Guitarists From England

"Underneath a starry sky Time was still but hours must really have rushed by I didn't realize But love was in your eyes I really should have gone But love went on and on"

"At the end of the day I have to please myself. And I've made a record to please myself."

"A place where nobody dared to go the love that we came to know They call it Xanadu And now, open your eyes and see what we have made is real We are in Xanadu A million lights are dancing and there you are, a shooting star An everlasting world and you're here with me, eternally Xanadu"

"The love, the echoes of long ago you needed the world to know They are in Xanadu The dream that came through a million years That lived on through all the tears, it came to Xanadu"

"I saw the 'Popstars' programme and to me it looked more like 'Opportunity Knocks' than the kind of cutting-edge postmoderism that The Guardian would like to have us believe it was. I think what it's more about is the public and the music industry's bloodlust. It's just like someone itching to say 'Oh, confound it all, let's bring back hanging, that was good entertainment'."

"The Great British Public; a nation of Blue Peter presenters."

"All British artists 1988--? Just signing your name is not enough, you withered fucking idiots."

"The Auteurs have become Luke Haines. I ate their bodies, spat out the pips, and sucked up their souls."

"The point is there's a boring homogenisation of popular culture, so really the problem is there's nothing wrong, the machine works too smoothly. I think the pop music machine is much more fun when it's broken. Things are always more fun when they're broken. No one was ever consulted about this. There was never a Senate committee to say we must produce pop music every day since 1953 or whatever. It's time to lay down the gauntlet."

"Brain gets bent, heart gets broken You can't jump off once the pages turn School is out but never over That's the only lesson you can learn"

"I'd smile so much my face would crack in two Then you could fix it with your kissing glue I'd like that Yes, I'd like that"

"Now that I can see it's the queen's new clothes Now that I can hear all your poison prose Now that I can talk with my tongue unfroze I'm not so sure of Santa or the buck tooth fairy There are no words for me inside your dictionary"

"Dear God, sorry to disturb you, but... I feel that I should be heard loud and clear. We all need a big reduction in amount of tears And all the people that you made in your image, See them fighting in the street 'Cause they can't make opinions meet about God, I can't believe in you."

"Well I don’t know how many pounds make up a ton, Of all the nobel prizes that I’ve never won, And I may be the mayor of simpleton, But I know one thing, And that’s I love you."

"I believe the printed word is more than sacred Beyond the gauge of good or bad The human right to let your soul fly free and naked Above the violence of the fearful and sad"

"The man who sailed around his soul From East to West, from pole to pole With ego as his drunken captain Greed, the mutineer, had trapped all reason in the hold"

"Will you tell them about that far off and mythical land And how a child to the virgin came? Will you tell them that the reason why we murdered Everything upon the surface of the world Is so we can stand right up and say we did it in his name?"

"Reign of blows cascading down upon your shoulders Far too many men dressed up as soldiers The lamb is brought to the ground Under the weight of the Crown A crown of thorns and dark deeds The swastika and the hammer and sickle Are symbols that reap only weeds"

"Children thrown from heaven see the peacock's jealous tremble stars congeal into instructions showing how the sky is opened and spread down like a bedsheet"

"Ballet for a rainy day Silent film of melting miracle play Dancing out there through my window To the backdrop of a slow descending grey"

"Other lands became a larder full of all the good things All we had to do was go and take Blood the colour of the rain that grew our wicked harvest Black the colour icing on our cake"

"We stole their babes and mothers, chiefs and braves Although we held the whip, you knew we were The real slaves To alchemy, human alchemy."

"Now that I'm out and I'm shouting in doorways Freed from a love more like murder I should be singing but in liberation Feel like a ship with no rudder."

"For a heart without love is a song with no words And a tune to which no one is listening So your heart must give love and you'll find that You shine like rain on the leaves you'll be glistening."

