Rock N Roll Music Quotes & Sayings

You are most certainly the inspiration for all of today's rock 'n' roll guitarists. Your music is timeless. — Smokey Robinson

Rock n' roll is the most disgusting form of expression, it's brutal, malefic, a pestilential aphrodisiac, the preferred music of the delinquents of the earth. — Frank Sinatra

And a ride in a hearse tells us we're all close to that final cruise ... when the body dies and we move on. It's just the body, man. It's just the body. The soul's already gone. So don't be afraid of a dead body absent a soul. It's empty, man. No resident. What you need to worry about is a living body that's lost its soul. Now that is scary, man. - Funk N. Wagnalls, owner of the Grim Reapers auto lot, a character in Professor Brown Shoes Teaches the Blues. — David Mutti Clark

I did some stage when I was a kid, around 16 or so. I was living in Melbourne and had a band. I was quite young. We weren't very good. Then I found a band in Perth. We played around for three years. We're in the 'History of Rock'N'Roll,' a book about Perth music. — Paul Eenhoorn

My influences in this world have always been Crazy Horse and Malcolm X, my overall influences. But I was influenced by rock n' roll, blues, and country music. I was influenced by singers. — John Trudell

Teenagers did not have, before rock 'n' roll and rhythm-and-blues - they did not have any type of music they could call their own once they got over 4 or 5 years old until they were well into their 20's and considered adults. — Sam Phillips

There are many fans of hard rock music that have been wrongly pigeonholed as apathetic. This music is not music for the elitist coffeehouse culture in SoHo. It' s rock 'n' roll music for kids across the land, and I think that makes it much more subversive in a way, in that it has the form and the function of a powerful, populist music, but it can carry very incendiary messages. — Tom Morello

Music is such a great communicator. It breaks down linguistic barriers, cultural barriers, it basically reaches out. That's when rock n' roll succeeds, and that's what virtuosity is all about. — The Edge

Growing up, I never listened to English music. I was more into Motown, as well as early rock n' roll like Chuck Berry and Little Richard. — Alex Winston

The great moments of rock 'n' roll were never off in some corner of the music world, in a self-constructed ghetto. — Bono

I'm mostly a jazz fan and I've never really been into rock 'n' roll music - although I guess Coldplay isn't really rock 'n' roll - but he's made me a convert. I do go to their concerts whenever we're in the same town and I don't even have to wear earplugs any more, which I did in the beginning. — Blythe Danner

Rock'n'roll is a teenage sport, meant to be played by teenagers of all ages
they could be 15, 25 or 35. It all boils down to whether they've got the love in their hearts, that beautiful teenage spirit ... -Calvin Johnson — Michael Azerrad

Dance music cannot compete with a really great rock n' roll song. There ain't no DJ that's gonna play something that can take 'Mr Brightside' or 'Don't Look Back In Anger.' — Brandon Flowers

Obviously the people that I admired, like the Beatles, were really into rock'n'roll, but it was already a little past rock'n'roll when I started listening and making my own choices about music. — Elvis Costello

The Clash were a major influence on my own music. They were the best rock 'n' roll band. Thanks, Joe. — Bruce Springsteen

Oh, I think country has changed tremendously. I think country has totally changed. Country music when I was a kid was Hank Williams. If you put Hank and Elvis together, there wasn't that musical difference. But as the Beatles showed up and the English invasion, I think country music got pretty far away from rock n' roll. — John Mellencamp

I always hesitate when people call me a musician.I have had no musical training. I can't play anything. I really think of myself as a performer. It's always been writing for me. I evolved with my band in rock 'n' roll through poetry, not through music. — Patti Smith

There is so much great talent in the underground, and electronic music is finally getting the props that it's deserved for so long. I feel like now that everyone is discovering it and it's so fresh sounding to so many people. It doesn't get any more rock n' roll than playing EDC or the Staples Center. It's really madness. — Kaskade

I only know two cats in this business that really had it all; Elvis was one of those guys, the other was Ricky Nelson. There was a difference in those two guys though. Elvis moved ... Ricky never had to; he stood flat footed and captivated his audience with his good looks. We grew up with him; those who didn't missed something. History books are gonna have to say that he played a big role in Rock 'n' Roll music ... and he did it his way. — Carl Perkins

