Anthony Newley Quotes

We never thought we were writing for posterity, because at the time everyone assumed that all the great standards had already been written by Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hammerstein... The songs we were writing were supposed to be temporary things, of the period, like comic books.

Pop changes week to week, month to month. But great music is like literature.

It would be amazing to write a song that could be sung 100 years from now by a teenage girl and still be relevant to her - that's a dream of songwriting, maybe.

I think it's important for every artist to have that ballad that stands the test of time.

Every band wants to be have a song that is that big, that will pretty much live on forever. I don't know too many new bands that will have a 'Free Bird' that will be around 30 years later. It's become a national anthem of sorts.

The simpler the message, the broader the meaning, in many respects. I think about a song like Free's 'All Right Now,' which I'm often asked about. It's that sort of song.

Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Merle Haggard, Hank Williams. All of them are different styles, but those are the songs that make the times. They're the songs that last through time.

A song is only as strong as its foundation, and when it comes so naturally in any setting, those are the songs that will hopefully outlive you, maybe even outlive the next generation of You.

I see songs not as a commodity used up when the album goes off the charts, which is often the case with pop songs. I see them as a body of work. Life should be breathed into them.

A great song is one that is around even when I'm not.

Every musician wants to do something which will hold up for a long time, and I guess we did it with 'Stairway to Heaven.'

I understand what songs like 'Mr Brightside' mean to people. They will last forever.

American Pie speaks to the loss that we feel. That's why that song has found the niche that it has.

The fact that people still talk and obsess about 'Twin Peaks', more than twenty years after the fact, is a great validation for what we thought we had going at the time.

When music is crashing around us, when you hear the same five songs on the radio that aren't really saying much, we can always go back to great music. Great music always lives on.

Hank Williams' music - it just doesn't go away, for some reason.

The Beatles kind of pervade everything. They're always kind of part of everyone's lives.

People love to play 'Baby, I Love Your Way' at their weddings. They even play it for births and deaths - whatever the occasion, it seems to fit. Over the years, it's been used in lots of movies, and it's been covered by other artists more than any of my songs. I've written a standard... which is pretty incredible to me.

I like to make songs that are gonna be here for a long time, not for five months that they play on the radio.

There's something about pop songs that are remembered throughout time.

I want to be associated with content and characters that will be embedded in the hearts and minds of people for a long time.

You want to make a record that stands the test of time and that people enjoy.

I think The Beatles are the lasting influence on me, even more so than Dylan.

For the rest of my life, the one song that people will remember -- regardless -- is "Conga" . . . I never get tired of singing it. It never gets old for me.

There are people who are known for some contribution to pop culture, but that doesn't mean that you've survived solely on your relevance to whatever is currently popular. That's what a pop star is, in that sense. You might start out as a pop star, but that's just an opportunity to become more relevant, if you possibly can.