Singer Songwriters From England

"I actually have an ear infection, which is pretty grim. I've never had an ear infection before," she said. "It is the most painful thing that has ever, ever happened to me in my life — it was worse than childbirth."

"I am no longer in pain, which is great."

"No way I was missing the f------ show."

"I haven't played in Europe since 2016! I couldn't think of a more wonderful way to spend my summer and end this beautiful phase of my life and career with shows closer to home during such an exciting summer."

"If I get antsy, that's when I know I have to go to the studio, and I am the opposite of antsy right now."

"The guy whose movie it would be, he's not mentally ready to write the script for it."

"That's the only role I ever want," she said. "Because I think I'd nail it. I think I'd do really, really, really good at it."

"I hadn't quite gotten the chance to get back to full health before shows resumed, and now I am sick again and unfortunately it's all taken a toll on my voice."

"I don't really need to stand out, there's room for everyone. Although I haven't built a niche yet, I'm just writing love songs."

"I don't have any plans for new music, at all, I want a big break after this and I think I want to do other creative things, just for a little while."

"Send my love to your new lover, Treat her better. We've gotta let go of all of our ghosts. We both know we ain't kids no more."

"I don't like being famous. I love that I get to make music all the time."

"I love seeing Lady Gaga's boobs and bum. I love seeing Katy Perry's boobs and bum. Love it. But that's not what my music is about. I don’t make music for eyes, I make music for ears."

"I have to wait for a feeling."

"I have 10 shows to do, but after that I will not see you for an incredibly long time, and I will hold you dear in my heart."

"I'm just going to sing now because I want to, and I'll make records when I want to and not because someone is forcing me to do it. Not that anyone ever has. I'd fire them if they tried."

"I have insecurities of course, but I don't hang out with anyone who points them out to me."

"Let me photograph you in this light In case it is the last time that we might Be exactly like we were before we realised We were sad of getting old, it made us restless. It was just like a movie, It was just like a song."

"I'm mortified to have to pay 50%! [While] I use the NHS, I can't use public transport any more. Trains are always late, most state schools are shit, and I've gotta give you, like, four million quid – are you having a laugh? When I got my tax bill in from [the album] 19, I was ready to go and buy a gun and randomly open fire."

"If you're not the one for me, Then how come I can bring you to your knees? If you're not the one for me, Why do I hate the idea of being free? And if I'm not the one for you, You've gotta stop holding me the way you do. Oh honey, if I'm not the one for you, Why have we been through what we have been through?"

"Should I give up, Or should I just keep chasing pavements? Even if it leads nowhere, Or would it be a waste? Even if I knew my place should I leave it there? Should I give up, Or should I just keep chasing pavements? Even if it leads nowhere."

"Rationality is what we do to organize the world, to make it possible to predict. Art is the rehearsal for the inapplicability and failure of that process."

"The only value of ideology is to stop things becoming showbiz."

"As struggles go, being an artist isn't that much of one."

"Ideas worth questioning: "Being an artist is a job for life.""

"If you don’t call it art, you’re likely to get a better result."

"Saying that cultural objects have value is like saying that telephones have conversations."

"The reason conservatives cohere and radicals fight: everyone agrees about fears, no one about visions."

"Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable [sic] as it is interesting."

"I, I wish you could swim Like the dolphins Like dolphins can swim Though nothing, nothing will keep us together We can beat them, forever and ever Oh, we can be heroes just for one day."

"When you see people like Ken Loach, David Miller, Jackie Walker, when you see those people being accused of antisemitism, you cannot help but say this is all made up."

"Try to make things that can become better in other people’s minds than they were in yours."

"At the party, Rob Partridge said to me, "You gave hope to other balding men." My new epitaph: "Co-wrote a couple of decent songs and went bald shamelessly.""

