Singer Songwriters From England

"It's sad that these people think he's such a wonderful subject, that he's a living legend when, in fact, there is this poor sad man who can't deal with life or himself. He's got uncontrollable things in him that he can't deal with and people think it's a marvellous, wonderful, romantic thing. It's just a sad, sad thing, a very nice and talented person who's just disintegrated."

"Syd was so beautiful with his violet eyes. I only sort of lay beside him, nothing more could be accomplished. Then he had a breakdown and was gone. He hardly spoke. He would just tolerate me because I was so overpowered, so in awe that I didn't really speak either. I only hung around him for two or three weeks just before he flipped and was virtually removed from the group. I knew Syd was wonderful because he wrote such wonderful songs. He didn't have to speak because the fact that he couldn't speak made him who he was: this person who wrote these mysterious songs. I just liked looking at him: he was very pretty. A lot of the time with pop stars, when they open their mouths, it was all completely ruined anyway. So it was perfect that he was like that. My first pop star and it was just wonderful that he didn't speak."

"Their choice of material was always very much to do with what they were thinking as architecture students. Rather unexciting people, I would've thought, primarily. I mean, anybody walking into an art school like that would've been tricked--maybe they were working their entry into an art school."

"We feel that in the future, groups are going to have to offer much more than just a pop show. They'll have to offer a well-presented theatre show."

"Well, I've got a colour telly, and a fridge. I've got some pork chops in the fridge, but the chops keep going off, so I have to keep buying more."

"That's all I wanted to do as a kid. Play a guitar properly and jump around. But too many people got in the way."

"Well, I'm a painter, I was trained as a painter…I seem to have spent a little less time painting than I might've done…But it didn't transcend the feeling of playing at UFO and those sort of places with the lights and that, the fact that the group was getting bigger and bigger."

"It's awfully considerate of you to think of me here, and I'm most obliged to you for making it clear that I'm not here."

"And what exactly is a dream, and what exactly is a joke?"

"I don't think I'm easy to talk about. I've got a very irregular head. And I'm not anything that you think I am anyway."

"All middle men are bad."

"I'm full of dust and guitars…"

"His glorious fuzz tone, a silicon Fuzz Face boosted by a Colorsound Powerboost overdrive, is one of the most sought-after sounds in rock."

"David Gilmour laid down some of the tastiest solos of the decade. While Ritchie Blackmore set new standards for flash, Gilmour’s tasteful phrasing and sublime behind-the-beat feel showed the power of a few well-placed notes."

"David Gilmour’s titanic playing on "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" has some of the most imitated feel and tone in history. Gilmour pays tribute to blues pioneers, particularly BB King, with his controlled feel and sublime behind-the-beat timing."

"In an era of showboating, Gilmour sounded like no one else: his playing was all about tone, texture and a kind of languid grandeur. The solos he pulled out for Pink Floyd’s Time, Money, Shine On You Crazy Diamond et al are, in a word, timeless."

"Russia is not full of terrible people. It’s just that their leadership has gone so horribly wrong. ... A lot of the world is reacting in the right way. They are angry and they are frustrated. You can see and hear the frustration in the leaders of the other world’s countries. We can see it in the voice of your president, President Biden. He has let slip a couple of his feelings a couple of times over there. Other world leaders have done the same. And I think there’s a groundswell of opinion worldwide. This sort of thing shouldn’t be able to happen. It shouldn’t be able to be allowed. But we are in a world where still, here we are, a fifth of the way through the 21st century and still this obscene situation can happen. The mind boggles."

"We want to spread this message of peace, and we want to raise the morale of the people who are defending their homeland there in Ukraine."

"It is absolutely beautiful, isn't it? And its a sort of over two years before any of the other recordings she did. That is her singing at the age of 16, and having written those extraordinary lyrics — about whatever they're about."

"I had a listen, I was intrigued … by this strange voice, and I went to her house, met her parents down in Kent, and she played me, it must have been forty or fifty songs, on tape, and I thought, I should try to do something. … We were making — Pink Floyd was making the Wish You Were Here album, and I think we had the record company people down at Abbey Road, in number 3, and I said to them "Do you want to hear something I've got? And they said "sure", so we found another room, and I played it to them, "The Man with the Child in His Eyes", and they said "Yep, thank you – we'll have it.""

"Jimi Hendrix isn't as good as me!"

"Where would rock and roll be without feedback?"

"The band? It's over. Reunited because of the good cause (Live 8), to get over the bad relationship, and not to have regrets."

