Lester Bangs Quotes

I've embraced rock 'n' roll because it encompasses all the things I'm interested in: poetry, revolution, sexuality, political activism - all of these things can be found in rock 'n' roll. But I am also engaged in all of these things separately.

Rock and roll music - the music of freedom frightens people and unleashes all manner of conservative defense mechanisms.

Elvis' early music has drama because as he sang he was escaping limits.

Rock and roll doesn't necessarily mean a band. It doesn't mean a singer, and it doesn't mean a lyric, really. It's that question of trying to be immortal.

Rock 'n' roll. Deal with it.

I'm into rock'n'roll because rock'n'roll, to me, means freedom.

Rock has always been the devil's music... I believe that rock & roll is dangerous... I feel that we're only heralding something even darker than ourselves.

Rap is rock 'n' roll. Rock is when you push the buttons in the system; when you say, I'm not going along with what you're saying. That's rock, whether it's done with guitars, or it's done with just beats.

Rock 'n' roll is sexuality personified.

You can't stop rock-n-roll!

I think rock & roll has prepared me for a lot of flexibility.

[Rock 'n' roll] is still a primitive form and there's no way you can get away from that. It's one of the primitive art forms and that's why it's good and that's why it's lasted...you know, it hasn't become sophisticated and it's not in the opera house.

Rock and roll isn't a career or hobby - it's a life force ... it's just something I have to do.

Rock 'n roll smells phony and false. It is sung, played and written for the most part by cretinous goons and by means of its almost imbecilic reiteration and sly, lewd, in plain fact, dirty lyrics ... manages to be the martial music of every side-burned delinquent on the face of the earth.

Rock and roll is my religion.

Rock and roll is catching on all over . . . France . . . England . . . They even have it in Japan, only over there they call it judo.

I don't think hip-hop is a dying art form. I think it's impossible for hip-hop to be a dying art form.

Hail, hail rock and roll / Deliver me from the days of old.

Rock'n'roll to me is a rebellion against the sterile pedestal culture of movies.

Rock and roll is about having a good time.

Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around.

Elvis is the greatest cultural force in the twentieth century. He introduced the beat to everything, music, language, clothes, it's a whole new social revolution - the 60's comes from it.

That was always what I felt was the beauty of Rock 'n' Roll, it was entertainment and showbiz yet it had the idea of the voice of the people, it had an essence to it which was socially motivated. Not that I want to change to world, you know? But it was sort of relevant to real life, it involved the real essence of poetry or the real essence of fine art. But it was also entertainment. That was the real vitality.