Alternative Rock Singers

"When you're famous so young, become a millionaire overnight, people think you're going to crash and burn and be such a mess. I have my kids and Don."

"They weren't mainstream and beautiful and attractive, visually (the Smiths, the Cure and Depeche Mode). I thought they were different and when I was a teenager I liked the idea that what you told was more important than what you appeared."

"Oh my life is changing everyday In every possible way And oh my dreams It's never quite as it seems Never quite as it seems."

"It's the same old theme Since nineteen-sixteen In your head, in your head, they are fighting With their tanks, and their bombs And their bombs, and their guns In your head, in your head they are crying In your head, in your head Zombie, zombie, zombie-ie-ie What's in your head, in your head Zombie, zombie, zombie-ie-ie, oh"

"I get accused of many things, promoting pedophilia and stuff like that. I find that extraordinary. I dress myself like I would paint a picture. I try to use that to project how I feel inside. I'm a complete romantic as well, but within traditional romantic images you have so much blatant sexism. So it's all those contradiction mixed up. But that's OK. We should embrace all that instead of tearing each other apart for it. That's what I'm admitting to."

"Who's to say there'll be anyone here to remember me?"

"There are no answers."

"I know what turns me on, and it's that fine line, that point where you're falling off the edge of a cliff, where your stomach turns, [and] I'm always trying to find that point in music. You rarely hit it, and again, that's the joy of playing live, because there you can be just at that point where you've lost balance. I'm always walking between polarities, trying to find the opposing sides."

"I strain my voice doing bad work, [but] sometimes the impulse is too huge [and] I just have to."

"I think taking the stage is one of the most unnatural things anyone can do. In a way, just walking on stage actually creates an altered state–it's not right, no one's meant to do that, unless you're a priest or a magician, or something like that. To put somebody who's very incapable in many ways in to that position creates a combustion reaction inside me. I know that, and I take the stage knowing that."

"There isn't anyone you meet that isn't absolutely peculiar. Everyone you meet is absolutely extraordinary. I've never met a human being that isn't, that doesn't have a fantastic story and is completely valid in their...you know, madness, really."

"That was such a perfect childhood. Up until recently I thought I saw too much too young. But now I feel truly lucky. It showed me how nice life could be and how it should be better for every person."

"You know, in a way touring is the most grounding thing you can do."

"I'm always trying to understand myself, but it's like there's a point in the centre of the room, and there's a hundred windows to look at the same point from. All I can do is give you different angles on the same thing. God, you know, if I could find one conclusive thing in anything I would probably have something to put an anchor down on. But I can't, and I haven't met anyone that can. You can pick out anything you like in my lyrics, I don't seek to be cryptic. I love words for the sake of words, for me they're kind of free standing, and they don't really need to be explained. I think every word has its own character and colour and picture and the result you get with lyrics just depends how you put them together."

"I think drugs can be a bit of a lazy way for creativity anyway, you're better off in the cold light of day in the mirror."

"I layer myself in dirt because I want to be a child; I want to scream. Sometimes I'm unhappy with myself, so I want to look aesthetically unpleasing. At the end of tours I feel completely beaten and destroyed. I kick and scream and destroy myself. I cut myself—my legs are cut to shreds—and my chest. I get up and I shout. I truly feel it's like a purge."

"Around 16 or 17 years old, I started finding out about some of the animal cruelty things, and ethically it just didn't make sense to me to keep eating meat, so eventually I stopped. … I was watching an HBO special about eating habits and different cultures, and they actually showed in China how people eat cats, and I'm really fond of cats, and I just happened to be sitting on the couch with my cat, and once I saw that, it just put everything in perspective. If I wouldn't eat my cat what's the difference between eating a cat or a cow? If certain animals are considered lesser than, so are certain people and that's not really fair. And the root of that is to consider life on equal terms across the board."

"I still have plenty of vices, but alcohol isn't one of them. It's probably just down to sleep and diet. If you travel long haul a lot or don't sleep much, it's not going to last very long, that's for sure. I'm pretty healthy so I think that helps a lot. I've been that way for a long time - 20 solid years of eating vegetarian/vegan and taking care of myself. That probably helps the preservation process."

"After the suicide of her husband, Kurt Cobain, 10 months ago, Courtney Love acquired a strange distinction reserved for Presidents, major felons and celebrity widows: every word she said and wrote became newsworthy. Her postings on the computer bulletin board America Online were repeated word for word in magazines; her arrests, scandals and the drug overdose of the bassist in her band, Hole, made national headlines ... People have trouble accepting Ms. Love because in her odd way she fits the classic model of the controversial celebrity. She is both fan and star, heroine and villainess, celebrity and pest, sex symbol and homely urchin, critical darling and tabloid pariah."

"On three, I want you to say "bitch" really loud. One, two, three, "bitch!""

