Rock N Roll Quotes

I grew up listening to a lot of player-piano music in my house and a lot of old Tin Pan Alley songs and American standards. My dad listened to a lot of traditional Irish music and I grew up doing musical theater. So most of the music I was exposed to as a kid was pre-rock n' roll. ~ John C. Reilly

I don't believe people playing rock n' roll should have crowns. We're not kings and queens. Anybody can play it. ~ Patti Smith

I'm a hybrid-genre person, which a lot of people find confusing. I grew up listening to American country music and rock n' roll made between 1955 and 1959. The Everly Brothers and Chuck Berry were my first musical loves and are still what I am most moved by. Roy Orbison came a little bit later. ~ Teddy Thompson

Rock n Roll is music from the neck down. ~ Keith Richards

Rock 'n' Roll might not solve your problems, but it does let you dance all over them ~ Pete Townshend

Rock n' roll seems to have changed society much more than any politician, I think it really has. ~ Roger Daltrey

The songs are inspired by my experiences. Sometimes they are more than my real-life and, conversely, my life is more than just my songs. ~ Melissa Etheridge

When I started out, everyone seemed to be adopting these names ... Johnny Rotten, Sid Vicious. I wasn't really Rotten or Vicious or Nasty, so I wanted something a bit more funny - yet something that seemed real rock 'n' roll ... something that acknowledged my ambition. ~ Billy Idol

I like pop music. I consider rock 'n' roll to be a branch of pop music. ~ Tom Stoppard

I don't know if I miss it per se, but I do miss the fact that there just doesn't seem to be any rock 'n' roll out there anyplace. Everything does seem kind of tame. It's even hard in Manhattan to go out and find a good band to go see. ~ Joan Jett

I'm very fit on tour. I try to eat well, try to sleep. But it's still rock n' roll. ~ Rufus Wainwright

In 1952, Muddy cut the song 'Rollin' Stone.' It was a nationwide success, and the song echoes down through rock n' roll history. Bob Dylan cut a tribute by the same name, an English band decided to call themselves the Rolling Stones, and the magazine that first embraced music as a serious cultural phenomenon was itself called 'Rolling Stone.' ~ Tim Cahill

The reason kids like rock 'n roll is their parents don't. ~ Mitch Miller

In this [show] business you do something rock 'n' roll and then that's it, finished, heads roll. It's best not to take drugs, go to sex dungeons or cause controversy. And those who've done it - Russell Brand, Angus Deayton, whoever - they've really paid for it, even if what they've done is quite trivial. ~ Konnie Huq

The scent of the sea and the burning asphalt being carried on the southerly wind made me think of summers past. The warmth of a girl's skin, old rock n' roll, button-down shirts right out of the wash, the smell of cigarettes smoked in the pool locker room, faint premonitions, everyone's sweet, limitless summer dreams. And then one year(when was it?), those dreams didn't come back. ~ Haruki Murakami

People have always been resistant to change. If you go back to the 17th, 18th century, playing guitar was frowned upon. When rock n' roll first started, no one took it seriously. ~ Moby

It was the early days of Rock 'n' Roll in this country. We were all struggling to learn music, it might be Country, Jazz, Classical, Blues or even Rock 'n' Roll. ~ Jim Sullivan

Scary rock n' roll bands had all the devilish imagery. But at the same time, it's not because they were devil worshippers, they were saying that society is run by devils. It was human society that created these things, they become the devils. This is what you worship. This money is what you worship. This idea is what you worship. ~ Immortal Technique

I don't think rock 'n' roll is necessarily a young man's game. ~ Adam Clayton

I'm down to a bottle of wine a day, but my hands still shake a bit. ~ Pete Way

When I die, sprinkle my ashes over the 80's. ~ David Lee Roth

When I started covering The Beatles and The Rolling Stones in a rock 'n' roll band, it helped me realize that my natural voice is actually really high. It helped me find my voice. ~ Gotye

I wanted to be a rock 'n' roll star. It defines life for me. It's all I've ever imagined for myself. ~ Shelby Lynne

We thought that's the way you were supposed to be if you were in a rock 'n' roll band. Flamboyant. ~ David Johansen

Leadbelly's guitar is in the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame. ~ Roger McGuinn

