Quotes About The Rock And Roll

#1. I'm a huge fan of Canadian rock-and-roll. When I was growing up, Rush came out with a record called Hemispheres, and I must have listened to that record for two years straight. Even when I was asleep I had it on. So, yeah, whenever I hear a Rush tune, the first thing I think of is Toronto.

Kiefer Sutherland

#2. Mother is the rock, I am the ocean. I have to pout and roll my eyes for hours until she finally wears down and crumbles into a thousand grains of beach sand. It takes a lot of energy. I don't think I have it in me.

Laurie Halse Anderson

#3. Senator [George] Mitchell is a man of many talents and he's swift on his feet, but one would not think of him as 'dancing with the stars.' And we had this great rock 'n' roll fund raiser.

Barbara Mikulski

#4. Jane reminds us that God is in his heaven, the monarch on his throne and the pelvis firmly beneath the ribcage. Apparently rock and roll liberated the pelvis and it hasn't been the same since.

Emma Thompson

#5. A more important reason is that the bands will intuitively trust someone they think is a peer, and who speaks fondly of the same formative rock and roll experiences.

Steve Albini

#6. I've never believed in so much as I do the BVB Army. Rock and Roll is my religion. And Rock and Roll is back. I love all of you outcast.

Jinxx

#7. It is entirely possible to create something totally artificial within the realms of rock and roll.

David Bowie

#8. After I saw Kiss on stage, I wanted my show to look like the fourth of July. The persona of Rick James was wild and crazy, sex, drugs and rock and roll.

Rick James

#9. Hip hop is the new rock n' roll, you know what I mean? And anybody who doesn't think that is just sort of living in the past. It's all just American music, really, when you get right down to it.

Dan Auerbach

#10. Every musician, their goal in life is to play music that people love, and I've accomplished my goal. I was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and left that chapter of my life and those people in the past. Good and bad, I've loved and am thankful for that chapter.

Steven Adler

#11. A good example of a lyric that makes me laugh but might not hit anybody right away is, "Sit behind the guitar and play the chords," just because it's such a lame image. It's not rock'n'roll at all to be sitting behind a guitar.

Tim Heidecker

#12. The world is full of bands and bullshit, and if I'm doing a stupid art project like rock 'n' roll then I want to spare my audience as much as possible.

Ariel Pink

#13. I'm more than happy to say that I am a part of the return of Rock n' Roll.And that what we have to say means so much to these amazing people.

Jinxx

#14. My first real writing job was at 'Rolling Stone,' so I wrote about rock-and-roll and politics and the like. At the time, I really didn't know what I wanted to write, and I did a bunch of investigative journalism.

Tim Cahill

#15. I love rock and roll. Sometimes I feel like I was born in the wrong decade because I love Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix and ... those are my bands.

Marisa Miller

#16. My defenses were so great. The cocky rock and roll hero who knows all the answers was actually a terrified guy who didn't know how to cry. Simple.

John Lennon

#17. America is tough for rock music. Rock n' roll used to be the main music for the youth, and it's not so much anymore. It's hip-hop and stuff.

Taylor Hawkins

#18. The difference between blues, jazz, rock n' roll and rap is that rap stayed poor. Even the white rappers are poor. It's scarier to look at poor people; it makes everyone uncomfortable. Their pain is something that people would like to see swept under the rug.

Russell Simmons

#19. Our songs did not transcend being R&B hits. They were R&B hits that white kids were attracted to. And if people bought it, it became rock & roll. That's marketing. Why couldn't it still be R&B? The bass pattern didn't change. The song didn't change. It was still 'Yakety Yak' and 'Searchin'.'

Jerry Leiber

#20. We may be finished with the past but the past is not finished with us.

Donald Riggio

#21. They wanted to start recording rock 'n roll, and thought I had the right voice.

Freddy Fender

#22. I was drawn to love songs, but I was just drawn to great music - no matter if it's hip-hop, pop, R&B or whether it's rock n' roll or country. It could be a Garth Brooks song, and if it's a smash, then I'll love the different wordplay and different melodies. That's what I'm a fan of - great music.

Nayvadius Cash

#23. When I was twelve, the biggest name in Rock and Roll was Elvis Presley. I bought an EP, "King Creole". I hid it in the basement, but my mother found it.

Klaus Nomi

#24. Isn't it terrifying how instinctively the arm settles into the aiming of a gun? You've even put your finger on the lever marked Rock'n'roll, and that means you're 1% of the way along the road towards putting me down, shooter. The other 99% is just pulling the trigger.

