Neil Young Quotes

All that stuff about heavy metal and hard rock, I don’t subscribe to any of that. It’s all just music. I mean, the heavy metal from the ’70s sounds nothing like the stuff from the ’80s, and that sounds nothing like the stuff from the ’90s. Who’s to say what is and isn’t a certain type of music?

As I get older, I get smaller. I see other parts of the world I didn’t see before. Other points of view. I see outside myself more.

As you go through life, you’ve got to see the valleys as well as the peaks.

Back then people closed their eyes and listened to music. Today there’s a lot of images that go with the music. A lot of music is crap and it’s all commercial and the images are all trying to sell the record.

Better to burn out than rust out.

Bush has polarised the country, creating a breeding ground for opposition.

Commitments are one of the worst things to have in the music business. They’re very annoying.

Earth is a flower and it’s pollinating.

I can get away with saying a lot of ideas that are young and naive. I’m liberated.

I didn’t really know what I was doing when I started. I just started writing songs. After two songs I just continued to explore it.

I don’t like the American media – particularly Fox.

I don’t like to be labeled, to be anything. I’ve made the mistake before myself of labeling my music, but it’s counter-productive.

I don’t like war. I particularly don’t like the celebration of war, which I think the administration is a little bit guilty of.

I don’t look at a knife the way I used to. I’m more aware of what it is. I think twice. This is a key finger. It’s in every chord.

I don’t think I’m a thorn in the industry, I’m just another part of it.

I don’t think there is one president that’s come down the line that hasn’t done something good somewhere.

I feel like I could be likened to an old hound circling on a rug for the last five years.

I go in and sing the song and arrange it and mix it and that’s it. It’s no different than playing in clubs.

I have so many opinions about everything it just comes out during my music. It’s a battle for me. I try not to be preachy. That’s a real danger.

I just do what I do. I like to make music.

I just wrote one song at a time. Kinda like an alcoholic. One day at a time.

I live for playing live. All my records are live, since After the Gold Rush, with the exception of Trans and the vocals on Landing on Water.

I think I’m going to be making country records for as long as I can see into the future. It’s much more down-home and real.

I totally have no other talent and I would be totally out of work if I did anything else.

I was a Reagan backer. It was a shock for some people that I could agree with anything that man would say.

I was just 20 years old when I wrote Broken Arrow.

If we reformed we’d be like a statue or something. A monument with birds shitting on our heads. That wouldn’t be right.

I’ll never be Bob Dylan. He’s the master.

I’m not into organized religion. I’m into believing in a higher source of creation, realizing we’re all just part of nature.

I’m not into this judgmental, religious-right kind of thing.

It was from him I got the idea you could be whoever you want to be, just make up a character.

It’s a blue album, but it’s not a blues album. I’m not pretending all of a sudden now I’m blues.

It’s better to burn out than it is to rust.

It’s better to burn out, than to fade away.

It’s cool to go places where working people are happy.

My music isn’t anything but me. It has jazz in it, and rock’n’roll, and it has an urgency to it.

My my, hey hey. Rock and roll is here to stay.

Of course you have to support the troops. They’re just kids. They’re doing for their country what’s expected of them.

Oh, that was a fabulous tour, one of my best. Over in England, The Rainbow… Bristol was the best ever… the Festival Hall… those were magical gigs. I did an encore at the latter with nobody there but Ahmet Ertegun, who owns Atlantic Records. I said, ‘Ahmet, I played so good tonight I think I deserve my own private encore’. So we went out and played ‘Tonight’s The Night’ for the fourth time that evening with no one left in the theater.

One new feature or fresh take can change everything.

One of the most important jobs of any musician is to provide quality sound to the people. Quality has taken a hit in recent years, but it’s starting to come back thanks to DVD-stereo. There is just no comparison between DVD-stereo and a regular compact disc or even 5.1 sound. It’s the difference between a true reflection of the music and a mere replica. I’ve always been a strong believer in analogue and this is about as close to the rewarding listening experience of vinyl as the real thing.

Piracy is the new radio. That’s how music gets around.

Remember when you used to watch TV in the ’60s and you’d see Perry Como in a cashmere sweater? That’s what rock’n’roll is becoming. It’s your parents’ music.

Some people put down all presidents. If you say anything good about any of them, they think you’re supporting everything they do.

Something comes along and you have to jump on and do it. You can’t stop until it’s done.

Studios are passe for me. I’d rather play in a garage, in a truck, or a rehearsal hall, a club, or a basement.

The ’60s was one of the first times the power of music was used by a generation to bind them together.

The cutthroat avenues of rock ‘n’ roll, I am fed up with. I don’t want anything to do with it.

The rockets and the satellites, spaceships that we’re creating now, we’re pollinating the universe.

The thing about my music is, there really is no point.

There’s an edge to real rock ‘n’ roll. It’s all that matters.

This thing called Patriot Act, through which we abdicated a lot of our civil rights to defend the country against terrorism, it’s a four-year story.

To be rid of Saddam was good for the Iraqi people. But the manner in which it took place,maybe there was a better way to do it. Our leaders lost patience.

To protect our freedoms, it seems we’re going to have to relinquish some of our freedoms for a short period of time.

Traveling there was really boring so I headed for the ditch. It was a rough ride but I met more interesting people there.

We need to spread out now in the universe. I think in 100 years we’ll be living on other planets.

When people start asking you to do the same thing over and over again, that’s when you know you’re way too close to something that you don’t want to be near.

When the punk thing came along and I heard my friends saying, I hate these people with the pins in their ears. I said, Thank God, something got their attention.

With a lot of songs on this record, one verse doesn’t relate to the next verse. I don’t think that one day really relates to the next day in life.

With Crazy Horse, it’s all one big, growing, smoldering sound, and I’m part of it. It’s like gliding, or some sort of natural surfing.

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