Greil Marcus Quotes

Maybe it's naïve, but I would love to believe that once you grow to love some aspect of a culture-its music, for instance -you can never again think of the people of that culture as less than yourself. I would like to believe that if I am deeply moved by a song originating from some place other than my own homeland, then I have in some way shared an experience with the people of that culture. I have been pleasantly contaminated. I can identify in some small way with it and its people.

When it comes to music, it's my clothes, it's my guitar, it's my voice, it's my song.

My music has always been my solo project.

I think youth will always be connected to the strongest music at the time because... I don't want to use the word 'tribal,' but there was this sort of familial affiliation that people would feel with the music they were listening to.

So whenever I hear The Beatles I always feel I've got a lot in common with everybody else.

So there's no guarantee if you like the music you will empathize with the culture and the people who made it. It doesn't necessarily happen. I think it can, but it doesn't necessarily happen. Which is kind of a shame.

I'm wary about this thing about being in the generation of social networking where people are like, 'I am my musical taste.' I am not just a collection of music. Or a collection of movies. I think that's a thing that people romanticize: 'Oh my God, she likes this band so she is a dream.'

I went to a Catholic all-girls school, and we would play cassettes of music we liked, and when it was my turn, they would laugh at my choices. I would play Billie Holliday, Elmore James and Howlin' Wolf, but it was fine; if I had to listen to their choices, they had to listen to mine.

In Jamaica, the music is recorded for the sound system, not the iPod. It's about experiencing music together, with other people.

I love how music and fashion are so similar. We need each other.

I think that music is a lifestyle that you sort of intravenously plug into and unplug from when you do and don't need it. Some people live it 10 hours a day, some on weekends. It's no more important or non-important than that.

I was always really into the music rather than the scene.

Music is the major form of communication. It's the commonest vibration, the people's news broadcast, especially for kids.

When I went to shows with my friends, it was all about the experience with my friends. If I met the band, it was cool. But it was more about talking about the memories of the show with my friends.

I had a couple of really cool friends when I was a kid, and we'd find cool music and movies and show them to each other. My friend Dennis had a copy of 'A Clockwork Orange' and he'd already seen it once, and he was like, 'We need to watch this.' I was sleeping over his house - and I think we were literally 15 - and we watched it.

Music is the emotional life of most people.

Pop culture and entertainment can be dismissed as surface, but it's not. It's the language we all speak, and it's the connection point between people all over the world.

I know what makes me connect to my music - it is knowing that I am not alone in my feelings and my thoughts.

I can't speak for everybody, I think, for me, I will not be defined by the lyrics of my song. I am a man who does music. It's like clothes don't make the man, the man makes the clothes. It's, it's like that song don't make me, I make the song.

I talk specifically to the lifestyle and those who can relate to it. And I feel like, where the creativity comes in, is where you draw the parallels that everybody can relate to. That's where it's creative for me. I feel like it works best that way.

I get some flak for and some resistance from colleagues for because I'm interested in storytelling. I mean what I like about songwriting is songs used to tell a story.

The term 'popular culture' always used to mean what the people do - pop songs, folk songs, music in general used to live because people would sing these songs and tell these stories together. Then all of these new technologies came out and it became the work of professionals.

Words are the instruments you play to the song of your ideas, you're just playing covers.

The whole country was tied together by radio. We all experienced the same heroes and comedians and singers. They were giants.

Whatever music you beat on your drum there is somebody who can dance to it.