Harry [Shearer] and I had an idea to do a movie about rock 'n' roll from the roadies' perspective, from backstage. Then Meat Loaf came out with a movie called Roadie and we thought, "Oh, we can't do that now." So we kind of discarded the idea. ~ Rob Reiner

I think Lady Gaga is great and is changing pop music and bringing back a certain rock 'n' roll spirit, swagger to the game. ~ Adam Lambert

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

Most people are living lives of sort of survival. And constantly posing an existential crisis, either through fantasy or oblivion, really has been pretty much explored in rock and roll. At least in the western version of rock n' roll. ~ Billy Corgan

I like jazz, rock n' roll, some hip hop - I can't think of any music I don't like. ~ B.B. King

'Rock n' Roll Animal,' the live album, is one of the greatest live albums out there. It was a huge influence on me. ~ Al Jourgensen

Oh, I think country has changed tremendously. I think country has totally changed. Country music when I was a kid was Hank Williams. If you put Hank and Elvis together, there wasn't that musical difference. But as the Beatles showed up and the English invasion, I think country music got pretty far away from rock n' roll. ~ John Mellencamp

My listening changed when I heard music from Stax, Atlantic, Motown because by that age I thought anything that my parents listened to must be square. So I had to find my own rock n' roll, as it were, and I found it in black soul music. ~ Robert Palmer

Back in Chicago, all we cared about was rock 'n' roll and staying out of the army. ~ John Belushi

Rock 'n Roll is monotony tinged with hysteria. ~ Vance Packard

Survivor is like rock 'n' roll - you can do what you want. ~ Jeff Probst

Music, you know, true music not just rock 'n' roll, chooses you. ~ Lester Bangs

Julieanne Smolinksi has a history in rock journalism and she's a huge rock 'n' roll fan, and she was a huge fan of Ava (Elaine Hendrix) and Gigi (Elizabeth Gillies) and of the actresses. I was really lucky to get her, in between seasons on Grace and Frankie. ~ Denis Leary

Rock 'n' roll is much easier if you're white. ~ Kid Rock

Liverpool was an industrial town, a poor town. The people fought hard for what they wanted to achieve and there was a hunger there, and that hunger has remained with the musicians. ~ Pete Best

In pop music, you say, 'You can do what you want to me.' Rock 'n' roll says, 'I'm gonna do what I want to you.' ~ Joan Jett

There comes a point where it is just undignified to be a rock 'n' roll star. ~ Tina Turner

I just got into it like a lot of people through the rock 'n' roll bands in the late '60s that turned to country music, like The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield, but particularly through The Byrds because of Gram Parsons, Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman (with their 1968 album Sweetheart of the Rodeo). They kind of introduced English kids to Merle Haggard and George Jones and the Louvins (brothers Charlie and Ira). ~ Elvis Costello

You can't stop rock-n-roll! ~ Dee Snider

I came upon a child of god, He was walking along the road And I asked him, where are you going And this he told me: I'm going on down to Yasgur's farm I'm going to join in a rock 'n' roll band I'm going to camp out on the land, I'm going to try an' get my soul free. ~ Joni Mitchell

Yeah. I know, I'm so bridge-and-tunnel - for as long as I've been able to catch the train, I've been sneaking into the city to go to Midtown. Hang out with the bankers, merge some mergers and acquire some acquisitions. The whole thing just reeked of sex and rock 'n' roll to me. Can't you feel it in the air? Close your eyes. Feel it? I ~ Rachel Cohn

If you're looking for light entertainment, you can't get much lighter than 'Bye Bye Birdie,' a flyweight farce about the coming of rock n' roll to small-town America. ~ Terry Teachout

What's holding me up is I'm confused about the nature of the music. Because the modern music doesn't reach me. I mean to say the sound of the modern electric production. A lot of sequencers ... synths. That's what people are buying. Because that doesn't reach me, it throws me back to like 1948, but I don't want to be there. Back there, I'm talking about blues records ... The roots of rock 'n' roll is rhythm and blues and that's like really where I'm at, where I was always at. ~ Joe Strummer

Everyone in rock 'n roll including myself was touched by Elvis's spirit, I was, and always will be a fan. ~ Bryan Ferry

I've finally tapped into that spirit of self-destruction that makes rock-n-roll the king of music! ~ Homer

Music is the soundtrack of your life. ~ Dick Clark

Music is such a great communicator. It breaks down linguistic barriers, cultural barriers, it basically reaches out. That's when rock n' roll succeeds, and that's what virtuosity is all about. ~ The Edge

