Top 100 Rock Roll Quotes
#1. People called rock & roll 'African music.' They called it 'voodoo music.' They said that it would drive the kids insane. They said that it was just a flash in the pan - the same thing that they always used to say about hip-hop.
Little Richard
#2. Rock & roll is a type of sensuous music unfit for impressionable minds.
Tip O'Neill
#3. 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
#4. 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
#5. 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
#6. Party everday and rock roll every night!!!!!! ROCK ON
Kiss
#7. We are still not in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame but there are 3,000 Kiss products, a Kiss musical toothbrush, everything from Kiss caskets to Kiss condoms. There are no Radiohead condoms ...
Paul Stanley
#8. Blue jeans and Hollywood and rock & roll won the cold war.
Ben Dreyfuss
#9. Elvis may have fueled rock & roll's imagery, but Chuck Berry was its heartbeat and original mindset.
Cub Koda
#10. There was a moment when Prince did rock & roll with a sponge-y seductive sound. I think that's what was in our head for 'Get On Your Boots.' But actually, the song is much more punk rock.
Bono
#11. I looked more like Kurt Cobain than ever, except I doubt Cobain ever wore a shirt that read: WIGGLES ROCK & ROLL PRESCHOOL TOUR! The really disturbing thing was that they made shirts like that in my size.
Rick Riordan
#12. 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
#13. I have always maintained that Iggy Pop is the Heavyweight Champion of Rock & Roll.
Henry Rollins
#14. I don't blame the average seventeen-year-old punk-rock kid for calling me a sellout. I understand that. And maybe when they grow up a little bit, they'll realize there's more things to life than living out your rock & roll identity so righteously.
Kurt Cobain
#15. There's all these musicians in the world, and anybody that takes enough time to create a record or even think about the fantasy of rock & roll, it's a vulnerable place to be in, it's a huge thing to do.
Ryan Adams
#16. The thing about Nashville is, it's not just country music ... There's rock & roll, there's every kind of music. It's just a music town ... There's so much fun stuff to get in to.
Connie Britton
#17. A lot of people call me the architect of rock & roll. I don't call myself that, but I believe it's true.
Little Richard
#18. It's so glamorous, you have to see it. (describing the $92 million Rock & Roll Hall of Fame)
Aretha Franklin
#19. There's room for everyone. There's room for pop country, for 'rock & roll' country, for stone-cold country, and everything in-between. Great music is great music.
Miranda Lambert
#20. Being a rock & roll star has become as legitimate a career option as being an astronaut or a policeman or a fireman.
Trent Reznor
#21. Punk was just a single, venomous one-syllable, two-syllable phrase of anger - which was necessary to reignite rock & roll. But sooner or later, someone was going to want to say more than fuck you.
Greil Marcus
#23. There are enough scary rock & roll mothers in the world.
Tori Amos
#24. I've always felt that rock & roll was very, very wholesome.
Aretha Franklin
#25. Paul McCartney is a genius ... Paul married Rock & Roll
to beauty, and forever raised the bar for composers,
musicians, and fans ... an incredible solo performer ...
the creator of our favorite songs ...
Alec Baldwin
#26. I've only done two other TV shows [instead of Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll], one was Rescue Me and the other was a show called The Job, which was at ABC and only on for two seasons.
Denis Leary
#27. I've always loved the rock & roll element to live shows, because whatever else I do, I'm basically a rock/pop performer, and that's what I like.
Marc Almond
#28. I like rock & roll, and I don't like much else.
John Lennon
#29. Rock & roll is like a painting. Can great paintings still be done? It depends on who holds the brush.
Patti Smith
#30. Hip-hop is rock & roll. What the hell is Wu-Tang but Motorhead?
Mos Def
#31. It was wonderful, a stunning happy ending to what began as another tragic rock & roll story, as if Bob Dylan had been arrested in Miami for jacking off in a seedy little XXX theater while stroking the spine of a fat young boy.
Hunter S. Thompson
#32. Leaving stage with a bloody scalp, it's rock & roll, I guess, but I want some hair at the end of the tour.