"A way to make new music is to imagine looking back at the past from a future and imagine music that could have existed but didn't. Like East African free jazz, which as far as I know does not exist. To some extent, this was how ambient music emerged. My interest in making music has been to create something that does not exist that I would like to listen to, not because I wanted a job as a musician. I wanted to hear music that had not yet happened, by putting together things that suggested a new thing which did not yet exist. It's like having a ready-made formula if you are able to read it. One of the innovations of ambient music was leaving out the idea that there should be melody or words or a beat… so in a way that was music designed by leaving things out – that can be a form of innovation, knowing what to leave out. All the signs were in the air all around with ambient music in the mid 1970s, and other people were doing a similar thing. I just gave it a name. Which is exactly what it needed. A name. A name. Giving something a name can be just the same as inventing it. By naming something you create a difference. You say that this is now real."

"My friend Peter Schmidt used to talk about ‘not doing the things that nobody had ever thought of not doing’, which is an inverse process – where you leave out an assumption that everybody has always made and see what happens (e.g. music has to be made of intentionally produced sounds was the assumption that Cage left out). In that version of this process, you discover a value in the absence of something ­– in fact you discover that the absence of something is the revelation of something else (Buñuel, the film-maker, said, "Every object conceals another" – a message that I often relay in the studio when overdubbing starts)."

"It ain't the size of the dog in the fight, It's the size of the fight in the dog on the day or the night"

"We broke up mostly because we didn't have a manager and everyone was on different drugs. I don't take them so it was a bit weird for me."

"We started out to finish groups like U2 - that was what it was all about. And they're still the biggest band in the world, so we failed. We didn't really do anything, people wore flares for a year or two, d'you know what I mean? That's all we did."

"Too many songs have been written about love already, you know? Subject's covered."

"Anybody who makes speeches written by someone else is just a robot."

"For me the music is a vehicle for my lyrics. It's a chance to get some really good words across."

"[T]he toughest thing is facing yourself. Being honest with yourself, that's much tougher than beating someone up. That's what I call tough."

"Everyone has got to realise you can't hold onto the past if you want any future. Each second should lead to the next one."

"My motto is, 'What's the hurry?' I'm trying to get it across to the modern world that we need to sit around and think a little bit more."

"Joe Strummer, God bless him, he's gone and he shall be missed. But how dare he preach class war with an organisation like that [the late '80s Rock Against The Rich movement]. Living in a huge house in Holland Park. Every photo opportunity to be seen on a bus in his leather jacket, and then he went back to a palace. You're not getting it quite right there! That's where his image mattered more to him than the reality. He was trying to con us. In a nice way and for the right reasons but once you start lying it carries on and on and on."

"Like thousands of teenagers growing up in the '70s, punk and The Clash changed my life in a fundamental way. Their mixture of politics and music shaped my beliefs and tastes and made me the person I am today. Christmas is ruined."

"The Clash are the kind of garage band who should be returned to the garage immediately, preferably with the engine running, which would undoubtedly be more of a loss to their friends and families than to either rock or roll. Their guitarist on the extreme left, allegedly known as Joe Strummer, has good moves but he and the band are a little shaky on ground that involves starting, stopping and changing chords at approximately the same time.""

"It's taken Joe's death to make me realise just how big The Clash were. We were a political band and Joe was the one who wrote the lyrics. Joe was one of the truest guys you could ever meet. If he said 'I am behind you', then you knew he meant it 100 per cent."

"When freedom rises from the killing floor, No lock of iron or rivet can restrain the door. And no kind of army can hope to win a war Like trying to stop the rain or still the lion`s roar, Like trying to stop the whirlwind scattering seeds and spores Like trying to stop the tin cans rapping out jailhouse semaphore."

"[Joe] Strummer was the driving force who helped give punk its "political edge". I have a great admiration for the man. His most recent records are as political and edgy as anything he did with The Clash. His take on multi-cultural Britain in the 21st century is far ahead of anybody else. Without Joe, there's no political Clash and without The Clash the whole political edge of punk would have been severely dulled.""