. And you know, I've been doing it since."

"I'm a perfectionist. I like to get it right. I like to get it good. And you know, writing songs is not -- it's not the kind of thing that you can count on every day. You never know what's going to come or if it's going to come. So you -- you know, it's an uncertain kind of a thing."

"I'm a writer who performs. And I mean, I'm basically a writer. I've been doing it since I was 16. … For me, the balance between the two, the writing -- a year, two years, whatever it takes to do an album, and then you've had enough of writing and thinking and being introspective and all of that kind of stuff, and you want to get out on the road and you want to, you know, get into the physicality of performing."

"Her eyes would make an angel smile. They'd call her Sunday. She'll take a man and drive him wild. Her name is Sunday, And one day I'm gonna make her mine. It's gonna be so fine. You wait and see, It's gonna be Just Sunday and me."

"Girl, I don't want to fight, I'm a little bit wrong, And you're a little bit right. I said, girl, you know that it's true, It's a little bit me, And it's a little bit you too."

"Kentucky woman She shines with her own kind of light. She'd look at you once And a day that's all wrong looks all right. And I love her, God knows, I love her.Kentucky woman, If she get to know you, She goin' to own you. Kentucky woman."

"Don't know that I will, But until I can find me The girl who'll stay And won't play games behind me, I'll be what I am: A solitary man, solitary man."

"Says she loves me Yes, yes she does Gonna show me tonight, yeah She got the way to move me, Cherry"

"Ah, to be so exciting Won't need bright lights No, no we won't Gonna make our own lighting She got the way to move me, Cherry"

"Don't you know Girl, you'll be a woman soon. Please, come take my hand. Girl, you'll be a woman soon. Soon you'll need a man."

"Red, red wine Go to my head. Make me forget that I Still need her so.Red, red wine, It's up to you. All I can do, I've done. But memories won't go. No, memories won't go."

"I thought love was only true in fairy tales Meant for someone else but not for me …"

"Then I saw her face Now I'm a believer Not a trace of doubt in my mind I'm in love I'm a believer I couldn't leave her if I tried."

"Shilo when I was young, I used to call your name. When no one else would come, Shilo you always came and we'd play."

"Used to slip though every girl's hand like water There never was one who could ever tie me down Straight ahead and steady as Gibraltar 'Til you brought me tumblin' to the ground You got to me You brought me to may knees"

"I'm walkin' But I'm going nowhere at all. I'm 'bout to head any place in the world But the place that I am"

"Two bit manchild I was Born for nothin' mostly Good time with sometime women. Nothin' ain't ever hold me. You can't change me none."

"It's Love, Brother Love, say Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show. Pack up the babies and grab the old ladies. And ev'ryone goes, 'cause everyone knows Brother Love's show."

"Hands, touchin' hands, Reachin' out, touchin' me, touchin' you. Sweet Caroline. Good times never seemed so good. I've been inclined To believe they never would. But now I, look at the night And it don't seem so lonely. We fill it up with only two."

"Call the sun in the dead of the night And the sun gonna rise in the sky Touch a man who can't walk upright And that lame man, he gonna fly. And I fly, yeah, And I fly."

"Hitchin' on a twilight train Ain't nothing here that I care to take along. Maybe a song To sing when I want. No need to say please to no man For a happy tune."

""I am," I said To no one there An no one heard at all Not even the chair "I am," I cried "I am," said I And I am lost, and I can't even say why Leavin' me lonely still."

"Song sung blue, everybody knows one. Song sung blue, every garden grows one.Me and you are subject to The blues now and then. But when you take the blues And make a song, You sing 'em out again."

"You are the sun, I am the moon. You are the words, I am the tune. Play me."

"I've seen the light And I've seen the flame. And I've been this way before, And I'm sure to be this way again.For I've been refused, And I've been regained, And I've seen your eyes before, And I'm sure to see your eyes again. Once again.For I've been released, And I've been regained, And I've sung my song before, And I'm sure to sing my song again. Once again."

"Longfellow Serenade, Such were the plans I'd made. For she was a lady And I was a dreamer, With only words to trade."

"And here's to the songs we used to sing; And here's to the times we used to know. It's hard to hold them in our arms again, But hard to let them go."

"Dry your eyes and take your song out. It's a newborn afternoon. And if you can't recall the singer, You can still recall the tune.Dry your eyes and play it slowly, Like you're marching off to war. Sing it like you know he'd want it, Like we sang it once before."

"Desiree, Oh, Desiree. There I was found By the sweet passion sound Of your loving song. Time was right, the night was long.Remember Desiree, Oh, Desiree. And though somehow I knew I could only have you 'til the morning light, The night was long, the time was right."

"You don't bring me flowers. You don't sing me love songs. You hardly talk to me anymore. When you come through the door At the end of the day."

"Money talks, But it don't sing and dance. And it don't walk. And long as I can have you Here with me, I'd much rather be Forever in blue jeans."

"We've traveled halfway 'round the world To find ourselves again September morn We danced until the night became a brand new day Two lovers playing scenes from some romantic play September morning still can make me feel that way"

"Far We've been traveling far Without a home But not without a star.Free, Only want to be free. We huddle close; Hang on to a dream."

"Home, Don't it seem so far away? Oh, we're traveling light today, In the eye of the storm. In the eye of the storm.Home, To a new and a shiny place. Make our bed and we'll say our grace. Freedom's light burning warm. Freedom's light burning warm."

