John Hillcoat Quotes

I just want to sing, I want to work on my music, I want to make my movies, that's all I want to do.

I'd done three solo albums in a row, and that's quite narcissistic.

There was a time when I was fighting with the decision as to whether or not a Hasidic man could go out and have a music career in the world and be involved in pop culture. For me, I was able to bring those two things together for quite some time.

It's like, hey, some people cook for a living, and some people milk cows. I write songs.

I'm a failed pop star. I always sneak a song into everything I do.

Being a rock musician is already like ego-tripping hardcore. You're self-consumed, and you're always thinking. It's really easy to say, "I'm going to write a song about this situation, and when I'm done, everyone will care." To everybody else, that's ego-tripping.

I try to put my own history in my work.

It just sort of happened. I wrote like what I'd always read and what was in the movies... I'm sure popular music is supposed to be like this.

Popular music is all about traveling at the speed of you and elevating the individual as the highest thing in the world.

Creativity is narcissism. Creativity is falling in love with one's self as you create. It's self-indulgent.

When people ask me what 'American Pie' means, I tell them it means I don't ever have to work again if I don't want to.

Commercial record has never interested me. It's amazing I was in a band like The Police that had such phenomenal commercial success. Part of what made The Police what it was was that we didn't all come in with obvious mainstream musical tastes. We were a rock band and somehow we had to make rock music, but it was informed by a lot of things outside of the mainstream for sure.

It was '86. We were a big enough name and we had enough cache that MTV wanted to play us, so, along with Michael Jackson and Madonna, they played our upside-down, black-and-white, backward, single unedited footage of a rock quarry with orange letters over the top of it and called it art.

Have we not all, amid life's petty strife, Some pure ideal of a noble life That once seemed possible? Did we not hear The flutter of its wings, and feel it near, And just within our reach? It was. And yet We lost it in this daily jar and fret, And now live idle in a vague regret; But still our place is kept, and it will wait, Ready for us to fill it, soon or late. No star is ever lost we once have seen, We always may be what we might have been.

I don't keep up with a lot of trends. I've never been a fashion horse. I'm so busy writing my songs, trying to maintain my business, and all the new things that come along. I stay working all the time.

I hate leisure, except reading. I'm really a person made to work, if sketching is considered work.

I'm a songwriter first...In my career I have never felt that my being a woman was an obstacle or an advantage. I guess I've been oblivious...Sensitive, humbug. Everybody thinks I'm sensitive...There is a downside to having one of the biggest-selling albums ever.

I am fine, though it is hard to think of what kind of work to make at this point, other than decorative, escapist or abstract. I suppose I'll explore one or all of these things.

The creative person basically has two kinds of jobs: One is the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills. Sometimes the task at hand covers both bases, but not often.

I knew when I wrote the line “light-skinned friend look like Michael Jackson” [from the song “Slow Jamz"] I was going to be a big star.

The only thing I could see myself doing is music - songwriting or producing or something. I've never seen myself being in any other business, I've been working in this one since I was 5 years old! I could do other things, but I wouldn't want to.

The tragedy is not to die, but to be wasted.

I spent 80% of my time working on this, and 20% of my time working on music. Why do you think the song 'Niggas in Paris' is called 'Niggas in Paris?' 'Cause niggas was in Paris!

One is not allowed a grief for a life never lived. Yet one has buried the fruit of love, and a great deal of hope and many dreams.