I'm a hybrid-genre person, which a lot of people find confusing. I grew up listening to American country music and rock n' roll made between 1955 and 1959. The Everly Brothers and Chuck Berry were my first musical loves and are still what I am most moved by. Roy Orbison came a little bit later. — Teddy Thompson

I loved the music, but the excesses of rock n' roll never really appealed to me at all. I couldn't see the point of getting up in front of a lot of people when you weren't in control of your wits. — Robert Palmer

Rock n roll is what I would die for, but I love music and I love exploring, taking the challenge of playing, writing or singing ... or producing. — Andrew Taylor

I think Lady Gaga is great and is changing pop music and bringing back a certain rock 'n' roll spirit, swagger to the game. — Adam Lambert

They thought we were just basically keeping ourselves underground on purpose. And it was just strange for people to approach music that way. And for rap, trying to get recognition, and be seen as a regular form of music like anything else. I mean, the Soul, R&B, Rock 'N Roll, they would dis the hell out of rap when it first came out. — Ice Cube

I have so many songs, it's ridiculous. I love so many different types of music and tend to write all over the map, style-wise. R&B, rock 'n' roll, screamers, pop, good-time songs. — Taryn Manning

I had never done TV. I think it's a foolish medium for, most rock 'n roll music. Nobody ever comes off well on TV. — Dan Fogelberg

Anyone who says rock 'n' roll is a passing fad or a flash-in-the-pan trend along the music road has rocks in the head. — Alan Freed

Playing rock 'n' roll music, it's going to be integrated, but being black you didn't want to go into some neighborhood where you weren't wanted. — Gail Ann Dorsey

Do you believe in rock 'n roll? Can music save your mortal soul? — Don McLean

If anyone asks you what kind of music you play, tell him 'pop.' Don't tell him 'rock'n'roll' or they won't even let you in the hotel. — Buddy Holly

Rock 'n' roll will never die. There'll always be some arrogant little brat who wants to make music with a guitar. — Dave Edmunds

When Phil and I started out, everyone hated rock n' roll. The record companies didn't like it at all - felt it was an unnecessary evil. And the press: interviewers were always older than us, and they let you know they didn't like your music, they were just doing the interview because it was their job. — Don Everly

Bringing people together is one of my favorite things ... I believed that's what a rock 'n' roll Jesus would really do - bring people together through music. — Kid Rock

No matter what though, there's always rock & roll. There's rock 'n' roll in hip-hop, there's rock & roll in pop music, there's rock 'n' roll in soul, there's rock 'n' roll in country. When you see people dress and their style has an edge to it, that rebellious edge that bubbles up in every genre, that's rock & roll. Everybody still wants to be a rock star. — John Varvatos

Most of the EDM tracks right now are not very musical, they have one note that keeps playing. You really don't need to be a musician to do records like this, so I think me playing guitar for so many years and listening to rock 'n' roll and real music helps me when I work with vocalists like Lana Del Ray and Miley Cyrus. — Cedric Gervais

I grew up listening to blues and rock 'n' roll and other music, but, legitimately, the Stones is one of my favorite bands in the world. — Ato Essandoh

There was a time in America not long ago when rock 'n' roll was called race music, and white kids who wanted to go see Chuck Berry were completely forbidden. — David Bowie

Writing songs, that's what gets me going. Not the drugs or the sex or the rock'n'roll behaviour, it's the music. — Noel Gallagher

I think the first person who kind of broke my mind was probably Jimi Hendrix. Listening to him opened my mind up to where you can take music and how far you can take rock n' roll. — King Tuff

The Beatles changed music forever. They took rock n' roll from a medium that was about cars and girls and gave it context, interesting chord changes and true musicianship. — Bob Spitz

The first time I heard Bob Dylan, I was in the car with my mother listening to WMCA, and on came that snare shot that sounded like somebody'd kicked open the door to your mind ... The way that Elvis freed your body, Dylan freed your mind, and showed us that because the music was physical did not mean it was anti-intellect. He had the vision and talent to make a pop song so that it contained the whole world. He invented a new way a pop singer could sound, broke through the limitations of what a recording could achieve, and he changed the face of rock'n'roll for ever and ever. — Bruce Springsteen