"Yesterday's songs Don't stay around long, Not much anymore. Yesterday's words Don't make themselves heard Like they did before."

"Turn on your heartlight; Let it shine wherever you go. Let it make a happy glow For all the world to see. Turn on your heartlight In the middle of a young boy's dream. Don't wake me up too soon. Gonna take a ride across the moon, You and me."

"All the diamonds in this world That mean anything to me Are conjured up by wind and sunlight sparkling on the sea I ran aground in a harbor town Lost the taste for being free Thank God he sent some gull chased ship To carry me to sea..."

"Catching the light and falling into dark And the world fades out like an overheard remark... In the falling dark"

"Had another dream about the lions at the door They were not half as frightening as they were before But I'm thinking about eternity Some kind'a ecstasy's got a hold on me Walls, windows, trees, waves coming through You be in me I'll be in you Together in eternity Some kind'a ecstasy's got a hold on me Up among the firs where it smells so sweet Or down in the valley were the river used to be I got my mind on eternity Some kind'a ecstasy's got a hold on me, and I'm Wondering where the lions are and I'm Wondering where the lions are..."

"Don't the hours grow shorter as the days go by?"

"These fragile bodies of touch and taste This vibrant skin, this hair like lace Spirits open to the thrust of grace Never a breath you can afford to waste, when you're Lovers in a dangerous time Lovers in a dangerous time..."

"Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight you got to kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight"

"I want to raise every voice At least I got to try Every time I think about it Water rises to my eyes Situation desperate Echoes of the victims cry If I had a rocket launcher If I had a rocket launcher If I had a rocket launcher Some son of a bitch would die"

"If this were the last night of the world What would I do What would I do that was different Unless it was champagne with you..."

"Last Night of the World"

"Hail hero, hail hero, child of the sun All covered with flowers still having your fun"

"Hail hero, hail hero, child of your fate Come into the kitchen don't stand by the gate And show us your wisdom before it's too late"

"Hail hero, hail hero, let me see you smile You been gone for so damn long, I wish you'd stay awhile"

"The liquor tasted good and here the women all were fast... You can't jump a jet plane Like you can a freight train So I'll best be on my way In the early morning rain"

"But now the seeds are planted and the gates are opened wide The old ways are forgotten there is no place left to hide And the legacy I'm leaving you is not very hard to find You'll see it all around you at this crossroads of time In the sweet soil its a growing at the crossroads of time"

"If I could only have you near To breathe a sigh or two I would be happy just to hold the hands I love On this winters night with you"

"There was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run And the wild majestic mountains stood alone against the sun Long before the white man and long before the wheel When the green dark forest was too silent to be real... Oh! The song of the future has been sung All the battles have been won On the mountain tops we stand All the world at our command We have opened up the soil with our teardrops and our toil"

"And the body of a dead youth Lies stretched upon the ground Upon the filthy pavements No reason can be found Black day in July"

"Satin rays and coloured days Stark blue horizons Naked limbs and wheat bins, hazy afternoons Voicing, rejoicing the wine cups do bring Pussywillows, cat-tails, soft winds and roses"

"Some say he was a sailor who died away at sea Some say he was a prisoner who never was set free Lost upon the ocean he died there in the mist Dreaming of a kiss Bitter Green they called her walking in the sun Loving everyone that she met Bitter Green they called her waiting in the sun Waiting for someone to take her home"

"If you could read my mind, love, What a tale my thoughts could tell. Just like an old time movie, 'Bout a ghost from a wishing well. In a castle dark or a fortress strong, With chains upon my feet."

"If I could read your mind, love, What a tale your thoughts could tell. Just like a paperback novel, The kind the drugstores sell. Then you reached the part where the heartaches come, The hero would be me. But heroes often fail, And you won't read that book again Because the ending's just too hard to take!"

"I never thought I could feel this way And I've got to say that I just don't get it. I don't know where we went wrong, But the feeling's gone And I just can't get it back."

"I can see her lookin fast in her faded jeans She's a hard lovin woman got me feelin mean Sometimes I think its a shame when I get feelin better when I'm feelin no pain Sundown you better take care if I find you been creepin round my back stairs Sundown you better take care if I find you been creepin round my back stairs"

"Searching through the fragments of my dream shattered sleep I wonder if the years have closed her mind I guess it must be wanderlust or trying to get free From the good old faithful feeling we once knew Carefree highway, let me slip away on you Carefree highway you seen better days.."

"When supper time came the old cook came on deck saying "Fellas its too rough to feed ya" When at 7:00 pm the main hatch way caved in he said "Fellas its been good to know ya" The captain wired in, he had water coming in and the big ship and crew was in peril When latter that night when her lights went outta sight came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?... And all that remains is the faces and names of the wives and the sons and the daughters..."

"Ah, for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea Tracing one warm line through a land so wide and savage And make a northwest passage to the sea."

"Seeking gold and glory, leaving weathered, broken bones And a long-forgotten lonely cairn of stones."

"Race the roaring Fraser to the sea."

"To seek a Northwest Passage at the call of many men To find there but the road back home again."

"Oh, the year was seventeen seventy-eight (how I wish I was in Sherbrooke now!)"

"God damn them all! I was told we'd cruise the seas for American gold we'd fire no guns -- shed no tears! Now I'm a broken man on a Halifax pier The last of Barrett's Privateers."

