Richard Thompson Quotes

If you're really listening there are alot of hidden messages in my songs.

I sometimes never really realize what lyrics are saying.

Some people try and tell you what the songs are about and it bores me to death.

I don't really like to explain my songs.

People take songs so literally.

If you actually dissect the lyrics in 'Motley Crue', you'll notice that there's a lot going on beneath the surface.

You can't ask me to explain the lyrics because I won't do it.

It's very strange when people get so focused on what a song means, what actual events inspired a song. That gets people really excited for some reason... But that's what's great about music - however people interpret it, whatever they see, is what I want to be there for them.

People relate to songs so differently. No matter what it's about in reality, people create their own meaning behind it and connect with it on their own terms.

'Simply the Best' has always been one of my favourite songs and a song that I've always thought was far deeper than what you imagine it to be at first listen. I found the lyrics to be really, oddly beautiful, considering you rarely stop and think about them.

My writing is not just all facts and voices. I strive to create a text that works as a sign, pointing out undercurrents that lie beneath the facts.

People ask me if I left the lyrics open to ambiguity. Of course I did. I wanted to make a whole series of complex statements. The lyrics had to do with the state of society at the time.

For people who know McQueen, there is always an underlying message. It's usually only the intellectual ones who understand what's going on in what I do.

A lot of people don't listen to the lyrics, really.

I'm not the type of guy to go so deep with the concept songs, but there's deep thought in everything. Maybe it's not just a repetitive hook telling you what the song is about - you have to use your brain a little bit.

I do tend to be an analyzer. I'm an old English major from way back, so I do have fun tearing apart texts and trying to find the hidden secrets and the subtexts in there.

My favorite song is called 'Reachout.' There are so many different stories told in that song. I think anyone who listens to it will gather a different meaning, but each answer is true. I also like the sound of it, period - there are a lot of classical influences.

When you make illustrations, you're supposed to have a subtext; you're not just communicating words - you're actually adding another story altogether.

When people ask what 'American Pie' is about, they're missing the point. The song isn't about the lines themselves - it's about what is between the lines. The song is about what isn't there.

The lyrics tend to fascinate people, but for me, when I listen to a record I don't always latch on to the lyrics. I listen to the whole thing and it may be five or six days before I even realize what the song's about.

I love having those lyrics that at first make you think it's about one thing, but it's really about something so much more.

It's very important to me that every person takes away their own meaning from a song, and it's why I don't always love spelling out what a song is about for somebody.

Take 'The Stroke,' for instance. Plenty of people saw sexual connotations in that song but to me it was about what goes on in the business world.

I'd rather people interpret the songs and get whatever they can out of them instead of thinking about me crying in a room with a guitar.

I also feel like it's the right of the people hearing them to have their own interpretations of what these songs mean. Sometimes people will see things that I don't see.