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" The way I sing my songs leads the listener into a place of introspection, a state of mind that can trigger self-healing and the kind of profound rest you cannot get from sleep alone. "

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" 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. "

Donovan

Work

Man

Age

" When the mid-'70s came around, it looked like, 'Oh-oh, here come the punks.' But if you look closely at The Who and The Kinks, the anger and the frustration is there... There is, within me, just the same social discontent as I go through my career. But to be typecast as a singer of peace and love is fine. "

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

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

" It's really much more than the plastic of album covers and record sales and dollars and cents. Music is just everybody's mother. Music is the power of you. "

" Society may shun bohemia, may put it down, may consider it useless and ineffective, but it is where everything cooks and boils and is created. "

" I've exhibited quite a few of my photographs. I expand them digitally till they're very big. It's an art school thing, I suppose. "

" 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. "

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

" I went to America not for fame or fortune but to be able to communicate with the biggest audience. "

" 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. "

" It's not like me and Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr hang out every week, but we keep together in promoting Transcendental Meditation. "

Donovan

Meditation

Together

" 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. "

" 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. "

" The similarity between my music and The Beatles' music is it has within it a very positive quality. It's woven with humor. "

" The songs I write are about searching, and they're ambiguous - always to be understood in different ways. "

" I didn't know until later, but my uncle was quite a famous bohemian in Glasgow, and he played guitar. My father was a kind of a poetic bohemian, and he read me poetry. "

Donovan

Know

Poetry

" All of us '60s pop stars came from old cities which had a jazz club, a folk club, a coffee house, and an art school. "

" I first met Linda Lawrence in March 1965 in the green room of 'Ready Steady Go!,' the British pop TV show. Linda was a friend of one of the co-hosts. She had an art-school vibe, and after a brief conversation, I asked her to dance to a soul record playing. As we jazz danced, I fell in love. "

" My father brought me up to be a socialist. "

Donovan

Socialist

Father

" Having had polio never held me back as I got older. Although having one leg smaller than the other isn't much fun, I could always get about without any trouble. Luckily, in the music industry, everyone was only interested in my singing and playing and not the size of my legs. "

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

" I didn't realise that I was so accomplished on the guitar until someone said to me, 'How do you do that?' That someone was John Lennon. He asked me to teach him my technique. "

Donovan

Said

Someone

" I've been vegetarian for many years and only eat fish if I have to. "

" Poets have a sense of place. My place was London, and I sang about it. "

" What I needed and actually need is a discipline of tradition, which is lacking in our civilization. Discipline of tradition and the ceremony of humbleness. "

" I wasn't trying to sound like anybody else. Basically, I was just experimenting all over the place. "

Donovan

Sound

Trying

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

" I never considered myself an entertainer. I always felt I had to be connected to something meaningful, or it wasn't worth doing. "

" I get plastic nails done in the salon. When I was younger, they were stronger, but now I get my nails built up. Then I can dance over the strings. I say, 'Okay, I need four nails; I'm a guitarist.' Sometimes if I'm in a strange place, the girl says, 'Yeah, all the guys say that.' "