Rock 'n' roll is not red carpets and MySpace friends, rock'n'roll is dangerous and should piss people off — Gerard Way

My listening changed when I heard music from Stax, Atlantic, Motown because by that age I thought anything that my parents listened to must be square. So I had to find my own rock n' roll, as it were, and I found it in black soul music. — Robert Palmer

Early on, before rock 'n' roll, I listened to big band music - anything that came over the radio - and music played by bands in hotels that our parents could dance to. We had a big radio that looked like a jukebox, with a record player on the top. The radio/record player played 78rpm records. When we moved to that house, there was a record on there, with a red label. It was Bill Monroe, or maybe it was the Stanley Brothers. I'd never heard anything like that before. Ever. And it moved me away from all the conventional music that I was hearing. — Bob Dylan

It's interesting that music in this country ... we sort of sold something to America with The Beatles and they sold something back. And we've never been afraid to embrace American style rock 'n' roll and make it our own over here. — Ricky Gervais

It's not music, it's a disease. (on rock'n'roll) — Mitch Miller

Rock 'n' roll is about music. Music. Music. Music. It's not about you, it's not about me, it's not about Oasis. It's about the tunes. — Noel Gallagher

They tell us "Rock'n'roll is the devil's music." Well, let's say we know that rock is the devil's music, and we know that it is, for sure ... At least he f-kin' jams! If it's a choice
between eternal Hell and good tunes, and eternal Heaven and New Kids on the f-kin' Block ... I'm gonna be surfin' on the lake of fire, rockin' out. — Bill Hicks

I grew up listening to a lot of player-piano music in my house and a lot of old Tin Pan Alley songs and American standards. My dad listened to a lot of traditional Irish music and I grew up doing musical theater. So most of the music I was exposed to as a kid was pre-rock n' roll. — John C. Reilly

What's holding me up is I'm confused about the nature of the music. Because the modern music doesn't reach me. I mean to say the sound of the modern electric production. A lot of sequencers ... synths. That's what people are buying. Because that doesn't reach me, it throws me back to like 1948, but I don't want to be there. Back there, I'm talking about blues records ... The roots of rock 'n' roll is rhythm and blues and that's like really where I'm at, where I was always at. — Joe Strummer

The mythology in rock n' roll is that I'm a bit of a loose cannon. Yet I've produced more music than anybody in my generation. So how much of a loose cannon am I? But the general public believes that I'm a loose cannon, so let them believe it. I'm not going to correct them. — Billy Corgan

Rock 'n Roll is monotony tinged with hysteria. — Vance Packard

Times were changing. Clothes were changing. Morals were changing. We went from romantic loves songs like I used to do to rock 'n roll. Now that has changed to rap. So, there's always a new generation with new music. — Bobby Vinton

I'm not really into the rock n' roll lifestyle; I'm a music geek! — Michael Kiwanuka

We all have very different musical DNA, and we all follow different musical paths. Yet there is a unifying quality about rock'n'roll that helps instill confidence and hope in millions of fans at times in their lives when little else makes sense. — Robert Hilburn

Three-6 Mafia, we were always doing different kinds of things, and we like rock music, we like whatever - not saying they was rock, but they had a little rock-n-roll with some of their music, a little rock with it. — Juicy J

This is still a young man's game, so we have to stay young. Music allows you to do that, especially rock'n'roll. — Eddie Vedder

Books are made out of books." - Cormac McCarthy Brian Eno, A Year With Swollen Appendices Steven Johnson, Where Good Ideas Come From David Byrne, How Music Works Mike Monteiro, Design Is a Job Kio Stark, Don't Go Back to School Ian Svenonius, Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock 'n' Roll Group Sidney Lumet, Making Movies P.T. Barnum, The Art of Money Getting — Austin Kleon

This is rock'n'roll, not classical music. It's about people working together. — Cass McCombs

Music, you know, true music not just rock 'n' roll, chooses you. — Lester Bangs

If you don't have sex and you don't do drugs, your rock 'n' roll better be awfully good. — Abbie Hoffman