Taylor Momsen
#34. Rock & roll is not so much a question of electric guitars as it is striped pants.
David Lee Roth
#35. When rock & roll is done with that fervor, it's close to gospel.
Paul Stanley
#36. Rock & roll is not obscure, it's really easy to understand. So is my painting.
Grace Slick
#37. Rock & roll was the only thing I wanted to get into.
Roger Daltrey
#38. In rock & roll heaven, there ARE drum solos, but only the drummers can hear them.
Lin Brehmer
#39. When I started Rolling Stone in November 1967, the magazine's initial chapter was to cover rock & roll music with intelligence and respect. Even then, we knew that the fervor sweeping our generation encompassed more than just music.
Jann Wenner
#40. Be cool and you'll be alright. That's rock & roll religion.
Paul McCartney
#41. I was trained at classical piano as a youngster back in PA. To rebel, I bought a drum set and played in some rock & roll bands. In college I picked up a guitar and became obsessed with practicing which led to playing guitar in indie rock bands in the mid 90's. Which led me to Los Angeles.
Jeff Cardoni
#42. I wouldn't say rock & roll is dead but the current music made by young people isn't really rock & roll.
Joe Walsh
#43. Rock & roll is dying. It's frightening to think about the music scene 20 years from now.
Kurt Cobain
#44. Big Star invented a vision of bohemian rock & roll cool that had nothing to do with New York, Los Angeles or London, which made them completely out of style in the 1970s, but also made them an inspiration to generations of weird Southern kids.
Rob Sheffield
#45. The songs that I like are the ones that you can't visualize, that are just cries from the heart - those very straight, direct songs that make rock & roll music so wonderful.
Nick Cave
#46. Boys were a very essential part of rock & roll. The girls were more onlookers.
Mick Jagger
#47. I invented rock & roll. Jimi Hendrix was my guitar player. James Brown was my vocalist.
Little Richard
#48. Rock & roll is not about what you play, it's about how you play it.
Billy Corgan
#49. I never went to rock concerts when I was a kid. I didn't see any rock & roll bands. I had posters on my wall. I had Beatles records.
Dave Grohl
#50. When you hear the music ringin' in your soul
And you feel it in your heart and it grows and grows
And it comes from the backstreet rock & roll and the healing has begun
Van Morrison
#51. I can't read music. That's not where I come from musically. I come strictly from feeling, and that feeling comes from rock & roll.
Bobby Keys
#52. I think rock & roll has prepared me for a lot of flexibility.
Billy Corgan
#53. I'm old enough to know what music was like before rock & roll.
Roger Glover
#54. The life of a rock & roll band will last as long as you can look down into the audience and see yourself.
Bruce Springsteen
#55. To be a parent, especially to rock & roll kids, I think being a parent is the most difficult job on the face of the earth. You hate to say things that will upset your kids, but then sometimes you have to because you can't let them run around wild.
Ozzy Osbourne
#56. 'The Queen Is Dead' is not merely the Smiths' best album, but it is one of those timeless, perfect, inexhaustible artifacts that could only have been made by a gang of sullen, sun-deprived rock & roll boys fighting off adulthood tooth and nail.
Rob Sheffield
#57. I don't buy into the idea that you're not supposed to rock & roll after a certain date. Maybe I should be in Bellevue, but I'm just having a good time.
Steven Tyler
#58. Rock & Roll is feeling, and after you know most of the basics ... chords, rhythm, scales and bends ... getting that feeling is just about the most important aspect of playing guitar
Eddie Van Halen
#59. Trying to seduce an audience is the basis of rock & roll.
Jon Bon Jovi
#60. Hip-hop is a part of rock & roll because it comes from DJ culture. DJ culture is the embodiment of all genres and all recorded music, if you actually pay attention to it.
Chuck D
#61. Bon Jovi's trick is to use heavy-metal chords and still sound absolutely safe. Rock & roll used to be rebellion disguised as commercialism; now so much of it is commercialism disguised as rebellion.