"Rise again Rise again That her name not be lost to the knowledge of men."

"No matter what you've lost Be it a home, a love, a friend Like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again."

"And you to whom adversity has dealt the final blow With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go"

"For one minute, think of the last guy. Nobody's got it worse than that guy. Nobody in the whole world. He's so alone in the world, that he doesn't even have a street to lay in for a truck to run him over."

"Be serious. Folk songs are serious. That's what Pete Seeger told me. "Arlo, I only wanna tell you one thing. Folk songs are serious." And I said "Right.""

"It's about the time I was riding my Motorcycle, going down a mountain road at 150 miles an hour, playing my guitar."

"Back around 1971, I was playing in a bar in Chicago one night, and after the show, I was packing up my guitar and stuff, and I was walking out the door, and a little guy stopped me. And he said, "Arlo, before you leave, I wanna sing you a song." I said "Come on man, I don't wanna hear no songs. I hate songs. I don't even like my songs! Why should I like your songs?" I was just tired, I wanted to get out of there, I was being a butt-head. He said, "Arlo, I just wanna sing you one song." I said, "Tell you what. Buy me beer. I'll sit here and drink it. As long as it lasts, you can do whatever you want." He said, "That sounds like a good deal." I said "It does?" It turned out to be one of the finer beers of my entire life."

"[My mother] said, "Arlo, I was out in the middle of China. And they brought out these school kids, and they started singing us songs, and they started singing 'This Land is Your Land', and I said 'STOP! Stop the song! My husband wrote that song!" She must have drove them nuts! She was driving me nuts about it! It was weeks after she had got back she hadn't slowed down about it one little bit! And I just looked at her and I said, "You know, mom...California.....to the New York Island. What are they singing it for over there anyhow?" She just looked with one of those Mom kind of looks. She said, "Oh Arlo..." She walked away. I was left standing there feeling like my usual self. I knew she was right, but I just didn't know why. After a while though, it come to me. I could see it, just because it said "California to the New York Island", didn't mean it had to go the short way! I could see it going around back! Redwood Forests, Gulf stream waters, around that way! Then the whole world could be singing that song! Except America."

"We went back, afterward, after the show was over that night, I took my kids backstage and said, "You know what? I know my dad's songs...""

"I froze in time! And I thought "My God......I'm free!""

"I'm thinking that somewhere around the world, I remember after this 9/11 event back home, people didn't feel much like playing, singing, people didn't feel like going out. But then I thought you know, that somewhere in the world, somebody's hiding behind a rock or a tree, or a wall, or something, and somebody else has been shooting at them for quite some time. Somebody's dreaming, somebody's hoping that somewhere, somebody's singing. Somebody's smiling, and laughing, and life is good, and it's fun to be a human being, and it's all right. And I thought man we got to keep that spirit going, you know, and so we got back out on the road. But I think of that every time that we play now. It would be nice to go anywhere in the world to go and do these kind of things and have fun and live right and not be worried about stuff like that. That's my hope, that everywhere in the world that will happen soon."

"You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant Walk right in, it's around the back Just a half a mile from the railroad track You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant"

"This song is called "Alice's Restaurant". It's about Alice. And the Restaurant. But Alice's Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant, that's just the name of the song. That's why I called this song "Alice's Restaurant.""

"Alice doesn't live in the restaurant, she lives in the church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and Fasha the dog. And living in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of room downstairs where the pews used to be in. Having all that room, seeing as how they took out all the pews, they decided that they didn't have to take out their garbage for a long time."

"We came to a side road, and off the side of the side road there was another fifteen foot cliff and at the bottom of the cliff there was another pile of garbage. And we decided that one big pile is better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up we decided to throw ours down."

"Now friends, there was only one or two things that Obie coulda done at the police station, and the first was he could have given us a medal for being so brave and honest on the telephone, which wasn't very likely, and we didn't expect it, and the other thing was he could have bawled us out and told us never to be see driving garbage around the vicinity again, which is what we expected, but when we got to the police officer's station, there was a third possibility that we hadn't even counted upon, and we was both immediately arrested. Handcuffed. And I said "Obie, I don't think I can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on." He said, "Shut up, kid. Get in the back of the patrol car.""

"I want tell you about the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where this happened here, they got three stop signs, two police officers, and one police car, but when we got to the scene of the crime, there was five police officers and three police cars, being the biggest crime of the last fifty years, and everybody wanted to get in the newspaper story about it."

"And they took twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. Took pictures of the approach, the getaway, the northwest corner the southwest corner and that's not to mention the aerial photography."

"...And it was about four or five hours later that Alice — Remember Alice? It's a song about Alice."

"They got a building down New York City, it's called Whitehall Street, where you walk in, you get injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected. I went down to get my physical examination one day, and I walked in, I sat down, got good and drunk the night before, so I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning."

"And I walked in and sat down and they gave me a piece of paper, said, "Kid, see the psychiatrist, room 604." And I went up there, I said, "Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL." And I started jumping up and down yelling, "KILL, KILL," and he started jumping up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down yelling, "KILL, KILL." And the Sargent came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said, "You're our boy.""

"Group W's where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father rapers!"