I'm a rock 'n' roll baby. I was one of the last actually born into rock, in the middle of it. My mother was a promoter, so I grew up with rock stars. When I was little, people like Jimi Hendrix were walking around in the living room. ~ Ari Up

As much as I can, as much as I can afford, I keep ticket prices down. Rock 'n' roll was developed as the people's voice, the people's art, it was grassroots. I don't believe that the people should be estranged from their rock stars. They're not kings and queens - all rock stars are those who are able to give back a bit of culture to other people. It's people's heritage. ~ Patti Smith

I learned to play piano in a rock n' roll context or band context from country records - you know, Floyd Cramer - and from the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Stax. And none of those are keyboard records. ~ Benmont Tench

I come in with this rock 'n' roll-oriented music, and it's not black enough ... I've always had to deal with this black-white thing. ~ Lenny Kravitz

T-shirt and jeans style now is where I'm at. Maybe a little rock 'n' roll T-shirt and jeans. ~ Josh Hutcherson

Rock n' roll is the most disgusting form of expression, it's brutal, malefic, a pestilential aphrodisiac, the preferred music of the delinquents of the earth. ~ Frank Sinatra

It's taken me other places, but it was the impulse to write that led me to singing. I'm not a musician. I never thought of performing in a rock n' roll band. I was just drawn in. It was like being called to duty - I was called to duty, and I did my duty as best as I could. ~ Patti Smith

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

One thing about Texas people, they're very passionate about their Rock N' Roll, and I love it. ~ Steven Adler

Of course, when I started my career, like anyone else who was 16 at the time, we were besotted by the rock-n-roll scene from America, and all I was interested in was having a career of my own. ~ Cliff Richard

I'm pretty sure that when babies are born in Oregon, they leave the hospital with birth certificates - and teeny-tiny sleeping bags. Everyone in the state camps. The hippies and the rednecks. The hunters and the tree huggers. Rich people. Poor people. Even rock musicians. Especially rock musicians. Our band had perfected the art of punk-rock camping, throwing a bunch of crap into the van with, like, an hour's notice and just driving out into the mountains, where we'd drink beer, burn food, jam on our instruments around the campfire, and sack out under the open sky. Sometimes, on tour, back in the early hardscrabble days, we'd even camp as an alternative to crashing in another crowded, roach-infested rock 'n' roll house.
I don't know if it's because no matter where you live, the wilderness is never that far off, but it just seemed like everyone in Oregon camped. ~ Gayle Forman

I tried to stick with what I knew best, which is writing rock n' roll songs and melodies. I am as passionate as I was when I was 20. ~ Gary Cherone

I don't know if it's possible to live the rock 'n roll lifestyle and still be romantic. ~ Adam Levine

I have no intention of dying young and being some stinking rock'n'roll person. ~ Courtney Love

All my life I just wanted to be a beatnik. Meet all the heavies, get stoned, get laid, have a good time. That's all I ever wanted. Except I knew I had a good voice and I could always get a couple of beers off of it. All of a sudden someone threw me in this rock 'n' roll band. They threw these musicians at me, man, and the sound was coming from behind. The bass was charging me. And I decided then and there that that was it. I never wanted to do anything else. It was better than it had been with any man, you know. Maybe that's the trouble. ~ Janis Joplin

The way I feel about music is that there is no right and wrong; only true and false. ~ Fiona Apple

The role of the musician is to go from concept to full execution. Put another way, it's to go from understanding the content of something to really learning how to communicate it and make sure it's well-received and lives in somebody else. ~ Yo-Yo Ma

The blues are real important. It's where most of the hard rock n' roll came from. ~ Izzy Stradlin

Elvis was rock'n'roll. He came from the poverty and the pain. ~ Link Wray

Rock n' roll seems like it's faded away sometimes, but it will never die. ~ Alex Turner

Hip-hop took some lessons from rock 'n' roll, and rock 'n' roll took some lessons from hip-hop. ~ Russell Simmons

Some things are like that - they strike you as repugnant for instinctive reasons, probably having to do with your culture and the way you were raised. The French word "gauche" comes to mind, but I preferred the Hebrew word "treyf." Literally, it means not kosher, but I also use it to describe things like cars, bars, strip clubs, guns, dogs, rock-n-roll, and football games. Things that are treyf, you avoid, not because you hate them per se, but because in avoiding them you keep yourself from becoming like the people you hate. ~ Aaron Cometbus