I had 12 years of classical music as a child, playing piano competitions as a teenager, playing in blues bands and rock 'n' roll bands, country and jazz bands. I played in about any situation. — Ronnie Milsap

The classical music scene was completely unfamiliar to me. It was something that I didn't have the most fun associations around. A lot of people don't - they think of older generations and stuffiness. But it's not. You listen to the Overture of 1812, and you can hear a rock n' roll catharsis. — Lola Kirke

I use rock and jazz and blues rhythms because I love that music. I hope my poetry has a relationship with good-time rock'n roll. — Adrian Mitchell

From the beginning, I've always had a knack for catchy melodies. But I went through a period when I was trying to be rock n' roll and have a rock n' roll attitude. I was fighting my nature by trying to play really hard and sing really hard. But at a certain point, I realized that I loved syrupy pop music with tons of harmony. — Juliana Hatfield

As I discovered music, especially Rock 'n Roll, new territory was opened to me. I was lured by the unbridled rhythm of this art form. It was like gasoline on the fire of my youthful spirit. — Taylor Hanson

Maybe rock 'n' roll isn't music. Maybe people just need to be reminded that the world ain't the way they think it is. — Julian Cope

I contribute to the dead of winter and the moans of silence, blood trails are music to my ears ... I'm a gut pile addict ... The pig didn't know I was there ... it's my kick ... I love shafting animals ... it's rock 'n' roll power. — Ted Nugent

Keith Richards on change - "It's gotta go up and down. Otherwise, you won't know the difference. It would be just a bland, straight line, like lookin' at a heart machine. And when that straight line happens, baby, you're dead. — Jessica Pallington West

Because the blues is the basis of most American music in the 20th century. It's a 12-bar form that's played by jazz, bluegrass and country musicians. It has a rhythmic vocabulary that's been used by rock n' roll. It's related to spirituals, and even the American fiddle tradition. — Wynton Marsalis

What I get in rock 'n' roll that I don't get in movies is that connection with people. With music it's instantaneous, and just to watch people light up, it's really amazing. I love that connection. — Juliette Lewis

Rock n Roll is music from the neck down. — Keith Richards

The whole Beatle thing was just beyond comprehension. When 'Help' came out, I was actually crying out for help. Most people think it's just a fast rock 'n roll song. I didn't realize it at the time; I just wrote the song because I was commissioned to write it for the movie. But later, I knew I really was crying out for help. — John Lennon

The music I like to play is Rock 'N Roll. I like to rock like a wild animal. I like to rock it well enough to whip a yak's ass. I love to rock it good on a horse's ass. I like to rock it real hard. I love to rock it all the way to Russia. I like to kick out the Jazz and kick it out all the way. — Wesley Willis

Most comics worship music on some level. It's more rock-n-roll to get up there for an hour and make people laugh. — Greg Behrendt

Though many strive to hide their human libidinousness from themselves and each other, being a force of nature, it breaks through. Lots of uptight, proper Americans were scandalized by the way Elvis moved his hips when he sang "rock and roll." But how many realized what the phrase rock and roll meant? Cultural historian Michael Ventura, investigating the roots of African-American music, found that rock 'n' roll was a term that originated in the juke joints of the South. Long in use by the time Elvis appeared, Ventura explains the phrase "hadn't meant the name of a music, it meant 'to fuck.' 'Rock,' by itself, has pretty much meant that, in those circles, since the twenties at least." By the mid-1950s, when the phrase was becoming widely used in mainstream culture, Ventura says the disc jockeys "either didn't know what they were saying or were too sly to admit what they knew. — Christopher Ryan

Even so, there were times I saw freshness and beauty. I could smell the air, and I really loved rock 'n' roll. Tears were warm, and girls were beautiful, like dreams. I liked movie theaters, the darkness and intimacy, and I liked the deep, sad summer nights. — Haruki Murakami

Commercial rock 'n' roll music is a brutalization of the stream of contemporary Negro church music an obscene looting of a cultural expression. — Ralph Ellison

Rock 'n' roll doesn't glorify God. You can't drink out of God's cup and the devil's cup at the same time. I was one of the pioneers of that music, one of the builders. I know what the blocks are made of because I built them. — Little Richard