"And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean 'n' ugly 'n' nasty 'n' horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me and said, "Kid, whad'ya get?" I said, "I didn't get nothing, I had to pay $50 and pick up the garbage." He said, "What were you arrested for, kid?" And I said, "Littering." And they all moved away from me on the bench there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I said, "And creating a nuisance." And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench."

"I went over to the Sargent, said, "Sargent, you got a lot a damn gall to ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I'm sitting here on the bench, I mean I'm sitting here on the Group W bench 'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after being a litterbug.""

"If you're in a situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into the shrink wherever you are, just walk in say "Shrink, You can get anything you want, at Alice's restaurant." And walk out. You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement. And that's what it is, the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on the guitar!"

"And they say She's in the Class A Team. Stuck in her daydream, Been this way since 18. But lately her face seems Slowly sinking, wasting, Crumbling like pastries. And they scream The worst things in life come free to us. Cos we're just under the upperhand And go mad for a couple of grams. And she don't want to go outside tonight. And in a pipe she flies to the Motherland Or sells love to another man. It's too cold outside For angels to fly; Angels to fly."

"I wanna be drunk when I wake up On the right side of the wrong bed. And every excuse I made up Tell you the truth I hate. What didn't kill me, It never made me stronger at all."

"'Cause maybe you're loveable. Maybe you're my snowflake. And your eyes turn from green to gray. And in the winter I'll hold you in a cold place. And you should never cut your hair, 'Cause I love the way you flick it off your shoulder.And you will never know Just how beautiful you are to me. But maybe I'm just in love When you wake me up."

"You were just a Small Bump unborn, in Four months you're brought to life. You might be left with my hair, but you'll have your Mother's eyes. I'll hold your body in my hands be as gentle as I can, but for now you're a scan of my unmade plans. Small bump, four months you are brought to life."

"I'm gonna pick up the pieces, and build a Lego house. When things go wrong we can knock it down."

"I'm out of sight, I'm out of mind I'll do it all for you in time And out of all these things I've done I think I love you better now."

"That's you now, hello, ciao. Seems that life is great now. See me lose focus, as I sing to you loud. I can't, no, I won't hush. I'll say the words that make you blush. I'm gonna sing this now. See, I'm true, my songs are where my heart is."

"Give me love, like her Cos lately I've been waking up alone. The pain splatters teardrops on my shirt. I told you I'd let them go."

"Three things I hate in life: Ria, lies and ungratefulness."

"Just have a listen to my songs. If you still want to beat me up, you can."

"Fame has earned me great applause, thanks to our generous people. of course, this fortune brought my financial situation. and the increasing love of the people who did not decline for years. Everything is mutual. I liked it very much, too many listeners, my followers ... I paid my price with my heart, unfortunately. my heart is tired and said that this event comes from the stress of the scene that lasts for 25 years; doctors. And I said goodbye to the stage for 4 years. I gave my heart. I bought a lot but I gave it my heart, sir."

"Music indeed changes and evolves with time, as does the preferences of the audience, I believe it is a good idea to listen to and appreciate all kinds of music. That is how we learn to differentiate and educate ourselves. However, it is important to never forget our roots, without roots nothing grows!"

"I would like to inspire the younger generation to go back to the roots we belong to. I feel that the songs will bring back those memories."

"My mother was a popular folk singer. I grew up listening to her songs and know the lyrics and tunes by heart. Although she wanted me to become a singer, I chose a career in the aviation industry. I have come back after more than 10 years to fulfil her dream."

"Everybody's wonderin' what and where they all came from. Everybody's worryin' 'bout where they're gonna go When the whole thing's done. But no one knows for certain And so it's all the same to me. I think I'll just let the mystery be."

"Some say once gone you're gone forever And some say you're going to come back. Some say you rest in the arms of the Saviour If in sinful ways you lack. Some say that they're coming back in a garden, Bunch of carrots and little sweet peas. I think I'll just let the mystery be."

"Far away I've travelled To stand once more alone. And hear my memories echo Through these hills that I call home. As a child I roamed this valley, I watched the seasons come and go. I spent many hours dreaming On these hills that I call home."

"And you know the sun's settin' fast And just like they say nothing good ever lasts. Well, go on now and kiss it goodbye but hold on to your lover. 'Cause your heart's bound to die. Go on now and say goodbye to our town, to our town. Can't you see the sun's settin' down on our town, on our town? Goodnight."

"Sweet is the melody, so hard to come by, It's so hard to make every note bend just right. You lay down the hours and leave not one trace But a tune for the dancing is there in it's place."

"Fireflies inside of a mason jar, Acting big behind the wheel of daddy's car. Playing church around the old piano stand, You were quite a preacher and oh, we sang so grand. I remember every night what we would say and do: "If you've forgiven me, then I've forgiven you." And now when life begins to get the best of me, I reminisce these childhood memories."

"I've got no time to look back, I've got no time to see The pieces of my heart that have been ripped away from me. And if the feeling starts to coming, I've learned to stop 'em fast Because I don't know, if I let 'em go, they might not wanna pass. And there's just so many people trying to get me on the phone And there's bills to pay, and songs to play And a house to make a home. I guess I'm older now and I've got no time to cry."

"My life, it don't count for nothing; When I look at this world, I feel so small. My life, it's only a season: A passing September that no one will recall."

"I wish you love - and happiness I guess I wish - you all the best I wish you don't - do like I do And never fall in love with someone like you Cause if you fell - just like I did You'd probably walk around the block like a little kid But kids don't know - they can only guess..."