Mark Crutchfield

#25. There's no place in the world you can go and not hear rock-and-roll, from Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder to Phil Collins.

Ahmet Ertegun

#26. Lord please save his soul, he was the king of rock and roll.

Robbie Robertson

#27. Elvis may be the King of Rock and Roll, but I am the Queen.

Little Richard

#28. Rock was different from rock and roll. Rock was virtuosic and adult, as opposed to popsy and teenaged. Rock and roll was apolitical and fun, while rock was "heavy" and often political, creating vistas of psychic energy that carried beyond the music itself and into radical politics and art.

Stephen Davis

#29. 'She's Dynamite' was a 100 years ago, and I recorded that song because the company thought that it was a great song and it was hot. That was the beginning of rock n' roll, and I guess they thought it would be a BB King version of rock n' roll.

B.B. King

#30. Sipping Bailey's Cream by the stereo, trying to find relief on the radio. I'm suppressing the tears.

Mariah Carey

#31. We have boys now, and men, in the rock and roll business and all the show business, who have this reaction on women. They scream. They yell. They do all sorts of wild things.

Minnie Pearl

#32. Rock n' roll was a bad and evil thing. l remember once I was singing a Barry Manilow song, "Mandy," In the back seat of the car. It came on the radio, and I kind of sang with it, and I got smacked In the mouth because that song was "evil."

Axl Rose

#33. Rock and Roll has no beginning and no end for it is the very pulse of life itself.

Larry Williams

#34. The story of my life is profoundly unclear. It is a rock-and-roll story and, at the same time, a story of my walk with Christ. The two are melded together in ways both unpredictable and unsure.

Scott Stapp

#35. I had tried marijuana several times, but in the words of my friend and longtime assistant Janet Stark, When I smoke pot, it makes me want to hide under the bed with a box of graham crackers and not share.

Linda Ronstadt

#36. (I invented rock and roll. You wouldn't believe the things I've invented. Anal sex, obviously. Smoking. Astrology. Money ... Let's save time: Everything in the world that distracts you from thinking about God. Which ... pretty much ... is everything in the world, isn't it? Gosh.)

Glen Duncan

#37. Aren't all the best songs about a girl? It doesn't matter if it's metal, if it's country, if it's blues or rock and roll; all the songs that make us remember and make us want to sing along are about the best kind of girl, the kind you can't live without but can't ever get ahold of.

Jay Crownover

#38. Rock & roll mostly is a very butch thing, and it appeals to one hard side of the masculine character. But I don't think the Rolling Stones are only a rock band. They can be other things. They can be very feminine.

Mick Jagger

#39. New York was the inspiration for The Heart of Rock and Roll and Workin for a Livin. There are a lot of songs in the streets of New York.

Huey Lewis

#40. I have to give my family credit for putting up with the racket, because as some of you may know, its not the easiest thing in the world to live with a kid who's trying to become a rock and roll drummer.

Max Weinberg

#41. Think back to the early rock n' roll records, and the average record length in the '50s - and well into the '60s - was two and a half minutes. It's very hard to put that much songwriting into two and a half minutes.

J. D. Souther

#42. The idea of the peace movement and of people who spent their entire lives trying to have a more egalitarian, just society, suddenly became swamped by the record industry, by the new rock and roll culture, and by the idea of not trusting anyone over thirty.

David Amram

#43. It was always my belief that rock and roll belonged in the hands of the people, not rock stars.

Patti Smith

#44. I was musically baptized by the black founding fathers of rock-and-roll, and like all real music lovers, the music changed, enriched, upgraded and fortified our lives forever.

Ted Nugent

#45. I have so many songs, it's ridiculous. I love so many different types of music and tend to write all over the map, style-wise. R&B, rock 'n' roll, screamers, pop, good-time songs.

Taryn Manning

#46. When Paul and I were first friends, starting in the sixth grade and seventh grade, we would sing a little together and we would make up radio shows and become disc jockeys on our home wire recorder. And then came rock and roll.

Art Garfunkel

#47. The rock & roll industry is very incestuous, and we have all been close at one time or another. A lot of beautiful music and a lot of beautiful times came from that. A lot of pain, too, because, inevitably, different relationships broke up.

Joni Mitchell

#48. It was cool at the rock camp - girls could just be themselves and they could be silly, they could roll around on the floor playing guitar.

Courtney Barnett

#49. Obviously the people that I admired, like the Beatles, were really into rock'n'roll, but it was already a little past rock'n'roll when I started listening and making my own choices about music.

