Quotes About Busking

I worked in retail for a bit and then I busked for two years. As soon as I started, I thought, 'I'll do busking until I'm 50 because this is the best job in the world.'

When I was a street performer, before I had any songs of my own that anybody would stop and put in money for, I would always be doing covers. Even with covers, people wouldn't stop in the beginning.

in Napa County. I eventually lost focus on the dome project and ended up busking with another friend on the streets of Berkeley—he played accordion, I played violin and ukulele and struck ironic poses. It was successful. I realized that at that time I was more interested in irony than utopia.

There was a lot of times when I was busking there were a lot of people in your face, like 'More, more! Go again, again, again!'... People were so used to be able to swipe to see something different to entertain themselves that the patience had diminished.

Passyunk Productions is our film & tv production company. The name comes from a street in Philly, Passyunk Avenue, where the concept of The Roots was born, as Ahmir and I started out busking on the corner of 5th & Passyunk back in the early '90s.

I busked a few times in Asheville, North Carolina, when I was 18. It was terrifying. I was probably just trying to meet girls.

I was the highest-paid street performer, probably, in the history of Chicago. I was making like $800 a day.

That's the first thing you learn when you busk in the New York City subways: you immediately join the ranks of the marginalized, the unhinged prophets, the Christian shouters, the Hare Krishnas, the Jehovah's witnesses, the father-and-daughter kitaro team, the violinists playing for their sickly wives.

I'm constantly warning people that are involved in my life that I can go busk and make a living. I can make my rent in New York City in the subway, I promise, if I'm forced to.

I don't busk any more because it's gotten too dangerous.

I thought the world of live performance and busking was where I was going to thrive. I had no idea that digital streaming platforms and radio and that world would be for me, you know?

As a busker, one thing that does not work is self-consciousness. A busker needs to be working. A busker needs to shed all ego and get down to work. Play your songs, play them well, earn your money, and don't get in people's way.

To be honest, busking was a massive part of becoming aware of homelessness. I used to run into a lot of 'Big Issue' sellers and a lot of people on the street. It really opened my eyes to the kind of life that they live and the options that are open for them - or not, actually.

I did pretty well busking. I would play two to eight hours a day, and I could make two or three hundred an hour.

Well, playing a guy who writes songs and busks on Grafton Street in Dublin and falls in love with Marketa Irglova wasn't very difficult for me. There was very little acting going on.

'Vagabond' is about owning where I come from, understanding the real power music had to transport myself with, whether that's busking in Europe or getting number ones.

In Irish law, busking is considered vagrancy - you can be arrested for it. It's risky asking people for money in public. So it's not like it's a high-art job. And people who do it as a high-art job make very little money.

I was very lucky. Things happened, both bad and good, but I never got into real, deep trouble. But it wore me down. By the time I was 18, I was done. I didn't want to live the life any more. I needed to develop past the point that busking takes you to.

Well, everything about singing, I learned from busking. Everything I learned about songwriting, I learned from busking.

I'm so lucky to not have to busk anymore, but I realized as soon as I didn't need to do it that I really missed it.

I started busking when I was 24. I was living with Mom and Dad. I'd broken up with my girlfriend and didn't know what I was doing with my life, and I thought, 'Well, this is the last shot - I'm going busking, and let's see what happens.'

Dance Monkey' is about the bad side of busking.

I meant to slip away, he said, busking it now.

I've done my share of busking, and it's fun until it isn't. There are musicians in the subways that will make you cry, they're so good.