"Kiss a little baby Give the world a smile If you take an inch Give 'em back a mile Cause if you lie like a rug And you don't give a damn You're never gonna be As happy as a clam So I'm sitting in a hotel Trying to write a song My head is just as empty As the day is long."

"I can see the fire burning Burning right behind your eyes I can see the fire burning, baby Burning right behind your eyes You must've swallowed a candle Or some other kind of surprise."

"It's a measure of treasure that gives me the pleasure Of loving you the way I do And you know I would gladly say I need your love badly And bring these little things to you. Cause you got gold Gold inside of you You got gold Gold inside of you Well I got some Gold inside me too"

"Why just before last Christmas My baby went away And I find it real surprising For myself to hear me say That everything is cool Everything's okay"

"Oh my God, what have I gotten myself into? I'm a human corkscrew and all my wine is blood They're gonna kill me Mama. They don't like me Bud. So Jesus went to Heaven and he went there awful quick All them people killed him and he wasn't even sick So come and gather around me my contemporary peers And I'll tell you all the story of Jesus, the missing years"

"Ya' know that old trees just grow stronger And old rivers grow wilder every day Old people just grow lonesome Waiting for someone to say, "Hello in there, hello"... So if you're walking down the street sometime And spot some hollow ancient eyes Please don't just pass 'em by and stare As if you didn't care, say, "Hello in there, hello""

"Sam Stone came home To the wife and family After serving in the conflict overseas. And the time that he served, Had shattered all his nerves, And left a little shrapnel in his knees. But the morphine eased the pain, And the grass grew round his brain, And gave him all the confidence he lacked, With a purple heart and a monkey on his back. There's a hole in daddy's arm where all the money goes, Jesus Christ died for nothin I suppose, Little pitchers have big ears, Don't stop and count the years, Sweet songs never last too long on broken radios."

"Well, sometimes we'd travel right down the Green River To the abandoned old prison down by Airdrie Hill Where the air smelled like snakes and we'd shoot with our pistols But empty pop bottles was all we would kill. Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man."

"I know a man who's got a lot to lose A pretty nice fella, kinda confused Got muscles in his head that've never been used He thinks he owns half of this town He goes out drinkin' gets a big red nose Beats his old lady with a rubber hose Then he takes her out to dinner Buys her new clothes That's the way that the world goes 'round You're up one day, the next you're down It's a half-an-inch of water and you think you're gonna drown That's the way that the world goes 'round"

"Many years later I found myself talking to this girl Who was standing there with her back turned to Lake Marie The wind was blowing especially through her hair ...Many years later we found ourselves in Canada Trying to save our marriage and perhaps catch a few fish Whatever seemed easier, that night she fell asleep in my arms Humming the tune to, "Louie Louie" Aah baby, we gotta go now"

"We were standing, Standing by peaceful waters Standing by peaceful waters Whoa, wah, oh wha, oh Whoa, wah, oh wha, oh"

"And the old men sit round the cracker barrels The children hum their Christmas carols The train tracks all run parallel But they'll all meet up one day"

"On a dusty pew in a vestibule Sits the Devil playing pocket pool He's waiting for the next poor fool Who forgot that it was Sunday"

"We are the lonely all together All together we're all alone We are the lonely all together All together we're all alone"

"The cashier at the pump & pay Knows everything's gonna be okay The all night all right rent-a-cop Is across the street at the donut shop The waitress waits with whiskey sour At the single mingle happy hour The one man band begins to sing Accompanied by a drum machine"

"I am an old woman named after my mother My old man is another child that's grown old If dreams were lightning thunder was desire This old house would have burnt down a long time ago Make me an angel that flies from Montgom'ry Make me a poster of an old rodeo Just give me one thing that I can hold on to To believe in this living is just a hard way to go When I was a young girl well, I had me a cowboy He weren't much to look at, just free rambling man But that was a long time and no matter how I try The years just flow by like a broken down dam."

"God bless this kitchen said the knick-knack chef The dinner's almost ready Go and wash yourself Jimmy's growing up now and Wanda's growing old The time is growin' shorter the nights are long and cold C'mon, baby, spend the night with me. Sneaking in the closet and through the diary Now, don't you know all he saw was all there was to see The whole town saw Jimmy on the six o'clock news His brains were on the sidewalk and blood was on his shoes"

"Caught a train from Alexandria Just a broken man in flight Running scared with his devils Saying prayers all through the night Oh but mercy can't find him Not in the shadows where he calls Forsaking all his better angels That's how every empire falls"

"Padlock the door and board the windows Put the people in the street "It's just my job," he says "I'm sorry." And draws a check, goes home to eat But at night he tells his woman "I know I hide behind the laws." She says, "You're only taking orders." That's how every empire falls."

"A bitter wind blows through the country A hard rain falls on the sea If terror comes without a warning There must be something we don't see What fire begets this fire? Like torches thrown into the straw If no one asks, then no one answers That's how every empire falls."

"We made love In every way love can be made And we made time Look like time Could never fade Friday Night We both made the guitars hum Saturday made Sunday feel Like it would never come Gonna be a long Monday Sittin' all alone on a mountain By a river that has no end"

"There's a girl in the white house I don't even know her name Her disheveled appearance Speaks volumes of shame It's an embarrassing situation But a situation just the same The way she walks on others And never takes the blame Upsets my constitution Beyond its mortal frame."