Elvis Costello

#50. You see, rock and roll isn't a career or hobby - it's a life force. It's something very essential.

The Edge

#51. The blues had a baby and they called it rock and roll.

Muddy Waters

#52. Sold my guitar to the baker's son for a few crumbs and a place to hide.

Bob Dylan

#53. This is the rock 'n' roll life, and you had to invent it as you went along. There was no textbook to say how you operate this machinery.

Keith Richards

#54. Rap is the new rock 'n' roll. We the real rock stars, and I'm the biggest of all of them. I'm the No. 1 rock star on the planet.

Kanye West

#55. The road of rock and roll (much like life) is littered with broken dreams and death. And it's our job to overcome these and to survive.

Courtney Love

#56. The music that I have always liked has always been more rooted in anger or sadness or alienation or any of those inspirational factors that drove rock'n'roll, gospel, and blues. I tend not to value a more pop aesthetic.

DJ Shadow

#57. America. Members of the generation that once embraced sex, drugs and rock-and-roll

Anonymous

#58. I love David Bowie and Cher and Diana Ross. I wanted to follow in their footsteps. So I set out to do that in a rock-'n'-roll band in Atlanta, Georgia. That led me to nightclubs and to the sort of Andy Warhol experience of creating a personality.

RuPaul

#59. I think the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, first of all, has got to be put into the context of being an American cultural showcase. It's there to be a museum showcase of all that's great about American music.

Ian Anderson

#60. I tried to reach the combatants with my music. I tried to turn my anger into something positive. Myself, and others like me, just tried to keep rock and roll alive.

Eric Burdon

#61. Rock music is important to people , because it allows them to escape this crazy world. It allows them not to run away from the problems that are there, but to face up to them , but at the same time sort of DANCE ALL OVER THEM. That's what rock and roll is about.

Pete Townshend

#62. Rock and roll seems to have had a mellowing in the business where it got harder to sell individual records and make money doing that.

Conor Oberst

#63. I like the comfort in knowing that women are the only future in rock and roll.

Kurt Cobain

#64. If there was no black man there would be no Rock'n'Roll. The beat, the rhythms of Africa are what created Rock'n'Roll and Jazz.

Ray Manzarek

#65. Lately, my mind is like an orchestra. If you don't have the conductor, you don't know what to do. One guy is playing jazz, one guy is playing rock and roll, another classical. It's a big mess.

Goran Ivanisevic

#66. I feel like that I'm learning all the time. I'm learning from new artists, from established artists ... every time I listen to '70s rock 'n' roll records, I'm learning. And I think that I'm just now starting to get a hold on what I do.

Tim McGraw

#67. If I could dress anyone, I'd like to dress the Queen - she can handle anything. I'd put her in black - she never wears black - and add a little leather, maybe. A little rock n' roll.

Donatella Versace

#68. Everybody started calling my music rock and roll, but it wasn't anything but the same rhythm and blues I'd been playing down in New Orleans.

Fats Domino

#69. Blue jeans and Hollywood and rock & roll won the cold war.

Ben Dreyfuss

#70. If the Police could do a reunion ... One of the biggest jerks I ever met was Sting. If he can do it, then anyone can do it. It's not that big a deal. And the Eagles! They did it! They severely hated each other. It's just rock and roll.

Steven Adler

#71. Frank [Zappa]'s music was never for the mass audience. His music contains specific kinds of information that you won't find elsewhere in rock and roll.

Gail Zappa

#72. Places like Belgium and the south of France, Sweden and Copenhagen are really alive. They really love rock 'n' roll, they really respond.

Tom Verlaine

#73. We [The Replacements] formed as a rock and roll band, and that was the path we chose to take. Whenever we deviated from it we felt, unless everybody was into it, there was tension.

Paul Westerberg

#74. Rock has always been THE DEVIL'S MUSIC ... I believe rock and roll is dangerous ... I feel we're only heralding SOMETHING EVEN DARKER THAN OURSELVES.

David Bowie

#75. I'm mostly a jazz fan and I've never really been into rock 'n' roll music - although I guess Coldplay isn't really rock 'n' roll - but he's made me a convert. I do go to their concerts whenever we're in the same town and I don't even have to wear earplugs any more, which I did in the beginning.

Blythe Danner

#76. Drive away and try to keep smiling. Get a little rock and roll on the radio and go toward all the life there is with all the courage you can find and all the belief you can muster. Be true, be brave, stand.