"It's crazy that America gives such a paltry percentage of its GNP to the starving nations."

"Usually, in the studio, on this sort of thing ... you just go out and have a play over it, and see what comes, and it's usually — mostly — the first take that's the best one, and you find yourself repeating yourself thereafter."

"I've been in The Who, I've been in The Beatles and I've been in Pink Floyd! Top that!"

"He had developed his own limited, or very simple style. He was never very keen on improving himself as a bass player and half the time I would play bass on the records because I would tend to do it quicker. Right back to those early records; I mean, at least half the bass on all recorded output is me anyway. … Rog used to come in and say, "Thank you very much" to me once in a while for winning him bass-playing polls."

"Roger doesn't have the right at present to tell me what to do with my life, although he believes that he does. And he'll not ruin my career, although lately he's been trying to."

"My technique is laughable at times. I have developed a style of my own, I suppose, which creeps around … I don't have to have too much technique for it. I've developed the parts of my technique that are useful to me. I'll never be a very fast guitar player. I don't really know what to say about my style. There's always a melodic intent in there."

"Syd's story is a sad story romanticised by people who don't know anything about it. They've made it fashionable but it's just not that way."

"Who are you and who am I To say we know the reason why Some are born, some men die, Beneath one infinite sky? There'll be war, there'll be peace, But everything one day will cease, All the iron turned to rust, All the proud men turned to dust, And so all things time will mend, So this song will end."

"You find your eyes are growing moist. All the fears never voiced say you have to make your final choice."

"You shout in your sleep. Perhaps the price is just too steep. Is your conscience at rest if once put to the test? You awake with a start to just the beating of your heart. Just one man beneath the sky, Just two ears, just two eyes."

"Stop Britain from becoming a black colony. [...] Get the foreigners out. Get the wogs out. Get the coons out. Keep Britain white. I used to be into dope, now I'm into racism. It's much heavier, man. Fucking wogs, man. Fucking Saudis taking over London. Bastard wogs. Britain is becoming overcrowded, and Enoch [Powell] will stop it and send them all back. The black wogs and coons and Arabs and fucking Jamaicans and fucking ... don't belong here, we don't want them here. This is England, this is a white country, we don't want any black wogs and coons living here. We need to make clear to them they are not welcome. England is for white people, man. We are a white country. I don’t want fucking wogs living next to me with their standards. This is Great Britain, a white country. What is happening to us, for fuck's sake?"

"And I say, "Yes, you look wonderful tonight.""

"Would you know my name if I saw you in heaven? Would it be the same If I saw you in heaven?"

"Layla, you got me on my knees. Layla, I'm begging, darling please. Layla, darling won't you ease my worried mind."

"Tell me why, must I fall in love with you?"

"Did you plan your leads, or, for that matter, do you plan them now?"

"I had a Les Paul before Eric but I didn't have a Marshall. And when Eric got all of that together he was a delight to listen to. He really understood the blues."

"His fingers are directly wired to his soul."

"I think Clapton is brilliant. He's the only one who moved me. The only one who made me want to play the guitar."

"An electric warrior reinvented as the modern icon of acoustic blues, Slowhand has the whole package: tone, technique, reverence for the source material, everything. Obviously, when one of the greatest guitarists of all time sits down to play you know you’re in for something special, but there’s something about the way Clapton affects the listener that sets him apart. His journey from young guitar god to elder blues statesman has been epic, and it’s inarguably his acoustic side that has propped up the second half of his career. Clapton is God? Maybe not, but he’s certainly all class."

"During the mid Sixties, [Clapton's] legendary performances with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and Cream established him as a pioneer of the modern electric blues and rock guitar. [...] Regardless of the musical format, Eric Clapton has always kept his brilliant blues-inspired guitar playing in the forefront, influencing the likes of Eddie Van Halen, Steve Lukather, Joe Satriani, Jonny Lang and countless others."

"He is a great person, as well as a great musician. And this guy sings like he was born down below Mississippi!"

"You never told me he was that fucking good."

"[Unplugged] was also the cheapest to produce and required the least amount of preparation and work. But if you want to know what it actually cost me, go to Ripley and visit the grave of my son."

"In my lowest moments, the only reason I didn't commit suicide was that I knew I wouldn't be able to drink anymore if I was dead."

"Music will always find its way to us, with or without business, politics, religion, or any other bullshit attached. Music survives everything, and like God, it is always present. It needs no help, and suffers no hindrance."

"All I am certain of right now is that I don't want to go anywhere, and that's not bad for someone who always used to run."