Rock Roll Quotes & Sayings

There was a moment when Prince did rock & roll with a sponge-y seductive sound. I think that's what was in our head for 'Get On Your Boots.' But actually, the song is much more punk rock. — Bono

I swear by this song and by all that I have done wrong, I will make it all up to thee. — Leonard Cohen

All the traumas I went through separating art from writing don't exist anymore. That's why I love being in rock 'n' roll. It's a whole life thing. — Patti Smith

If it's illegal to rock and roll, throw my ass in jail! — Kurt Cobain

I still believe in rock and roll, it pays my bills. — Jimmy Buffett

There's no place in the world you can go and not hear rock-and-roll, from Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder to Phil Collins. — Ahmet Ertegun

This was the plan: we would take a holy and sacred picture of the King of Rock 'n' Roll, Elvis Presley, to the very summit of the earth; once there, we would place it with sincere reverence amongst the chimerical shimmering palaces of ice and snow and then (accompanied by some weird Zen magic) we would light joss sticks, dance about making screechy kung-fu noises, get off our faces, and that would be it: Planet Earth saved. Simple. — Mark Manning

I can't really dress rock 'n' roll any more because I'm the wrong side of 40, but I want that to be the fashion. — Daniel Craig

I like all like classic rock bands like The Beatles and The Who and stuff and Led Zeppelin so I kinda dress like that. Kinda retro I guess. Well not retro but, like tight. I don't know. Like just jeans and shirts. I don't know. Kinda rock and roll I guess. — Drake Bell

Don't tell me baby you gotta go, I got the hifi high and the lights down low. — Elvis Presley

My father hated rock and roll - hated it. My first real argument with my father was over the Rolling Stones. And he never, ever liked rock and roll. He just liked me. — Patti Smith

Take a dose of rock and roll, and wash it down with cool clear soul. — Ringo Starr

Groupies will give you Chlamydia, Edward."
"Right, Virg. Groupies throw underwear on stage. They don't throw flowers. — Andrew Barger

The nose can't help catchin' what the ears get sick with. Yessir, rock bands just sweat evil. Evil's been around for a long time, ever since rocks started getting real hot and making a lot of noise as they exploded out o' the ground and evil spirits wisped out of hell. If a band ever uses a fog machine, hold your breath so you don't become possessed by one. — M.C. Humphreys

He shook his head at her question. Did women really think men cared about that stuff? Did he care if she did this all the time? Definitely, definitely not. He could honestly say he did not give a flying fuck whether this girl dragged guys home every other day to have her way with them for seven hours. He was just glad as hell she'd decided to do it with him. Today. And hopefully maybe again. Sometime. — Ros Baxter

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've always loved the rock & roll element to live shows, because whatever else I do, I'm basically a rock/pop performer, and that's what I like. — Marc Almond

There is nothing "still" in the remarkably visceral poems of Alexander Long's third collection, Still Life, and nothing is at rest in these restless and edgy poems. Conversational and kinetic, these poems chart the traces left by the shifting overlays of the templates of literature, rock-and-roll, and contemporary culture. As each poem in Still Life attempts to fix a focus upon a scene or subject, the protean natures under view draw the poet into the eddies and complexities of reflection. This is a powerful and moving collection of poems. — David St. John

Boys were a very essential part of rock & roll. The girls were more onlookers. — Mick Jagger

I don't believe in any kind of artistic snobbery or musical snobbery. You know, to me, the sexiest and the most spiritual words ever uttered in rock and roll are wop babaloo balop bam boom. — Sinead O'Connor

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

There's no leader of this band, and there never will be. That's the key. You can't control how the public perceives you-people see rock'n'roll bands as the guitar player and the singer. — Shannon Hoon

I need more dreams and less life
I need that dark in a little more light — Fall Out Boy

I've always felt that rock & roll was very, very wholesome. — Aretha Franklin

I think about cutting my hair. How nice it would be to wash it, run a quick comb through it, and presto! all set, ready to rock and roll. I sigh. Henry loves my hair almost as though it were a creature unto itself, as though it has a soul to call its own, as though it could love him back. I know he loves it as a part of me, but I also know he would be deeply upset if I cut it off. And I would miss it, too ... it's just so much effort, sometimes I want to take it off like a wig and set it aside while I go out and play. — Audrey Niffenegger

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

If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry'. — John Lennon

He ignores Ivy's request and keeps on. "You never told me you could sing like
that! Jesus, I don't know what to think about anymore. My honey knows she's the
worst dancer in the world, and Dex is like a fucking rock god."
That earns him a slap on the head from Ivy and an eye roll from me. — Kristen Callihan

I love rock and roll, so put another dime in the juke box, baby. — Joan Jett

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

If you don't like it, Eat me. — Rae Murphy

To understand what's happening in the U.S. presidential election of 2016, you need to know what's going on in the year 2024! Soundscape: Where hearing is believing. — Royce Flippin