I suppose the best comedy shows do have the rock n' roll feeling - if it's a great night, and the roof is raised ... yeah, it's a similar feeling, sure. ~ Dylan Moran

The Mekons are the most revolutionary group in the history of rock 'n' roll. ~ Lester Bangs

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

This is what I've learned, in my life: Headbanging is crucial. Growing up is hard to do. There's nothing wrong with wearing a dress. ~ Hayley Williams

Year after year, we see a new crop of musicians who do their best to look tough in lipstick and makeup. Maybe it's a cry for help, an admission of their strong feminine side, or the realization that they don't look so good any other way. Whatever the reason, makeup is as rock n' roll as a Marshall stack. ~ Shawn Amos

He'd smashed my heart, thrown me out, and moved on with being the rock 'n' roll bad boy.
"Fuck him," I whispered. ~ Kylie Scott

Hanoi Rocks was our baby and we were the core and we started the band. All those years that went to waste because of that accident, it's only right that we have some kind of advantage because it's our history. The name 'Hanoi Rocks' I think is one of the very best names, if not the best name of all rock n' roll bands. ~ Michael Monroe

You either evolve or you don't. I don't like old people on a rock n' roll stage. I think they look pathetic, me included. And the fact that I represent an era means I can't just go out there and do all new stuff. They would all say, 'Sing 'White Rabbit,' and I'd say no? That's rude. ~ Grace Slick

The most exciting rock 'n' roll band of the last 50 years who are still on the road today ~ Jack White

You want a showman, go see rock 'n' roll bands today. You want to have a shamanistic experience, get psychedelic, then you watch The Doors. ~ Ray Manzarek

For me, my awkward phase corresponded to an interest in rock n' roll. From experience, I'm guessing an insecure childhood is probably quite a common thing among people who start a rock band. ~ The Edge

I look around me and I don't see any rock'n'roll at the moment. Instead it's all choreography and stylists and wigs and stuff. It's like they're afraid to let the music breathe. No one has their own identity like the Ronettes did back in the day. We had the skirts with the slits up the side, sort of tough, sort of Spanish Harlem cool, but sweet too. We didn't have no dancers, we didn't have no goddamn wigs. ~ Ronnie Spector

When you get into rock 'n' roll myths, like that Rod Stewart blew his whole band and had to get his stomach pumped, it's ridiculous, but everyone's heard it. ~ Craig Finn

I think Paul McGuinness and U2 created the Irish music industry. It certainly wasn't there before that. ~ Van Morrison

I went through a string of A&R men who all thought I should be doing something different. One thought I should be a dance diva; another thought I should do Rock n' Roll; and one thought I shouldn't even be singing at all! ~ Alison Moyet

There's nothing worse than having everybody thinking alike, talking alike and having the same direction in mind. It gets stale that way. ~ Alex Van Halen

Detroit: Cars and rock 'n' roll. Not a bad combo. ~ Kid Rock

The spirit of rock 'n' roll is alive and well. It kind of just needs to be cultivated a little bit. ~ Kid Rock

Sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll ... take out the drugs and you've got more time for the other two. ~ Steven Tyler

Rock n' roll is dying because people became OK with Nickelback being the biggest band in the world. ~ Patrick Carney

I think a lot of people came into rock n' roll to try to change the world. I came into rock n' roll to make music. ~ Steve Winwood

I've always believed that there's an amazing number of things you can do through a rock'n'roll song and that you can do serious writing in a rock song if you can somehow do it without losing the beat, ~ Lou Reed

From 1958 to 1964, that's real rock n' roll. Then the Beatles hit and everyone sounded like them. ~ Wolfman Jack

I remember when I was first starting out in the late 50's, and everybody at that time said rock 'n roll was gonna die. I was 15 years old when I started, and I certainly didn't believe that was true. I thought anything that feels this good and makes me want to tap my foot like this can't be a passing fad like everybody says. Of course, they were wrong, and here we are in the 90's and it's alive and well, and getting programmed all over the country, and really all over the world. So it's been a great journey. ~ Bobby Vee

There was a time I thought I couldn't enjoy rock 'n' roll unless I had heroin in me ~ Joe Perry

Rock 'n' roll is like a circus today. ~ Ray Manzarek