The music defied classification. If I had been writing a
review of the show, I would have labeled it progressive,
guitar-driven rock 'n' roll. But the guitars made sounds guitars
didn't always make. Symphonic sounds. Sacred sounds.
The music dug in so deep you didn't hear it so much as feel
it, reminding me of a dream I used to have when I was a kid,
where I would be standing on a street corner, I would jump
into the air, flap my arms, and soar up into the sky.
That's the only way I could describe the music.
It was the sonic equivalent of flight. — Tiffanie DeBartolo

I lost my innocence with Johnny Cash. I used to watch the 'Johnny Cash Show' on television in Wangaratta when I was about 9 or 10 years old. At that stage I had really no idea about rock n' roll. I watched him, and from that point I saw that music could be an evil thing - a beautiful, evil thing. — Nick Cave

For us, it is all about breaking the boundaries between different genres of music and combining different styles of music and performing what we are passionate about. We are so lucky that we can experience both worlds: the more intimate classical world and the wild and crazy world of rock n' roll. — Luka Sulic

Michael Bloomfield came in after rock n roll started, and he was a great guitarist. He idolized me - I know that. What else can I say ? he was a young, excitable man. To him, drugs were plentiful, and that was no good. I talked to him like he was a son of mine. He was a great and he was gonna be greater. But he was part of the "in-crowd" and so he never got there — B.B. King

I didn't plan on rock-n-roll. I wanted to learn jazz; I got to know some people doing rock-n-roll with jazz, and I thought I could make some money playing music. — Robby Krieger

Music was in the air when I was growing up. My siblings Katy, Dave and Phil were musical; my dad worked in inner-city New York where a musical revolution was taking place - folk music, rock n' roll, gospel music. My sister taught me to sing. My brothers taught me to play. — Sam Barry

I think the world is ready for some rock 'n' roll. Some real time guys that play their own instruments, write their own songs, and sing the music and have a good time doing it. — Vince Neil

Punk [rock] seemed like rock 'n' roll music utterly without the music. — Steve Winwood

Progression is important. I'm always going to play music in the general vein of rock'n'roll, but when I started I was very much associated with the West Coast lo-fi thing and I didn't want to get anchored in with anything that was just in vogue for the time being. — Dee Dee Ramone

The '60s was a magical time in the music business. So much creativity and talent. I think a lot of it came from the fact that we had grown up before rock n' roll. We listened to all the great songwriters and big bands, songs with great lyrics and melodies. I think that really influenced everybody. — Frankie Valli

I love rock-n-roll. I think it's an exciting art form. It's revolutionary. Still revolutionary and it changed people. It changed their hearts. But yeah, even rock-n-roll has a lot of rubbish, really bad music. — Nick Cave

A lot of people seem to think I started this business. But rock 'n' roll was here a long time before I came along. Nobody can sing that kind of music like colored people. Let's face it: I can't sing like Fats Domino can. I know that. — Elvis Presley

Rock n' roll! It's the music of puberty. — Suzi Quatro

I would have quit before I went rock-n-roll. I know one way, and that's natural, and when I can't make it, I'll come home and stay. I believe in my music. — Ralph Stanley

In pop music, you say, 'You can do what you want to me.' Rock 'n' roll says, 'I'm gonna do what I want to you.' — Joan Jett

I think there's nothing better than seeing a three-chord straight up rock 'n' roll band in your face with sweaty music and three minute good songs. — Joan Jett

I had written a tune called 'Shake, Rattle and Roll,' but the white stations refused to play it - they thought it was low-class black music. We thought what we needed was a new name. But a white disc jockey named Alan Freed laid on it, and he thought up the name 'rock n' roll.' — Jesse Stone

Don't beat yourself up, son. I'm sure there is a culture on this spinning ball of dirt where you can be pretty. If not, do rock 'n roll, or practice words. That shit's pretty as well. — R.X. Bird

I started with rock n' roll and ... then you start to take it apart like a child with a toy and you see there's blues and there's country ... Then you go back from country into American music ... and you end up in Scotland and Ireland eventually. — Elvis Costello

Rock 'n' roll music is what gets me off. — Joan Jett

I gave up rock 'n' roll for the rock of ages! I used to be a glaring homosexual until God changed me! — Little Richard