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" I got a reputation for being 'eclectic' or some damn thing like that, but to me, the different kinds of music I play are all the same stuff - good time music - and it is the only stuff I can do. "

Ry Cooder

Reputation

Music

Good

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" What kills music in films is when it's done as performance, drawing attention to the fact that someone's in the background playing it. "

" Politics runs on power and money and on ignorance. "

" I had a lot of luck in meeting great musicians who were kind enough to show me things. "

Ry Cooder

Great

Who

" I didn't come from a very rigid background, where there's a clan or a tribe or a religion. "

" The Woody Guthrie 'Dust Bowl' tunes were really fascinating. "

" I think all the music I do, which ties together, as far as I'm concerned, is fun and entertaining. "

" I used to sneak gospel tunes into my old records, just as kind of a personal thing. "

" I keep my mind on track, and I don't get mad, and I don't get frustrated. Well, I do... but creative work, it's a way of controlling all that. "

" People who love the applause should have it, but I don't care for it. "

" When I was little, 4 or 5 years old, the first guitar I had was given to me by a blacklisted violinist - a lefty, commie guy, pinko man. "

" I've been wanting an ice cream truck forever. "

" I'm used to music as a tool, taking the various elements and then making something completely new out of them. And writing film music is the perfect opportunity to do that, because you can look at the film and then just let your imagination soar. "

" After all is said and done and institutions fail, people still have some ability to care for each other. "

" Having my son on drums has made a huge difference. I can't stress this strongly enough, in terms of the groove space and style that Joachim gave me to instinctively play what I felt in a more free way, rather than feeling constricted. That's true on record and on stage. "

Ry Cooder

Son

Free

" People who get together, regardless of other structures, will find something in common. They are bound to. That was the Pete Seeger let's-all-sing theory. "

" Back in the early '70s, when Susie and I were first married, we had a little house that we rented, and we used to have parties. People would come, and they wouldn't leave. I used to get so tired. I'd put on the Stanley Brothers, 'Songs for the Good People,' and the house would clear in five minutes. It was not liked; it was alien. It was weird. "

" I think I'm more relaxed; I think I'm more philosophical. I don't get worried as much as I used to about things. "

" The blues is so expressive - nostalgic but not sentimental, mournful but not pathetic, so humble and close to the earth. It's a nuance-filled thing. "

Ry Cooder

Blues

Earth

" 'Geronimo' was a huge amount of work. That involved 80-piece orchestras and Indians and Tuvans and all kinds of crazy people on that thing. That's a real circus, that score. "

" I've tended to look at my albums as research and development. I was just trying to get someplace new on each one. "

" You go through these phases. That's how life is. Over the long term, you just can't do one thing. I saw that back in the Sixties when I was getting started. "

" I've done a fair amount of commercials. I did a bunch of Champion spark plug ads and Levi's and Molson Beer. You wouldn't know it. But some of it's damn good. "

" I just feel that music is a great life because it's very rewarding. It's a gratification. You do this for yourself, and you also do this for other people. "

" I can't help what people write or think. If somebody thinks I'm a serious archivist, they're wrong. That's been a problem. It's a shame people take that attitude, because it affects how they listen to the music. It's a big mistake to treat any pop music that way. "

" Critics don't sell records, unfortunately. No one reads what they write anyway. "

" It's crazy to make records nobody buys. It's just a waste of time. "

" When I made the first album, I was 24, and at that age, you have nothing to say. I just played the music I loved and tried to do it justice. "

" Travelling is hard. I'm no traveller. I hate flying, and I hate hotels. "

" Uncle Dave Macon was a great balladeer and banjo player from the early part of the 19th century... He would take a social problem or something that he was looking at and make up a clever little song about it, you know, in a language everyone understood, a man of the people. "