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" The story of American pop music is the story of failure. The blues, country music, it's not the story of success. People don't win; they lose. "

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" 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. "

" Music is fragile: people die, and it's forgotten. "

" You have to be able to improvise and respond to what's going on around you. Then you might get a good piece of work done. "

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

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

" The world will always love Cuban music, however it changes. "

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

" With country, it's hard to penetrate the thick layers of commercialism that have been applied like shellac coatings over the real thing. "

" Santa Monica, where I have always lived, is not a town where you will find storefront Church of God in Christ churches. So, the whole idea of gospel quartet singing is something I never knew existed until I began to hear it on record. "

" I didn't want tunes that preach heaven: you know, life on Earth is bad and heaven is the only hope we have. I don't quite care for that. I mean, when people sing that stuff, it's good when they do it, but I didn't want to do it. "

" The ocean is very comfortable. I could never live inland. "

" I like the idea that something happens to everybody who comes to L.A. - whether they are Mexican, Irish, black, or hillbillies. You come here, and you leave all your traditions behind. And since there's no traditions here, you just make one up. "

" 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. "

Getting Started

" R&B and all that stuff was always very spare and spontaneous. Nobody made those records under solid gold situations. It was just in and out, and you didn't labor over the thing. I like music like that. "

" 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. "

" I like classical music. I especially like the French composers: Ravel in particular. Debussy. That's so soothing in a nervous world. "

" I'm sort of an osmotic fellow. "

" I always have felt that most people don't have the first idea about what musicians, in the traditional sense - I don't mean in the modern media fake way, but traditionally - what they went through, what their lives were like. "

" Everyone thought my first album would be instrumental, but I didn't want to do it - it took me eight months to make. "

" I've listened to blues my whole life. I know it, I play it, I understand it. "

" If it hadn't been for record people like Ralph Peer, the Chess brothers, and Alan Lomax, then life would've been unbelievably dull, and I would've been sacking groceries somewhere and probably, at this point, running a little 7-Eleven down by the airport. "

" I give up on pop music. As far as a commercial entity, as far as pop music goes, I quit; I absolutely throw in the towel. I can't handle it. I can't do it. I can't be what they need you to be. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Music is a treasure hunt. You dig and dig, and sometimes you find something. "

" If you're taught to hate and fear a people or a country, and it works, it's because of your ignorance of that country. You have no contact with it, nor do you know what you're hating and fearing. "

" To me, the Internet is a big scam. "

" 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 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. "