"Some humans ain't human Some people ain't kind You open up their hearts And here's what you'll find A few frozen pizzas Some ice cubes with hair A broken Popsicle You don't want to go there..."

"You're feeling your freedom And the world's off your back Some cowboy from Texas Starts his own war in Iraq]] Some humans ain't human Some people ain't kind"

"The dark and distant drumming The pounding of the hooves The silence of everything that moves Late at night you'll see them decked out in shiny jewels the coming of the caravan of fools"

"Love and devotion, deep as any ocean don't play by anybody's rules With your carousel of horses and your unforeseen forces, you're running with the caravan of fools Caravan of fools, caravan of fools You're running with the caravan of fools"

"I woke up this morning to a garbage truck Looks like this ol' horseshoe's done run out of luck If I came home, would you let me in? Fry me some pork chops and forgive my sin?"

"Surround me with your boundless love Confound me with your boundless love I was drowning in the sea, Lost as I could be When you found me With your boundless love"

"Sometimes my old heart is like a washing machine It bounces around 'til my Soul comes clean And when I'm clean and hung out to dry I'm gonna make you laugh until you cry"

"If by chance I should find myself at risk of falling from this jagged cliff I look below, and I look above I'm surrounded by your boundless love"

"Summer's end's around the bend just flyin' The swimmin' suits are on the line just dryin' I'll meet you there for our conversation I hope I didn't ruin your whole vacationWell you never know how far from home you're feelin' Until you've watched the shadows cross the ceilin' Well I don't know, but I can see it snowin' In your car the windows are wide open"

"When I get to heaven, I'm gonna shake God's hand Thank him for more blessings than one man can stand Then I'm gonna get a guitar and start a rock-n-roll band Check into a swell hotel, ain't the afterlife grand?"

"I've been down this road before I remember every tree Every single blade of grass Holds a special place for me And I remember every town And every hotel room Every song I ever sang On a guitar out of tune"

"I remember everything Things I can't forget The way you turned and smiled on me On the night that we first met And I remember every night Your ocean eyes of blue How I miss you in the morning light Like roses miss the dew"

"Meet me in the middle of the day Let me hear you say, "Everything's okay" Bring me southern kisses from your room Meet me in the middle of the night Let me hear you say, "Everything's alright" Let me smell the moon in your perfume ... Oh, Gods and years will rise and fall And there's always something more Lost in talk, I waste my time And it's all been said before..."

"There's a light There's a fire shining Day and night It came burning through Shine on me Shine on down you keep me High and dry I'm in love with you"

"Wait till the sidewalk shivers the beggars Robbed in their blankets they try to hang on Light from the street lane seems to shine better After the autumn has been here and gone ... God help the lost and lonely, God help the poor Cold days and ice nights only Hard times for sure, hard times for sure"

"You know you make your own decisions and you live the life you choose I watch it from the sidelines and it sure gives me the blues You know you're sure to find me waiting, should you ever come around"

"Waking up and trying to think, what went down, what'd we do? I rub my eyes and I shake my head and feel the sun Plane takes off on the old runway, snow fell light on the ground today Lost an hour that I gained before, headed back to my New York door. Fare thee well, adios, adieu and best of luck to all of you I ain't no saint and I don't pretend to be, but I hope you all found a friend in me City lights blink and shine, down below, let it change It's often said that life is strange, oh yes, but compared to what?"

"You sure looked good, bound for Shilburn Town Tryin' to drive that car while the rain came down And you sure looked fine Oh yeah, readin' highway signs And you sure looked good up on Crystal Beach Reelin' in them fish, with your hair all bleached And you sure looked fine Hey, yeah, with your hooks and lines La, da, di, dumb, da, la, da, di, dumb, day Every move you make, everything you say Well, you sure are fine Oh yes and you blow my mind"

"It ain’t no big secret the trouble you're in You wear a thin mask and it smiles and it grins ..., it’s heard at the parties yes and over the phones Because it's cellophane city and everyone knows There's no secret, nothing, and that's how it goes Cellophane city, you try as you may There's no secret, nothing, it's all on display"

"My problems are few If I don't stop to think The red golden leaves Scream the song of the sun The high rolling hills Give it all in the fall The hot days are gone... now"

"I'm traveling alone Up the highway of sight The blue shadows fall On the graveyard of stone The mild afternoon Puts the coffee cup down My eyes see the moon... rise And all I am is energy And now I'm in this form I came shooting down the universe at birth"

"Yeah, I am! It sounds so stupid – to be a nice person is the best thing in the world – but, yeah, I’m 20 and I just want to have fun. What I don’t want to do is live the rest of my life thinking, ‘I wouldn’t do that because I’m known as Prince Charming.’ The second that someone corners you into a personality, you don’t want to be that person any more."

"For me it’s hurtful. I get mad when people assume things about me because I imagine the people who don’t have the support system I have and how that must affect them."

"Strangely enough, I was performing in Chicago at the time, and when it was released, that song "Here We Go, Baby" was a hit in Chicago. It became a big hit in Chicago. It was the only place, but it was there. And it was kind of odd, even for me, because I always prided myself in singing songs with lyrics that meant something."

"Stories can change. Stories change. Let nothing rob you of hope, stories change!"

