Even if we want to eradicate our ghosts, our dead, our murdered, even if you erase a name and the record of the existence of a person, somebody remembers.
I've always been slightly afraid of coming out with my record because it's so personal to me. Now it doesn't feel as frightening as I thought it would.
The minute you make a record because you think somebody's going to play it on the radio is the minute you ought to quit.
History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.
Do not trust people who call themselves musicians or record collectors who say that they don’t like Bob Dylan or the Beatles. They do not love music if those words come out of their mouths.
"Art Imitates life," of course, is that phrase by Oscar Wilde. I called that song "Art Imitates Life" because Oh No was in the studio and he actually came up with that hook. When I was trying to figure out a name for the record, it just kind of made sense.
I remember auditioning for record labels and having them tell me, 'Well, the country-radio demographic is the thirty-five-year-old female housewife. Give us a song that relates to the thirty-five-year-old female, and we'll talk. '
When you make a record, your own record, and you don't even recognize it yourself, it's hard to think if anybody else is going to recognize.
I can make a record like the [previous] one I put out, but I don't want to do that because I want to set the bar so high for myself. I don't want to do it like everyone else.
I think if you checked the attendance records of all the announcers, you'd find a lot better record than you would of anybody else in any other business because we love the game and have a passion for it.
I tried to have more than one emotion on the record.
It's a different thing when you go into a studio and you record with the intent of going somewhere and you're marketing yourself for that direction.
The record [American Idiot ] felt special to us, when we recorded it, with all of the artwork and the concept behind it and it being a rock opera, but we didn't really know where it was going to go. It's like I always say, you just follow the music. Not only was American Idiot a special moment for us, but it also led to Ordinary World, too.
When you love what you do, you just really fall in love with it. Sometimes you record a lot more songs than the album will even hold. You record like 300 songs and only 12 songs go on the album. It takes time. But if you love what you do, it works out.
I got that first record out, it came out in '47. . . Then my name began to ring around. I began to take over. From that point, I tell you, Chicago was in my hand, all the more time that those guys had to listen to me.
My father's record collection was all country. That's how I was exposed to it.
Roads are a record of those who have gone before.
Love is our most unifying and empowering common spiritual denominator. The more we ignore its potential to bring greater balance and deeper meaning to human existence, the more likely we are to continue to define history as one long inglorious record of man’s inhumanity to man.