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Greil Marcus

Greil Marcus Quotes

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Famous Greil Marcus Quotes

“[Listening to a song] one could experience a freedom from one's physical body, and from one's social body - the mask you wore to go about in public among those who thought they knew you, an unchosen mask of nervousness and tradition, the mask that, when owrn too long, makes the face behind it shrivel up and rot away. For some, a spinning record opened up the possibility that one might say anything, in any voice, with any face, the singer's mask now a sign of mystery.”

Listening To MusicSelf Indentity
Author:Greil Marcus
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“Along with a lot of other things, becoming a Bob Dylan fan made me a writer. I was never interested in figuring out what the songs meant. I was interested in figuring out my response to them, and other people's responses. I wanted to get closer to the music than I could by listening to it - I wanted to get inside of it, behind it, and writing about it through it, inside of it, behind it, was my way of doing that.”

PeopleWayWritingMadeWantedSongBehindsFansListeningBecomingResponseMy WayBobDylan
Book:Bob Dylan: Writings 1968-2010
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“What always attracted me to [Bob] Dylan, and what has sustained me as a Dylan listener, or has always continued to surprise me, is his voice, the way he sings, the way he wraps his voice around certain words, the way he backs off from melodic moments, the way he moves forward to grab something in a song that, were anybody else performing it, they would have no idea it was even there.”

WayIdeasMomentsMovingCertainSongVoiceSurpriseMoving ForwardNo IdeaPerformingBobListenersDylanWrapsSurprise Me
Author:Greil Marcus
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“As I write, Johnny Rotten's first moments in "Anarchy in the U.K." - a rolling earthquake of a laugh, a buried shout, then hoary words somehow stripped of all claptrap and set down in the city streets - I AM AN ANTICHRIST - Remain as powerful as anything I know. Listening to the record today - listening to the way Johnny Rotten tears at his lines, and then hurls the pieces at the world; recalling the all-consuming smile he produced as he sang - my back stiffens; I pull away even as my scalp begins to sweat.”

KnowsWorldWayWritingFirstsMomentsTodayLinesPowerfulCitiesLaughingRecordsPiecesStreetsTearsListeningBuriedAnarchySweatRollingRottenConsumingEarthquakesAntichristCity StreetsJohnny Rotten
Author:Greil Marcus
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“Rock 'n' Roll is a combination of good ideas dried up by fads, terrible junk, hideous failings in taste and judgment, gullibility and manipulation, moments of unbelievable clarity and invention, pleasure, fun, vulgarity, excess, novelty and utter enervation.”

IdeasMomentsFunPleasureFailingRocksTerribleTasteJudgmentInventionClarityCombinationManipulationExcessGood IdeasRock N RollUnbelievableNoveltyJunkHideousVulgarityFadsGullibilityTaste And Judgment
Book:Mystery Train
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“I was the first records editor at Rolling Stone, and there were no rules. There was nothing to fall back on as to how do you write about this kind of music, so people were trying absolutely everything with a great sense of freedom and experimentation and success and failure, and a feeling of, “My God, people are actually paying attention to this. Let’s pretend they aren’t because we don’t want to be intimidated by what somebody might think of what we’re saying.”

PeopleThinkingWantWritingTryingFirstsKindFeelingsMightFallAttentionRecordsStonesPay AttentionEditorsRollingSuccess And FailureIntimidatedExperimentationRolling StonesFall Back
Author:Greil Marcus
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“We fight our way through the massed and leveled collective safe taste of the Top 40, just looking for a little something we can call our own. But when we find it and jam the radio to hear it again it isn't just ours -- it is a link to thousands of others who are sharing it with us. As a matter of a single song this might mean very little; as culture, as a way of life, you can't beat it.”

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Book:Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll Music: Sixth Edition
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“The Sixties are most generously described as a time when people took part - when they stepped out of themselves and acted in public, as people who didn't know what would happen next, but who were sure that acts of true risk and fear would produce something different from what they had been raised to take for granted.”

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Book:The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years
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