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" Part of being a pop star is image. I'm told by many of my female fans that I was the poster on their bedroom walls. But if I only had that - the image and the beauty and the curly locks - I would have been a 'normal' pop star, one who comes and goes after one hit record. "

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" 'Sunshine Superman' was a pioneering work that for the first time presented a fusion of Celtic, jazz, folk, rock, and Indian music as well as poetry. "

Donovan

Music

Sunshine

Poetry

" Rock and jazz came together in a very powerful way on 'Barabajagal.' "

" Spiritually, I'm a floating entity, but Buddhism is as close as I can get to describing it. "

" The planet is alive, and it's a woman. "

" I was listening to a lot of bebop. And to Miles Davis. Everyone thinks I was just in the folk world in 1966, but in 1963 and 1964, I was absorbing enormous amounts of music, from baroque to jazz to blues to Indian music. "

" The audiences used to say, 'Are you a Donovan fan or a Dylan fan?' It was all very naive, really. "

" Sometimes the songs just come to me. I don't sit down to write like you'd sit down to make a pair of boots. "

Donovan

Down

You

" I have to say, post-fame was difficult because it wasn't just fame: it was super-fame of a kind that few have. It was attached to a generation's dreams, and my own personal dreams were mixed up in it, too. "

" I became a recluse many times and enjoyed a private life I didn't have during the '60s. "

" When I met Bob Dylan, I was definitely impressed. This guy had come from the American folk world, but he was very schooled in poetry, too. He'd studied the Beat poets, of course. I grew up in the British bohemian scene. Dylan grew up in the American bohemian scene. So I was very pleased to meet such a guy. "

" Myself and The Beatles thought surely there was a way through our fame and success to bring something to our generation to help chill the future out. "

" A man always has to leave his homeland, go to another time zone, another culture, to get a different recognition - to be accepted as someone who's following a different path, who's moving into a different mode. "

" The poet is the voice of the people. And when the poet presents certain ideas, two phrases in one poem can alter a generation's view. So poets have always been feared - and controlled and jailed. "

" On the outskirts of the desert in Yemen, there was a cafe with a jukebox that had 'Sunshine Superman' on it. I loved that. "

" I went on the Andy Williams show, the Smothers Brothers show, and maybe I shouldn't have. But regrets - I don't think I have any. "

" My father was a part of that generation, and my mother, too - the late-'30s, early-'40s big-band generation. Frank Sinatra, Art Blakey, Gene Krupa, Billie Holiday - all that stuff was in my background. "

" My dad would always ask, 'How's the money?' but I was never interested. Millions came and went, stolen by the robbers in the music industry. But as someone said, 'You'll never be poor as long as you can pick up a guitar.' "

" The idea of the mystic solo, meditating away on his own, is only one path of yoga. Very early on, I chose the path of Life. One path is austerity and isolation, the other is Life. But they both lead to the same place. "

" I have amassed an enormous amount of songs about every particular condition of humankind - children's songs, marriage songs, death songs, love songs, epic songs, mystical songs, songs of leaving, songs of meeting, songs of wonder. I pretty much have got a song for every occasion. "

" With songwriters like me who are prolific, you just write the song and then put it on tape. "

" I think my legacy is important because my songs - perhaps more than those of any other songwriter I know - cover every movement from 1965 on, socially and artistically. If you want songs about ecology, I've got ecology songs; if you want songs about spirituality, I've got spiritual songs. "

" Linda's in all the songs. 'Sunshine Superman,' 'Hampstead Incident,' 'Young Girl Blues'... Linda's the muse. "

" I wasn't perfect, although during the '60s, I may have appeared to be. After all, I was partying away there for awhile. From age 17 to 25, I worked only on the outer man, and I did pretty well, but I needed to go back and work on the inside. "

" I found in Rick Rubin a kindred soul. When I visited his home and looked in his library, I saw he was reading the very same New Age books I had picked up the month before. "

" I can't save the world, but if I can share some ideas, people might be able to save themselves. "

" In my time, we didn't know songs could last. All we ever thought of was next Tuesday. You never imagined a future. "

" Songwriting is a burst of inspiration and then a long bit of work and a tremendous bit of desperation. "

" A young person coming up and saying, 'I absolutely love your music,' is very encouraging. "

" After having polio, my right leg was weaker, so I wasn't great at football. But I swam lots and even did long-distance running. "

" I've experimented with so many different sounds, it's difficult to say what the Donovan sound really is, but it's essentially my voice and guitars. "