"My kind, you have to work on yourself extra in following the laws of GOD in building the right core values, having SENSE, emotional intelligence, appropriate body language towards situations, use of words, generally growing in the Spirit’s things! Wisdom. Knowledge. Understanding. Be extra."

"We were all influenced by some people; even when we might not remember their faces, the godly values they lived by stay with us for life."

"The bible is words of people of time past under the influence of the Holy Spirit, so if the Holy Spirit wants to talk through me, I can say them based on my words without quoting the bible."

"When you have a deeper understanding of your life you know whatever happens is pre-destined."

"Been Born again is an event been broken is a process."

"There's greater honor in been humble."

"I've played every kind of gig there is to play now. I've played faggot bars, hooker bars, motor cycle funerals, in opera houses, concert halls, halfway houses. Well, I found that in all these places that I've played all the people that I've played for are the same people. So if you'll listen, maybe you'll see someone you know in this song. A most disgusting song."

"Born in the troubled city in rock and roll USA in the shadow of the tallest building, I vowed I would break away. Listened to the Sunday actors but all they would ever say: That you can't get away from it. No you can't get away. No you can't get away from it. No you can't get away."

"'Cause I lost my job two weeks before Christmas. And I talked to Jesus at the sewer and the Pope said it was none of his God-damned business. While the rain drank champagne, my Estonian archangel came and got me wasted. 'Cause the sweetest kiss I ever got is the one I've never tasted. Oh, but they'll take their bonus pay to Molly McDonald. Neon lady, beauty is that which obeys, is bought or borrowed."

"Was it a huntsman or a player that made you pay the cost that now assumes relaxed positions And prostitutes your loss? Were you tortured by your own thirst in those pleasures that you seek that made you Tom the Curious; that makes you James the Weak? And you claim you've got something going, something you call unique, but I've seen your self-pity showing as the tears rolled down your cheeks."

"But thanks for your time. Then you can thank me for mine. And after that's said, forget it. Don't be inane, there's no one to blame: no reason why you should stay here and lie to me. Don't say any more, just walk out the door, I'll get along fine. You'll see."

"Woman, please be gone. You've stayed here much too long. Don't you wish that you could cry? Don't you wish I would die? Seamy seesaw kids. Child-women on the skids. The dust will choke you blind. The lust will choke your mind. I kiss the floor, one kick, no more. The pig and hose have set me free. I've tasted Hate Street's hanging tree. I've tasted Hate Street's hanging tree."

"And I'll forget about the girl that said no. Then I'll tell who I want where to go. And I'll forget about your lies and deceit and your attempts to be so discreet. Maybe today, yeah, I'll slip away. And you can keep your symbols of success. Then I'll pursue my own happiness. And you can keep your clocks and routines. Then I'll go mend all my shattered dreams. Maybe today, yeah, I'll slip away."

"Going down a dirty inner city side road, I plotted. Madness passed me by, she smiled Hi. I nodded. Looked up as the sky began to cry; she shot it. Met a girl from Dearborn early six o'clock this morn: a cold fact. Asked about her bag. "Suburbia's such a drag, won't go back, 'cause Papa don't allow no new ideas here, and now he sees the news, but the picture's not too clear.""

"Just a song we shared, I'll hear brings memories back, when you were here of your smile, your easy laughter, of your kiss. Those moments after. I think of you and think of you and think of you."

"I wonder how many times you've been had. And I wonder how many plans have gone bad. I wonder how many times you had sex? And I wonder do you know who'll be next? I wonder. I wonder. Wonder, I do. I wonder about the love you can't find. And I wonder about the loneliness that's mine. I wonder how much going have you got? And I wonder about your friends that are not. I wonder. I wonder. Wonder I do."

"Now you sit there thinking. Feeling insecure. The mocking court gesture claims there is no proven cure. Go back to your chamber, your eyes upon the wall. 'Cos you got no one to listen, you got no one to call. And you think I'm curious. Drifting, drowning in a purple sea of doubt you wanna hear she loves you but the words don't fit the mouth. You're a loser, a rebel-a-cause-without. But don't think me callous."

"And you measure for wealth by the things you can hold and you measure for love by the sweet things you're told and you live in the past of a dream that you're in and your selfishness is your cardinal sin. And you want to be held with highest regard. It delights you so much if he's trying so hard. And you're trying to conceal your ordinary way with a smile or a shrug or some stolen cliché. But don't you understand? And don't you look about? I'm trying to take nothing from you so why should you act so put out, for me?"

"My pocket don't drive me fast, my mother treats me slow, my statue's got a concrete heart but you're the coldest bitch I know. In the factory that you call your mind: graveyard thoughts of stone. A master thief, I wouldn't enter there, you've nothing I would care to own (so help me)."

"The moon is hanging in the purple sky. The baby's sleeping while its mother sighs. Talking about the rich folks: rich folks have the same jokes and they park in basic places. The priest is preaching from a shallow grave. He counts his money then he paints you saved. Talking to the young folks: young folks share the same jokes but they'd meet in older places."

"The generals hate holidays. Others shoot up to chase the sun blues away. Another store front church is open. Sea of neon lights. A boxer, his shadow fights. Soldier tired and sailor broken. Winter's asleep at my window. Cold wind waits at my door. She asks me up to her place but I won't be down anymore."

"Street boy, you've been out too long. Street boy, ain't you got enough sense to go home? Street boy, you're gonna end up alone. You need some love and understanding, not that dead end life you're planning, street boy."