Michael Azerrad
#62. Back to basics Rock & Roll capturing the beauty and simplicity of punk
Gary Crowley
#63. Rock & Roll is the physical thing that just comes out of you .. the other stuff you have to sit down and learn .. once you learn scales and chord progressions, you can make up your own versions
Brian Setzer
#64. The sax solo as we know it today would not exist without Gerry Rafferty. His 1978 soft-rock classic 'Baker Street' has to be the 'Ulysses' of rock & roll saxophone, giving the entire chorus over to Raphael Ravenscroft's sax solo, creating one of the Seventies' most enduringly creepy sounds.
Rob Sheffield
#65. When I was growing up, rock & roll helped give me my sense of identity, but I had to search for it.
Trent Reznor
#66. I don t wanna see old people on a rock & roll stage.
Grace Slick
#67. A girl can't sing rock & roll too well. It's basically too savage.
Connie Francis
#68. Rock & roll seemed to just come to us, on the radio and in the record stores. It became our music ... But then we uncovered another, deeper level, the history behind rock and R&B, the music behind our music. All roads led to the source, which was the blues.
Martin Scorsese
#69. 'Doo-wop' is a very special word for me. Because I grew up listening to my dad who, as a Fifties rock & roll head, loved doo-wop music.
Bruno Mars
#70. It's much too late to do anything about rock & roll now ...
Jerry Garcia
#71. My primary reason for bringing my son on was to have a voice on the show [Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll] that would bring a 25 or 26 year old point of view to it, and my son is very capable of writing that stuff.
Denis Leary
#72. 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
#73. The Mekons are the most revolutionary group in the history of rock 'n' roll.
Lester Bangs
#74. Jesus Christ was the original rock'n'roll star. He gave people reasons to live in the rut they were living in. He was the first man to say, "You don't have to have human sacrifices, 'cause human sacrifices hurt somebody, you know?" Just believe in the spirit that is within you.
Ozzy Osbourne
#75. We all have very different musical DNA, and we all follow different musical paths. Yet there is a unifying quality about rock'n'roll that helps instill confidence and hope in millions of fans at times in their lives when little else makes sense.
Robert Hilburn
#76. 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
#77. The great thing about rock-n-roll is you realize the top of the mountain is big enough for more than one band.
Paul Stanley
#78. I grew up listening to everything. And rock and roll has always been a big, big part of it - as big a part of what I do as any other type of music.
Jason Aldean
#79. All any girl really wants is just love and a man. But what man can put up with a rock-n-roll star?
Janis Joplin
#81. There's an edge to real rock 'n' roll. It's all that matters.
Neil Young
#82. 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
#83. I look back on my life, comin' out of Macon, Georgia - I never thought I'd be a superstar, a living legend. I never heard of no rock and roll in my life.
Little Richard
#84. 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
#85. Anyone who thinks they're happy should really see a doctor, because there is no reason to be happy.
Marilyn Manson
#86. Most people get into bands for three very simple rock and roll reasons: to get laid, to get fame, and to get rich.
Bob Geldof
#87. 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
#88. 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
#89. I'm no less rock 'n' roll than anyone else, I'm pretty normal.
Konnie Huq
#90. It is entirely possible to create something totally artificial within the realms of rock and roll.
David Bowie
#91. Today it feels as if rock'n'roll has sort of turned in on its self, kids are 'rockin' to the same groups their parents do/did. We've seen it recently with The Stone Roses reunion shows, quite unique but is it healthy. Wasn't the 60's about rebelling against the tastes of your parents?
Andrew Loog Oldham
#92. 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
#93. If I'm boxing, I'll probably have rap on, or something a little more angry. If I'm lifting, maybe some rock 'n' roll. If I'm doing some cardio, something fast paced.
Steven R. McQueen
#94. I play Rock 'n' Roll, that's what I do.
Kid Rock
#95. 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
#96. 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
#97. 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
#98. You start out playing rock 'n' roll so you can have sex and do drugs, but you end up doing drugs so you can still play rock 'n' roll and have sex.
Mick Jagger
#99. See, to me, rock'n'roll doesn't have any point. It's just fun. It has a million different angles and they're all valid. But I think rock might be a world issue.
Evan Dando
#100. 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
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