Quotessence
Home / Topics / Rock N Roll Quotes

Rock N Roll Quotes

Browse 752 quotes about Rock N Roll.

Related topics

PeopleThinkingIfsBandKnowsWantWayPlayMusicKindMusicianGuitarJazzWorldWantedWritingLittlesSongStillsWellsYearsPopsStarsTryingCountrySexGuyKidsDifferentFirstsMeanRecordsDrugFunMusic IsShowsStuffFeelsFormI CanMenMusicalYoungLongRealSingersWholeBigsArtistGivingHas BeensMadeNamesRhythmShouldCultureGirlHardLooksSoulStyleArtDoneGenerationsMightParentSceneSpiritBelieveHipsRapRememberSaidSingingTodayTogetherAmericaBitsFeltRock And Roll MusicSoundUsedAttitudeAudienceBeatsChangedDoeEnoughFiveGrewGrew UpHip HopHopsImportantMomentsNightPastPop MusicStageTwomore

Rock N Roll Quotes

“My definition of an intellectual is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger" - Billy Connolly”

LifeWarRomanceLiteratureFriendshipMusicAdventureDramaAbuseTragedyLove StoryRecoveryIntimacyImmigrantsVietnamRock N RollAmerican Dream1960sVisionsContemporary FictionCountercultureFolkCivil UnrestPositive Ending
Book:Boulder Blues: A Tale of the Colorado Counterculture
Create image

“The primary math of the real world is one and one equals two. The layman (as, often, do I) swings that every day. He goes to the job, does his work, pays his bills and comes home. One plus one equals two. It keeps the world spinning. But artists, musicians, con men, poets, mystics and such are paid to turn that math on its head, to rub two sticks together and bring forth fire. Everybody performs this alchemy somewhere in their life, but it’s hard to hold on to and easy to forget. People don’t come to rock shows to learn something. They come to be reminded of something they already know and feel deep down in their gut. That when the world is at its best, when we are at our best, when life feels fullest, one and one equals three. It’s the essential equation of love, art, rock ’n’ roll and rock ’n’ roll bands. It’s the reason the universe will never be fully comprehensible, love will continue to be ecstatic, confounding, and true rock ’n’ roll will never die.”

ArtRock N Roll
Book:Born to Run
Create image

“To be sure, rock n' roll is usually a flagrant commercialization of rhythm & blues, but the music in many cases depends on materials that are so alien to the general middle-class, middle-brow American culture as to remain interesting. Many of the same kinds of cheap American dilutions that had disfigured popular swing have tended to disfigure the new music, but the source, the exciting and "vulgar" urban blues of the forties, is still sufficiently removed from the mainstream to be vital. For this reason, rock n' roll has not become as emotionally meaningless as commercial swing. It is sill raw enough to stand the dilution and in some cases, to even be made attractive by the very fact of its commercialization. Even its "alienation" remains conspicuous; it is often used to characterize white adolescents as "youthful offenders." (Rock n' roll also is popular with another "underprivileged" minority, e.g., Puerto Rican youths. There are now even quite popular rock n' roll songs, at least around New York, that have some of the lyrics in Spanish.) Rock n' roll is the blues form of the classes of Americans who lack the "sophistication" to be middle brows, or are too naïve to get in on the mainstream American taste; those who think that somehow Melachrino, Kostelanetz, etc., are too lifeless”

Rock N RollBlues
Book:Blues People: Negro Music in White America
Create image

“Dear Lindy, You won’t believe what I’ve done: me, the quiet one. I’ve written it down, written you down, told all your stories, tried to capture you in the pages of a book. Some people know about you already, or think they do; you’re sort of famous. Others have never heard of you, but I don’t think it matters either way. This isn’t a rock biography, and although the story of your band, The Go-Betweens, is part of the narrative, the real story is you. Or maybe, in truth, the story is you and me, the arc of a friendship, the imprint one person leaves on another.”

MusicRock N Roll
Book:My Rock 'n' Roll Friend
Create image