John Barry Quotes

Colin Blunstone did a cover of one of my songs, and the reason I liked it was he changed it completely from my version.

I guess I'd love to be surprised by something I had never thought of.

Regardless of who originally made it popular, any hit song becomes a challenge to the ingenuity and imagination of other musicians and performers.

There are so many songs out there in the world that - if I know we have to come up with a new cover, then I'll just sit in my room and sing song after song and figure out which one I can kind of sing the best.

When we went to cover it I thought we would change it to a song of loving and longing instead of the sex machine song Kylie turned it into. I've met Kylie and told her we were covering her song and she was pleased.

I've actually done a cover of 'Train in Vain' by The Clash with Viv Albertine - which was originally written about her.

'Too Young to Fall in Love' is an earlier cut from Motley Crue, but it's one of their best. I'm so drastically different as an artist from their sound, but the challenge of making it my own is what makes doing a cover song fun.

You're never going to improve on a Michael Jackson song if you cover it.

I really want to do a cover of Joan Armatrading.

There's always more than one way to play the same notes because of the nature of guitar.

"I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day," which I actually recorded on "Quality Street" because I don't think anyone has ever covered it before. You hear it every single Christmas, and it is a great record. That's by Wizzard. It is a really great record, but I don't think anyone's ever covered it before, so I had to go it doing it differently. It's quite different from how the original goes.

I try to take whatever I can from the songs I grew up listening to, these vibed-out pop numbers, and make them my own in some weird way.

Everybody seen me talking to Frank Ocean, so they know something is coming, so something is coming with Frank Ocean - just wait on it - and, you know, people were just like, 'Whoa, Rich the Kid found Frank Ocean!'

Like dancers with choreography or actors with scripts, jazz singers could take material that was known, even loved, then risk interpreting and revising it. They could conceal even as they revealed themselves. Inflection, timing and tonality were their language, at least as much as words.

There aren't that many people that cover my music. It's kind of hard to cover. Everybody always has their own spin. The only guy who didn't, I think, was Seal. It just sounded like a bad version of 'Fly Like an Eagle.'

Musicians are also interpretive artists and we are just as creative as painters and writers. We interpret in a way that expresses ourselves.

What I do is creative. It doesn't seem like that when I'm playing a piece that was written in the past, but the score is just the outline and everything in it is relative. The key is to make this piece written by someone else belong to you and then connect to the audience.

Some specialist guitar music is not of the highest intellectual calibre, so I must make it sound as though it is. If it bores me, it certainly won't please an audience.

I like going to New York because I don't get recognised there - although, the first time I was there, I'd only been in the city an hour when the tallest guy came up to me on Fifth Avenue and said my name, gave me a high-five, and then just walked off.

When you play in smaller places with a smaller symphony, sometimes there's a difference in quality. Sometimes it's murderous. Sometimes it's real torture. Other times, you get a wonderful surprise. But there's never a dull moment.

I didn't think I'd be starting a NFL game.

The first time I found out that 'Boo'd Up' went platinum, I was handed the plaque. They really surprised me. I thought we were gold, and then Mustard and my managers brought the plaque to my rehearsals and told me. I was like, 'You are lying!' Like, I couldn't believe it. I'm just honored, honestly. It's a great feeling.

It must have been fascinating for Bono to have Johnny Cash do a cover of his song, and hear how he translates the words that he has used. And it would be fascinating to see a great director do his take on my work.

Music is a living art. You re-create it.

Whatever professes to benefit by pleasing must please at once. The pleasures of the mind imply something sudden and unexpected; that which elevates must always surprise.