"Sugar Man, won't you hurry 'cause I'm tired of these scenes. For a blue coin, won't you bring back all those colors to my dreams? Silver magic ships, you carry jumpers, coke, sweet Mary Jane. Sugar Man met a false friend on a lonely dusty road. Lost my heart. When I found it it had turned to dead black coal."

"The Mayor hides the crime rate. Council woman hesitates. Public gets irate but forgets the vote date. Weatherman complaining "Predicted sun. It's raining." Everyone's protesting. Boyfriend keeps suggesting you're not like all of the rest. Garbage ain't collected. Women ain't protected. Politicians using people they're abusing. The mafia's getting bigger, like pollution in the river and you tell me that this is where it's at."

"Don't sit and wait. Don't sit and dream. Put on a smile, go find a scene. I'm sure you'd meet someone who would really love you. Don't sit and hope. Don't sit and pine. If you've been hurt make up your mind. I'm sure you'd find someone who would really love you."

"You don't tug on Superman's cape. You don't spit into the wind. You don't pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger. And you don't mess around with Jim."

"Operator, well could you help me place this call? Cause I can't read the number that you just gave me. There's something in my eyes, You know it happens every time I think about the love that I thought would save me.But isn't that the way they say it goes? Well let's forget all that And give me the number if you can find it So I can call just to tell 'em I'm fine, and to show I've overcome the blow, I've learned to take it well. I only wish my words could just convince myself That it just wasn't real. But that's not the way it feels."

"If I could save time in a bottle, The first thing that I'd like to do Is to save every day till eternity passes away Just to spend them with you."

"But there never seems to be enough time To do the things you want to do, once you find them. I've looked around enough to know That you're the one I want to go through time with."

"But tomorrow's a dream away and today has turned to dust. Your silver tongue has turned to clay and your golden rule to rust. If that's the way that you want it well that's the way I want it more, Cause there'll be one less set of footprints on your floor in the mornin'. Oh there'll be one less set of footsteps on your floor in the mornin'."

"Well, the South side of Chicago is the baddest part of town. And if you go down there, you better just beware Of a man named Leroy Brown. Now, Leroy, more than trouble, You see, he stands, about, six foot four. All the downtown ladies call him "Treetop Lover", All the men just call him "Sir" (Right on).And he's bad, bad Leroy Brown, The baddest man in the whole damn town. Badder than old King Kong, Meaner than a junkyard dog."

"But it doesn't have to be that way; What we had should never have ended. I'll be dropping by today. We could easily get it together tonight, It's only right."

"Like the pine trees lining the winding road, I've got a name, I've got a name. Like the singin' bird and the croakin' toad, I've got a name, I've got a name.And I carry it with me like my daddy did, But I'm livin' the dream that he kept hid.Movin' me down the highway, rollin' me down the highway, Movin' ahead so life won't pass me by."

"Well, I had just got out from the county prison, Doin' ninety days for non-support. Tried to find me an executive position, But no matter how smooth I talked, They wouldn't listen to the fact that I was genius. The man said, "We got all that we can use," Now I got themSteadily depressin', low down mind-messin' Workin' at the carwash blues."

"Well, I know it's kinda late; I hope I didn't wake you. But what I gotta say can't wait. I know you'd understand.Every time I tried to tell you The words just came out wrong. So, I'll have to say "I love you" in a song."

"The original acoustic guitar hero, Bert Jansch was a player’s player, and you need only look at the list of people that count him as an influence to see that. Everybody from Jimmy Page and Neil Young to Pete Doherty and beyond cite Jansch’s distinctive and wide-ranging style as an essential ingredient in their playing. One of the true pathfinders of the ‘60s folk music, Jansch’s complex fingerpicking and dark, brooding songwriting established his reputation, and whether solo or with Pentangle he proved his boundless ability with an acoustic time and time again."

"There has been no more potent embodiment of that spirit than the singer Huddie Ledbetter, known as ‘Leadbelly’. Ordinary he wasn’t: born in rural Texas in c.1888, regal in bearing and strong as an ox, he claimed to be the world’s greatest cotton picker, railroad track layer, lover, drinker and guitar player. His pride was matched by a temper and disposition to violence, resulting in spells in prison for assault and murder. And it was in 1933, in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, that he was discovered by folksong collectors John and Alan Lomax. Under the sponsorship of the Lomaxes, Leadbelly began his rise to stardom, benefiting from the gathering vogue for trad jazz and rugged authenticity. He gave concerts across the US and Europe, dying in New York in 1949. Though the strictest arbiters exclude his work from the jazz canon, it’s hard not to recognise his vital link to the essential force of the music."

"A haven woven with warm colors A woolen place to rest your head And a light comes in Forms and binds you To mold and carry you this long way to go"

"I was inspired to write a folk song — about how soldiers have no choice in the matter but to follow orders — but with the irreverence of rock ’n’ roll."

"And it's one, two, three, what are we fighting for? Don't ask me I don't give a damn Next stop is Vietnam. And it's five, six, seven, open up the pearly gates, Well there ain't no time to wonder why, Whoopie! We're all gonna die!"

"Now come on mothers throughout the land Pack your boys off to Vietnam Come on fathers don't hesitate Send your sons off before it's too late And you can be the first one on your block To have your boy come home in a box."