"I do see value in music criticism. Most of the criticism I have received over the years has been very good."
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Quote collection
Van Morrison quotes (page 5 of 13)
259 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"I went back to Belfast and started a club, the Maritime. No one had thought about doing a blues club, so I was the first."
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"When I started you were more in touch with the people you were playing to. There wasn't the distance or the separation that there is now."
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"From the dark end of the street - To the bright side of the road - We'll be lovers once again on the - Bright side of the road"
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"When I started studying tenor saxophone as a kid in Belfast, I did so with a guy named George Cassidy, who was also a big inspiration."
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"My ambition when I started out was to play two or three gigs a week. And that's what I'm doing."
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"I educated myself. To me, school was boring."
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"When I started out in this business, I was a performer before I was a songwriter, I was a performer before I was recording. Performing is the roots. That's where it all came from. You didn't start out doing it because you wanted to make an album."
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"You have to understand a bit about the poetry of the blues to know where the references are coming from."
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"I understood jazz, I understood how it worked. That's what I apply to everything."
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"Ambition will take you And ride you too far and Conservatism bring you to boredom once more Sit down by the river And watch the stream flow Recall all the dreams That you once used to know The things you've forgotten That took you away To pastures not greener but meaner."
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"[You Got To Make It Through The World] it's kind of a survival song. Survival is what's happening and it's basically a song about that."
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"And I want to rock your gypsy soul Just like way back in the days of old And magnificently we will fold into the mystic"
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"You've got to separate the singer and the songs."
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"Once you start to analyze it [Joyous Sound], you've completely lost it. That one just came."
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"Way across the country where the hillside mountains glide, the dynamo of your smile caressed the barefoot virgin child."
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"That song [You Got To Make It Through The World] came from a vibe I picked up from an old blues singer named Bo Carter. My lady was making a film as a thesis for U.C.L.A. and she wanted me to write a song to depict this character. The movie had something to do with bootlegging and stuff like that. I found this Bo Carter record and he was just saying something about making it to the woods or something like that."
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"I learnt from Armstrong on the early recordings that you never sang a song the same way twice."
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"It was really strange for me when I started to play concerts in America where the audiences were all sitting down."
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"It's a marvelous night for a moondance!"
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