Beck Quotes

Let the desert wind cool your aching head. Let the weight of the world - drift away instead

I think you have to keep a childlike quality to play music or make a record.

I had long hair when I was a teenager.

When my nephew was 3 and 4, he would say the most genius things. He said, You're hammer macho with FBI dogs. I thought it was just one of those great lines.

Anything goes. You always find interesting things that way.

In Japan, you get on the bullet train or the airplane, and I loved the little speeches the stewardesses would do. They even do little speeches before you play gigs.

Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars.

I think my whole generation's mission is to kill the cliche.

I think I gave indications early on that mine wasn't just going to be a commercial, er, career. If that were the case, then the first record would have been 10 versions of 'Loser.' I always thought it would be interesting if there was no such thing as gold and platinum records, or record deals, and people were just making music. What would the music sound like?

Every time you go in, it's like starting over. You don't know how you did the other records. You're learning all over. It's some weird musician amnesia, or maybe the road wipes it out.

There's some quality you get when you're not totally comfortable. When you're not doing what you're used to, you could completely fall on your face. You could completely blow it.

Somebody else is satisfied by five Bentleys. I'm satisfied by a beautiful string arrangement.

There are plenty of Minutemen. People willing to be Minutemen. Where are the people that want to be George Washington? Where are the Benjamin Franklins? Where is Sam Adams? Where is John Adams?

Your heart is a drum keeping time with everyone.

I think everybody should just turn off their TV machines and make up their own songs about whatever comes to mind-their couch, their friends their loaves of bread. Everybody's got their own songs. There should be so many songs out there that it all turns into one big sound and we can put the whole thing into a pickup truck and let it roll off the edge of the Grand Canyon.

Set your guitars and banjos on fire and before you write a song smoke a pack of whiskey and it'll all take care of itself.

There's 40 or 50 songs that nobody's heard that I've done in between albums. There's a whole evolution from Midnite Vultures to Sea Change that's never been released.

As society changes, as politics change, as people change, certain songs still seem to resonate.

Art is the child of Nature; yes, her darling child, in whom we trace the features of the mother's face, her aspect and her attitude.

There's some quality you get when you're not totally comfortable.

You can't write if you can't relate.

No one should drive a hard bargain with an artist.

I just go in the studio and write on the spot and see what comes out.

Originally, the lyrics to "Girl" were really upbeat, and then it didn't work for me somehow. You need the dichotomy. If you're doing something happy and light, you need the shadows.

I'm the artist formally known as Beck. I have a genius wig. When I put that wig on, then the true genius emerges. I don't have enough hair to be a genius. I think you have to have hair going everywhere.

I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?

I think trying to be offbeat is the most boring thing possible.

I've personally reached the point where the sound of MP3s are so uncompelling, because so much is lost in translation.

I grew up I guess you'd say in the cassette era.

You have to shelve a lot of your inspiration. There's only so much you can do with one record.

I'm just taking one step at a time. I could zigzag one way, but it's not usually on purpose.

I enjoy recording live better, but I think by the nature of it you are going to end up with something that's a little bit more traditional.

I'm more critical of my songwriting than anybody, but I've worked really hard in the last five to 10 years to improve.

When I pull out vinyl - which isn't that often anymore - it's undeniable that I get a different feeling. There's a different physiology happening between the sound waves and the body that doesn't happen with music playing off the computer.

The limitations are limitless.

When you work with somebody for a long period of time, you develop a shorthand with everything.

Sometimes things in life take a few years to digest, and they find their way into the work later on. Sometimes I'm writing about things from eight years ago-they just took a long time to distill and come out in the appropriate way.

Especially in music, you wonder, Okay, should I still be doing this? Like, are you overstaying your welcome at the party? But I don't know.

Growing up, a film was an action film or it was a comedy or it was romantic, but you don't really see such stark lines between genres nowadays.

I did that Grammys thing - I did a little freeform poem.

The years keep going by and you realize, Wow. Doing these records is such a process: going on tour for a year and a half, then you get home and you want to do other things.

When you say 'state' you mean 'national.' National Socialism. That is what Mussolini and Hitler did. National Socialism. State Capitalism. They've changed the name.

I would love to do an electronic record. There's just so much to see and do and try. And life goes by.

You can't please everybody, man.

Sea Change was so specific. From the beginning it was set what it was going to be. All the other ideas that I had at the time I had to put to the side.

I think it's interesting being American, the expectations for an American guy, and the image that has to be projected. 'Oh, I can't wear pink,' that kind of stuff. There's none of that in Europe.

As music becomes more computer-based, it's lost some emotional impact.

With modern recording techniques, and living in the Pro Tools era, the process gets really drawn-out, and it can become painstaking.

If someone is making a judgment when they don't have firsthand experience, it's intolerant. How can you make a judgment on something you don't know about?

I've done so many albums where I've been in the studio for 14 hours a day for six months just trying to come up with things on my own. It's a nice change helping other people with their music and not being all about what I'm trying to do myself.