"I had a dream where the car is reduced to a fossil I had a dream where the car is reduced to a fossil Take a packet of seeds, take yourself out to play I want to see a river of orchids where we had a motorway"

"I say I like your coat Her thank-you tugs my heart afloat I nearly didn't hear for Seagulls screaming kiss her, kiss her"

"It started when i heard your song of love Pouring down like honey from above I started to spin, i started to move Just like a needle that is sticking through the same old groove"

"I leaned right over to kiss your stoney book A little jealous of the ships with whom you flirt A billion lovers with their cameras Snap to look and in my fantasy I sail beneath your skirt"

"Everybody eats something But you won't eat me You won't get me on your plate Or have me over for tea Everybody lives somewhere Mud hut or igloo But what I got is the hottest spot And it's away from you"

"I wonder wonder why the wonder falls I wonder why the wonder falls on me I wonder wonder why the wonder falls With everything I touch and hear and see"

"Now I lay me down to sleep Knowing that your lenses peep Now I eat my daily bread And into the tape spool I'll be fed"

"It's in the order of their hedgerows It's in the way their curtains open and close It's in the look they give you down their nose All part of decency's jigsaw I suppose Sunday church and they look fetching Saturday night saw him retching over our fence Bang the wall for me to turn down I can see them with their stern frown As they dispense the kind of look that says they're Perfect."

"And all the world is football shaped It's just for me to kick in space And I can see, hear, smell, touch, taste And I've got one, two, three, four, five senses working overtime trying to take this all in I've got one, two, three, four, five senses working overtime trying to taste the difference 'tween a lemon and a lime pain and pleasure And the church bells softly chime."

"People will always be tempted to wipe their feet on anything with 'welcome' written on it."

"I've still got sand in my shoes And I can't shake the thought of you I should get on, forget you Why, why would I want to I know we said goodbye Anything else would've been confused but I wanna see you again."

"And we danced, and we drank And I've seen something you probably never got the chance to see Don't worry, Mary Cause I'm taking care of Danny And he's taking care of me"

"Not sad because you lost me But sad because you thought it was cool to be sad"

"I will go down with this ship And I won't put my hands up and surrender There will be no white flag above my door I'm in love and always will be."

"When you're stoned, baby, I am drunk. And we make love, it seems a little desolate It's hard sometimes not to look away And think what's the point when I'm having to hold this fire down I think I'll explode if I can't feel this freely now. When your stalled baby take me home."

"I haven't ever really found a place that I call home I never stick around quite long enough to make it I apologize that once again I'm not in love But it's not as if I mind that your heart ain't exactly breaking."

"And the last words I heard him say were I shall return for you my love on Christmas Day..."

"Why don't I watch the ocean? My lover's gone. No earthly ships will ever bring him home again bring him home again..."

"If you're cold I'll keep you warm If you're low just hold on Cause I will be your safety Oh don't leave home."

"It's all right to make mistakes, you're only human Inside everybody's hiding something."

"Oh I am what I am I'll do what I want But I can't hide I won't go I won't sleep I can't breathe Until you're resting here with me I won't leave I can't hide I cannot be Until you're resting here with me."

"If you were a king up there on your throne would you be wise enough to let me go? For this queen you think you own Wants to be a hunter again wants to see the world alone again to take a chance on life again so let me go."

"My tea's gone cold, I'm wondering why I got out of bed at all the morning rain clouds up my window and I can't see at all And even if I could it'd all be grey, but your picture on my wall it reminds me that it's not so bad it's not so bad"

"If you gave me just a coin for every time we say goodbye Well I'd be rich beyond my dreams, I'm sorry for my weary life I know I'm not perfect but I can smile and I hope that you see this heart behind my tired eyes."

"It’s almost unfair that one of the greatest electric warriors of all time, a riffmeister of repute and a rocker almost without parallel, also happened to be a brilliant and thoughtful acoustic player as well. Jimmy Page’s musical magpie act and boundless virtuosity meant he was able to take almost any genre or style and bend it to his will. Much like his electric side, Page’s acoustic playing was unconventional, full of strange angles and unexpected shapes and changes. And yet it somehow always rocked. Simply exceptional."

"Jimmy Page is one of rock music’s ultimate riff masters, guitar orchestrators and studio revolutionaries. His vast body of work with the Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin exhibits the type of wild abandon often associated with Jimi Hendrix, the passion and grit of a seasoned bluesman, and the sensitivity of a folk musician. [...] Page’s landmark use of echo effects in tracks like “How Many More Times” and “You Shook Me,” bizarre tunings in cuts like “Friends” and “Bron-Y-Aur Stomp,” and excursions with a violin bow in songs like “Dazed and Confused” yielded textures that were unparalleled at the time."