Rick Nielsen Quotes

Songs are songs, and to reduce them is to waste them.

Music is not simply an orchestration of something, but it's also not something as trivial as honesty.

The thing of playin' and singin' never bothered me.

To me, playing an instrument and singing, all of these different things are just as natural to me as rhyming.

I just do what I'm here for and that's to make that music.

I love playing. The keyboard is my journal.

There are more bad musicians than there is bad music.

To do it always right, that is what music is to me.

I love our industry. I love the song. I love the voice. I love it. Not necessarily my voice. But I care about the song and the voice.

A song is the most intangible thing in the world.

Music is the silence between the notes.

What I have to do as a musician is do everything that is not on the music.

The one thing I do know is that I'm the best Taylor Hawkins drummer there is, and that is all I can hope to be. And when it comes to music, musicianship and skill, there is no such thing as better or worse because so much is personal opinion, and I can see that now.

I just try to tell a story with a song, and be able to try to transmit the emotion to you. That's all I'm really trying to do.

Art is beauty, the perpetual invention of detail, the choice of words, the exquisite care of execution.

I guess for me what is more significant than success is the nature of each of the songs and of the words.

When words leave off, music begins.

Stand-up comedians say that anyone in the audience can be funny, but people paid to see us because we're just a little bit funnier. In the same way, I think anybody can play music - in fact, I think everyone has music in them, but some of us can do it a little better.

When you understand how to do that dance, when the photographer says, 'Hold it, do it,' and you know you're getting it right, oh, the fun. It is fun.

I am inspired by all kinds of players and singers.

I didn't aim at anything except good music.

I love to rock 'n roll. But my finest suit, of all the things I do, is as a songwriter.

I'm more interested in the quality of the work than its medium.

I played the violin my whole life. I wanted to play from the time I was just a little kid, and I've always loved dance as well. I wanted to make people smile. I wanted to add an extra energy to my playing and make it visual and make it unique and fun.

When I was 8, I began to study ballet. In seventh grade, my mother took me into New York to study at the School of American Ballet. I loved ballet - its precision, the escape from uncertainty, and the music.