Quotes from Sixto Rodriguez

The earth is going to survive, it's the people that aren't.

In the music business, there's a lot of criticism and rejection. If you embrace it, you'll be better off when the adjustment comes.

There are no guarantees in the music field. There's a lot of rejection, a lot of criticism and a lot of disappointment. You have to be prepared for that. And after 1973, it just wasn't happening for me.

I renovate homes and buildings and residences in Detroit.

In Detroit there are a lot of houses they are going to demolish because no one is taking care of them.

I want to be mayor of the world. Don't give me too much money or too much power.

My dad, he was my role model - my mom died when I was three - and the way we honor our parents is remembering their heritage.

I've been a candidate for office at least eight times. A couple times for mayor, state representative, city council.

About love, don't be a silent partner. And be gentle with your anger.

I like people who can write and sing, and play an instrument.

Voice is the first instrument.

I was skeptical about the whole idea of my being in a film.

I love my country. It's just the government I don't trust.

I sing about social issues, not the boy-girl stuff.

My career, it's been a mess.

I'm Mexican, and we do a lot of singing, and it was my brother's guitar that I'd practice on, and he would say, 'Who's that playing my guitar?'

You can't get around certain stuff, whether it's in Darfur or on your block at home. What makes us political is your home turf, your family, your life space. You walk down the street, and automatically a human being is territorial, and political happens in that.

I know I did 'Establishment Blues,' and I said 'This is not a song it's an outburst' and I'd play it, I never did describe it as a rant - R-A-N-T - but the thing is it's exactly that. Sometimes it sounds like that, but there's a lot out there on the everyday man, on the plight of the little guy.

I learned that South Africa is a beautiful country with gorgeous people, and I got to see it from a different perspective than most people do.

I think that many of the issues they were facing in South Africa were the same as those I was singing about. Conscription, resisting the draft, government repression - I mentioned all those things in my songs.

I have a formal education, but there's a whole lot you don't learn in school. And you only have so much time to figure it out. No matter how cerebral, celestial, how ethnic, there's a span of time here.

Music is not a spectator sport, you have to be involved - fully involved - or you get left behind.

My entry level has always been pretty high in the music business.

You see there's music and there's the music business - and they're different.