Stephen King

#77. When Van Halen started out, there was no path to fame. We just played what we liked. Even today it always comes down to the simplicity of rock and roll.

Eddie Van Halen

#78. After my first video, I went out and had chicken noodle soup with my sister and manager. We were like, 'How rock n' roll are we? Celebrating the first video with chicken soup.'

Fleur East

#79. Let the music keep our spirits high, let the buildings keep our children dry, let creation reveal its secrets by and bye.

Jackson Browne

#80. Rock and roll's relatively new, in the sense of the Fifties, Sixties, right? They invented the first sort of rock stars, and they took it to excess, and then the excess became bitter, tormented. Then it became okay to succeed.

Albert Hammond Jr.

#81. Technology is 50% of rock 'n' roll - the magic, the art, the performance. If you don't have good technicians and a strong road crew who are devoted and believe in you and protect you, you're totally naked.

Patti Smith

#82. I am always the Baywatch girl at heart. The rock 'n' roll got harder and softer but I wouldn't give up those times for anything.

Pamela Anderson

#83. Leaders can change the tenor of the workplace and create harmony in motion toward a favorable result. So every time you say to your team, "Let's rock and roll," make sure you have already set up the stage to where they can actually perform like rock stars.

Thomas Huynh

#84. These things were in my mind from the first moment I entered the vocal booth. The gratitude I had for rock and roll as it pulled me through a difficult adolescence. The joy I experienced when I danced. The moral power I gleaned in taking responsibility for one's action.
Patti Smith

Patti Smith

#85. When you're young, with less on the line, it's easier to be audacious, to experiment. So I introduced the concerns of my generation - politics, sex, drugs, rock-and-roll, etc. - to the comics page, which for many years caused a rolling furor.

Garry Trudeau

#86. Rock and roll music - people want records. For me, it's the whole thing - the package. I don't get satisfaction from buying an MP3.

King Tuff

#87. Rock n' roll unchained a nation and revolutionized radio and the record industry, not to mention the motion picture business.

Henry Rollins

#88. I played in garage bands and rock and roll bands when I was in junior high and high school and saw some of the great talents of all time in the local area where I lived.

David Cassidy

#89. My dad was one of the reasons I got into rock and roll, because I was learning the ropes of his business, which was selling powertools, and I was looking for a way out from under his heel. I was like, 'Where's the fun? Where's the glamour?'

Billy Idol

#90. The music we made then was so amateurish, compared to the rest of mainstream pop or rock and roll. But what differentiated us from what everybody else was doing in the business was the fact that you could tell that these people came from different reference areas.

Kevin Ayers

#91. I guess you could say there are two Slashes. There's the crazy, rock-and-roll Slash, he's wild. And then there's the real Slash- he collects miniature soaps and treats his hookers real nice.

Slash

#92. And 'Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll' was a very transitional film for me in that I was one of the producers and you know, came up with the idea with the writer and the producer, as well. But, it was a very collaborative event. You know, I really love working in that way.

Andy Serkis

#93. The whole idea of rock and roll lifestyle is a cartoon. It's a caricature. And at times, it's made up of people emulating others; a few who actually live that lifestyle and many who claim to live that lifestyle.

Paul Stanley

#94. Gibson has been making the finest electric guitars the world has ever witnessed for over 70 years. They are as American as God, guns and rock and roll.

Ted Nugent

#95. The idea of being a rock and roll musician sort of suited my talents and mentality. The freedom was great, but then I found out I wasn't free. I'd got boxed in ... The whole Beatle thing is just beyond comprehension ... subconsciously I was crying for help.

John Lennon

#96. But tonight, this is what I can give you. I can offer you the vault of heaven, the firmament of the stars in the sky, and me

Deirdre Riordan Hall

#97. I don't want to name names, but the least I can say about rock and roll is that I'm suspicious.

Manuel Puig

#98. I see the crowd singing 'Rock 'N Roll' or 'Back Road' at my concerts ... they are anthems and they lift up your life.

Rodney Atkins

#99. ... .For instance, I hated Pearl Jam at the time. I thought they were pompous blowhards. Now, whenever a Pearl Jam song comes on the car radio, I find myself pounding my fist on the dashboard, screaming, Pearl JAM! Pearl JAM! Now this is rock and roll! Jeremy's SPO-ken! But he's still al-LIIIIIVE!

Rob Sheffield

#100. I think, describing Elvis for me would be a very generous king. He was the king of rock and roll, will always be. He's whats made it possible for everyone to be performers and to do the things they do now.

Jackie DeShannon