Nick Lowe famous quotes

The world is full of musicians who can play great, and you wouldn't cross the road to see them. It's people who have this indefinable attitude that are the good ones.
-- Nick Lowe

#Attitude #Play #People

I realized sometime in the early '80s that if I didn't do something - like planning for the future in a way, a kind of pension or something - that if I didn't do something there and then, I was going to be condemned to forever present my three years as a pop star, condensed, as a stage act for the rest of my life. Because that's normally what happens to people in the pop business.
-- Nick Lowe

#Stars #Years #People

I'm really lucky that I've had a little gang of people who I've been involved with for a long time... I've been really lucky to have a gang of people who have always been there to encourage me to get on with it. Styles come and go, but I try not to take any notice of that.
-- Nick Lowe

#People #Long #Style

Later in life, suddenly, if you're an outsider, it's something to be celebrated, I think, rather than getting on people's nerves.
-- Nick Lowe

#Thinking #People #Outsiders

I've always felt kind of like an outsider, even when I was very successful back in the old days. Even then. I kind of enjoyed it, really.
-- Nick Lowe

#Successful #Outsiders #Kind

London was a real dump in the 70s, when it belonged to me and my friends, because, like most cities, you kind of hand them off. You're in charge for a bit and then you don't go out anymore. You say, "Oh god, it's going to be too crowded."
-- Nick Lowe

#Real #Cities #Hands

As soon as one of my records goes on, it makes a vast portion of the public nervous. They get spooked by it. To some people who have ears to hear, it's a delightful, refreshing change. But to most of the public, it's a load of homemade-sounding nonsense.
-- Nick Lowe

#People #Records #Ears

I'm very fussy about how my records sound, but I'm very aware that because of the way they sound, I will never be a big-selling, mainstream artist because the public has gotten conditioned to hearing pop music in a certain way. And I don't do it that way.
-- Nick Lowe

#Artist #Records #Way

You try to make every word count, so there's no doubt what you're talking about. When you're young, you waffle away. Well, I'm done with that. I think it's much more interesting to say just what you mean.
-- Nick Lowe

#Mean #Thinking #Talking

I'm still kind of a hapless character in my everyday life. But when it comes to the writing, my influences are very old influences. I love American music of absolutely all stripes, including show tunes, advertising jingles, theme tunes from quiz shows, all kinds of American music.
-- Nick Lowe

#Character #Writing #Stripes

When I find a cover song that I like, I'll work away at it until I kind of believe that I wrote it.
-- Nick Lowe

#Song #Believe #Kind

I'm an extremely slow worker, very unprolific. It can take me weeks to do a three-minute song, or at least to make it sound, in my mind, like I haven't written it. That's when I'm satisfied.
-- Nick Lowe

#Song #Mind #Three

There's really never any sort of master plan. I find if I've got a couple of tunes that I think are possibilities, I phone everyone up and get them into the studio and we'll have a go at recording them.
-- Nick Lowe

#Couple #Thinking #Phones

I felt that in order to do what I wanted to do, I had to do certain things, and one of them was to have a hit in my own right. At least one.
-- Nick Lowe

#Order #Certain #Wanted

I knew how the suits used to talk about the artists, with barely concealed contempt. So I knew what was waiting for me round the corner. Because I wasn't one of those very unusual people like Neil Diamond or Elton John, whose careers just seem to span the decades. I knew I wasn't one of them.
-- Nick Lowe

#Artist #Careers #People

When my pop career was over, I was scratching my head, thinking, "God, how am I going to do something after I'm forty?" I was in my mid-thirties, thinking I was on the scrap heap.
-- Nick Lowe

#Thinking #Careers #Pops

Cruel to be kind means that I love you.
-- Nick Lowe

#Relationship #Love You #Mean

I'm playing to the sort of people who like the same records.
-- Nick Lowe

#People #Records

If anyone comes along, I'm more than happy to welcome them, but I'm not interested in world domination.
-- Nick Lowe

#World #Welcome #Domination

In the '70s, you had to come up with an album every year whether you were ready or not.
-- Nick Lowe

#Years #Albums #Come Up

The number of contemporary artists who appeal to me is infinitesimal.
-- Nick Lowe

#Artist #Numbers #Appeals

When punk rock came along, the one thing you were not supposed to be was musical.
-- Nick Lowe

#Rocks #Musical #Punk

You've got to really know your song, inside and out.
-- Nick Lowe

#Song

These days, rock 'n' roll is much more about rock than about roll. I don't do rock. But I'm interested in that roll part, because that's the funny little bit that makes it hip.
-- Nick Lowe

#Rocks #Littles #Rock N Roll

So where are the strongAnd who are the trusted?And where is the harmony?Sweet harmony -'cause each time I feel it slippin away, it just makes me wanna cry:What's so funny 'bout Peace, Love, and Understanding?
-- Nick Lowe

#Sweet #Understanding #Causes

When somebody like Elvis Costello comes along, anybody can make a good record with him.
-- Nick Lowe

#Redneck #Records

If a hit came along, I wouldn't be unhappy about that. But I'm a bit too old for that now-doing videos and all those types of TV shows. I've kind of done all that, in the '70s.
-- Nick Lowe

#Tv Shows #Atheism #Unhappy

A devastating culmination of the elegant and the funky, a really sensational musician with enormous depth.
-- Nick Lowe

#Musician #Depth #Culmination

Elvis Costello had a brand new bag. He was a musician, but he knew all about the attitude part of it.
-- Nick Lowe

#Attitude #Redneck #Musician

I've always felt quite like an outsider. I don't really belong in the mainstream, and I quite like that.
-- Nick Lowe

#Outsiders #Mainstream

Be a military flier or be in a band; those were the two hippest things I could imagine.
-- Nick Lowe

#Military #Two #Band

As long as my body holds out, I'll be grooving when I'm 70, and not some sort of horrible spectacle.
-- Nick Lowe

#Long #Body #Horrible

Going to Nashville to meet the in-laws was the first time when I'd been in America and not been seen as some sort of eccentric character with a cute accent.
-- Nick Lowe

#Cute #Character #Nashville

I work very hard on getting the songs as direct and examined as I can before I go in the studio.
-- Nick Lowe

#Song #Direct

I like being a big fish in a small pond. I'm not interested in a huge audience because it brings headaches.
-- Nick Lowe

#Big Fish #Ponds #Headache

I suppose I was waiting until I was old enough to have some sort of experience to sing about. When you're young, it's hard to sing the blues. Nobody believes you.
-- Nick Lowe

#Believe #Waiting #Enough

I love the sound of breaking glass Especially when Im lonely I need the noises of destruction When theres nothing new.
-- Nick Lowe

#Lonely #Glasses #Needs

Even if I was really prolific - which I'm not - I think I'd always put at least a couple of covers on my record. I think it's a sort of healthy thing to do. It shows that you're not totally self-obsessed.
-- Nick Lowe

#Couple #Thinking #Self