"Is this the anti-gay state? Aren't you the people that voted on the anti-gay thing?"

"Whatever you say about Courtney, you can also say the opposite. She's a walking Greek tragedy, and a comedy. She's horrible and great, inspiring and frightening, strong and weak. She's a role model – and everything you wouldn't want your child to be."

"Why do guys get to take off their shirts and we don't?"

"Hi. We're Hole. As in "asshole.""

"Why did you pay twenty dollars to sit in the front row and tell me I suck? And you're a girl. That's stupid."

"You look good in my dress I'll get your friends to clean the mess You look good in my clothes I can feel you where the doctor goes"

"She spent twenty years like a virus They want to burn the witches inside us Well, yeah, you don't fuck with the Fabulous Four Or you'll spend the rest of your life picking things up off the floor Oh baby, dry your dirty eyes My water breaks like turpentine"

"Hi. Kiss my ass. We're Pearl Jam."

"She's always made it very clear that she needs to work with other musicians, and I certainly don't think that makes Courtney a bad one, because she can't do absolutely everything on her own... Whenever you have a woman who is threatening or unapologetic about her attitudes, I think you'll always have detractors who want to pull that person down... I think until somebody comes along who can do it better than she can, Courtney's still going to be around."

"So you think that you could save him, And we know that someone died. Oh, an unkindness of ravens, And we know that Mary lied"

"People like you fuck people like me In order to avoid agony People like you fuck people like me In order to avoid suffering People like you fuck people like me Fuck people like you Fuck people like me Fuck people like you Fuck people like me Fuck people like you"

"And I don't care what it takes my friend I will never go hungry, go hungry again Oh, and I don't care what I have to pretend I will never go hungry, go hungry again And the phoenix she rises, she is sure to descend She will never go hungry, go hungry again And you're looking to me more and more like a godsend We will never go hungry, go hungry again And we owe each other nothing, there's no one left here to offend We will never go hungry, go hungry again"

"Asphyxiate all your pain away Don't try to win; it will only end in disgrace Translucetize the cold light of day It's glorious, its terrible, God I need it It's beautiful, it's ravenous; I'll just feed it Coil down to your black dark decay And I will dig my own grave now I'm miss begotten I am the last one you save here It's all gone rotten"

"You should've loved me baby When redemption's too blind Nature took my soul And sin left a scar so wide Time ravaged my body And now I live in the house Where the red light's always on"

"And they're coming to take me away now What I want I will never have I'm on the Pacific Coast Highway With your gun in my hands"

"It's my lie and I believe in it It's my lie and I wanted it It's my bed and I'll bleed in it It's my bed, and I'll lie And I sit on the corner And I drink drown soda I wanna bomb the whole state of Minnesota"

"In your endless summer night I'll be on the other side When you're beautiful and dying All the world that you've denied When the water is too deep You can close your eyes and really sleep tonight Tonight"

"And I wait staring at the Northern Star I'm afraid it won't lead you very far He's so cold, he will win the world tonight All the angels kneel into the frozen lights Feel their hearts they're cold and white"

"Hush your highness, don't you breathe No, baby, hold me in your arms, I'm shivering But what's all this for? If I was the battle, baby, you have won the war"

"Oh, make me over I'm all I wanna be A walking study In demonology"

"I want to be the girl with the most cake He only loves those things because he loves to see them break I fake it so real, I am beyond fake And someday you will ache like I ache Someday you will ache like I ache"

"Crash and burn All the stars explode tonight How'd you get so desperate? How'd you stay alive?"

"The devil's driving my car tonight, and he's drunk He's pissed, he's mad I don't care which of you he fucks up"

"You want retreat, filthy and deep A dead moon, a drunken sleep Baby, there is a room full of death and whores and truth And I am waiting in that room And I am waiting in there for you It's all hoarse, it's all pain It's all disease, man, it's all the same My little Judas, my little twin Where you start, that's where I begin"

"If she can bring all of that—from that journey from literally the depths of hell, all the way back to the surface of, like "I have value"—that is an incredible, symbolic journey. If people can't get beyond their own preconceptions, they're missing the point. You have to go down to hell to come back up to make that journey. Most motherfuckers won't step two feet out the door, and sit in very deep judgment of those who do go there."

"Every time that I sell myself to you I feel a little bit cheaper than I need to I will tear the petals off of you Rose red, I will make you tell the truth"

"I've got a blister from touching everything I see The abyss opens up It steals everything from me"

"I want my baby Where is my baby? I want my baby Where is my baby?"

"Love hangs herself with the bedsheets in her cell Threw myself on fires for you Ten good reasons to stay alive Ten good reasons that I can't find"

"Sister ectoplasma she's incredulous Just like a pro she takes off her dress And she kicks you down in her snow white pumps Just remember it was me who found the lumps"