Quotes About Creativity

I've made bad records but I've never made a dishonest record, let's put it that way.

The rigours of experience were beating relentlessly against his muse and Brian Wilson could no longer snugly dream on like before.

The thing is … to be blunt about it, the trouble with being an adulterer and a songwriter is that you always write songs in code.

I've got to keep moving somewhere. I've written some of my best songs on the move, driving on a long journey, scribbling lyrics on cigarette packets while steering. I like that style,

We just see Happy Mondays as this licence to do what we want right now as much as possible.

I don't try to make the sound better. Trying is not the way to do it. The way to do it is to find a medium by which you can create a sound through these other guys and myself by that medium.

You can find that in all art forms: the minute you inspire laughter you also make that person vulnerable, which means either you can shock them, make them laugh more, or, at that moment, you can be totally honest with them.

I think an artist will have to know that the reward is in the giving. That's where it's at: it's called "unconditional love".

For me, an image becomes meaningless inasmuch as it's always temporary. See, I've gone off on that tangent again, because you asked me about the image and all that. I just couldn't relate to all that side of things because, all that time, I was focused on trying to make the music sound half-way decent.

OK, let's just get really, really mellow and peaceful. Let's make music that's just as intense as the electric stuff but which comes from a completely different, more loving place.

That's how these songs of his seem to come to him anyway. They start from simple everyday occurrences the composer finds himself running into on the tube, say, or maybe on his way down to the off licence. And then they blossom into raging chunks of perfectly matched melody and savage eloquence.

It's like there's a mighty reservoir of songs that no one's ever heard up there in heaven and there's a tap in Neil Young's brain that's somehow attached to it. All he has to do is ease his mind into the right gear and something will always come trickling down.

See, I'm not trying to write. It just comes out when it comes out. So there is no block! Like, I'm not sitting down, going [frantically], "Oh my God, I've got to write a song! I really, really have to … Oh my God!" Hey, if I don't write a song, I don't record a song. Hell, it just gives me more time to do other things.

Philosophy, in its longing to rationalize, formalize, define, delimit, to terminate enigma and uncertainty, to co-operate wholeheartedly with the police, is nihilistic in the ultimate sense that it strives for the immobile perfection of death. But creativity cannot be brought to an end that is compatible with power, for unless life is extinguished, control must inevitably break down. We possess art lest we perish of the truth.

Artists; those savage beasts that can't get enough of too much.

A story isn't like a smoothly running engine, but is rather like a photograph. Photos can never be a perfect representation of what an eye looking at the same subject will see, partially due to the limitations of lenses and emulsions, but largely due to the conscious choice of the photographer.

Many fine keyboard players could and did emulate and recreate his parts, but nobody else other than Rick had the ability to create them in the first place.

Although the spitting incident was unnerving at the time, it did serve to set Roger's creative wheels spinning, and he developed the outline for a show based around the concept of an audience both physically and mentally separated from their idols. Whether the confrontation in Montreal

Listening back to 'Arnold Layne' now, and other songs from the same phase, I notice that I do not find myself cringing. I am definitely not embarrassed by our juvenilia. It all sounds pretty professional, even though it would have been recorded relatively quickly. With a limited number of tracks, you had to make decisions early on about which instrument would go on which track and then you mixed down. But the music genuinely doesn't seem to have suffered.

No more hired guns; just David, Rick and myself, with the engineer at the desk, a two-track left running – and as much time as we needed. Although bitter experience had taught us to be prepared for disappointment, and though there was no pressure to come up with anything concrete at these sessions, the very fact of booking the studio was an indication of our commitment.

I still find the most affecting moment on the whole record is where the last notes fade out and Rick introduces a wistful rubato line, on high notes, from 'See Emily Play'.

The album feels much more home-made, very much as a band playing together in one space. I think that Rick in particular felt significantly more integrated in the process this time, compared to Momentary Lapse. It was nice to have him back.

could not continue with Syd in this state, coupled to which it just was not fun any more – and doubtless no fun for Syd either. We did not want to lose Syd. He was our songwriter, singer, guitarist, and – although you might not have known from our less than sympathetic treatment of him – he was our friend.

My report card comments for the 'Atom Heart Mother' track would be: good idea, could try harder. 'Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast' on the second side is a similar example.