The new album is a childhood dream come true. Got to sing with Ronnie Spector, got to cover a bunch of songs that were influential in drawing a line between the punk form and original rock and roll. — Jerry Only

Most of the people who are given these Rock'n'roll Hall of Fame things sell millions of records, so it's kind of like a trophy for them. — Tommy Ramone

For me, it's more about keeping it simple with a rock and roll edge. It's all about accessorising. — Lulu

I love a vintage look that's also a bit rock n' roll. — Cara Delevingne

Video games are bad for you? That's what they said about rock n' roll. — Shigeru Miyamoto

Yeah. I know, I'm so bridge-and-tunnel - for as long as I've been able to catch the train, I've been sneaking into the city to go to Midtown. Hang out with the bankers, merge some mergers and acquire some acquisitions. The whole thing just reeked of sex and rock 'n' roll to me. Can't you feel it in the air? Close your eyes. Feel it? I — Rachel Cohn

Easy. They just let us forget. Give us too much to process, fill up every minute, keep us distracted, it's what the Tube is for, and though it kills me to say it, it's what rock and roll is becoming - just another way to claim our attention, so that beautiful certainty we had starts to fade, and after a while they have us convinced all over again that we really are going to die. And they've got us again. — Thomas Pynchon

There's always a spattering of people who see Hanson who were influenced by classic '60's and '70's rock and roll. In a lot of ways, we're sort of the anatomy of a '70's rock band if you examine what we do: white guys who grew up listening to soul music from the '50's and '60's. — Taylor Hanson

Sports is like rock 'n' roll. Both are dominant cultural forces, both speak an international language, and both are all about emotions. — Phil Knight

My advice to you is be boring, square, asshole parents ... When I have kids, the most recent CD I will own - Phil Collins, No Jacket Required, and I'll rave about it. 'Do you like rock 'n' roll? 'Cause this is rockin' good stuff, kid.' — Patton Oswalt

You're not a rock n' roll person four hours a day or even when you're on stage. It's become the rhythm of your whole life. — Patti Smith

I left rock and roll professionally at about 49. That's too long as far as I'm concerned. Some people can do it; it depends on what you were. — Grace Slick

Rock 'n' roll is an attitude, it's not a musical form of a strict sort. It's a way of doing things, of approaching things. Writing can be rock 'n' roll, or a movie can be rock 'n' roll. It's a way of living your life. — Lester Bangs

You can take and nail two sticks together like they've never been nailed together before and some fool will buy it. — George Carlin

Every time I bought a Rock and Roll record, I bought a classical record at the same time. I like each as well as the other. — Klaus Nomi

What I would really like to have been, given a perfect world, is a jazz pianist. I mean jazz. I don't mean rock and roll. I mean the never-the-same-twice music the American black people gave the world. — Kurt Vonnegut

Don't Be Cruel is the greatest rock 'n' roll record ever made. — Jerry Lee Lewis

My music was too religious for the rock and roll stores and too rock and roll for the religious stores. — Larry Norman

My inspiration is European fashion. I'm really into Euro fashion, and I also love rock n' roll. That's the mentality that I like to have when I'm dealing with fashion. — Ciara

People who listen to my records expect the ballads from me. The rock 'n roll is on there because it's another mode of expression. — Dan Fogelberg

We're here to re-dedicate you to The Power, The Passion, The Mystery, and The Ministry of Rock and Roll. — Bruce Springsteen

I've never believed in so much as I do the BVB Army. Rock and Roll is my religion. And Rock and Roll is back. I love all of you outcast. — Jinxx

We [The Replacements] formed as a rock and roll band, and that was the path we chose to take. Whenever we deviated from it we felt, unless everybody was into it, there was tension. — Paul Westerberg

I have to give my family credit for putting up with the racket, because as some of you may know, its not the easiest thing in the world to live with a kid who's trying to become a rock and roll drummer. — Max Weinberg

Sometimes when I play that old six-string, I think about you, wonder what went wrong. — Bryan Adams

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

Deep Purple is a damn good band and we've made a niche in rock 'n' roll history. Maybe not a huge one but enough to be very proud of. — Jon Lord

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

The piano sounds like a carnival and the microphone smells like a beer. And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say, man, what are you doing here? — Billy Joel

It turns out a lot of people don't get it. Wikipedia is like rock'n'roll; it's a cultural shift. — Jimmy Wales

I never went to rock concerts when I was a kid. I didn't see any rock & roll bands. I had posters on my wall. I had Beatles records. — Dave Grohl

Rock & roll is not obscure, it's really easy to understand. So is my painting. — Grace Slick

I actually do see rock and roll as pop music. I think the distinction I was making was that I was going out of my way to have a very consistent approach to production, where nothing kind of punctures the reality - or, I guess, the fake reality - of the album and what you're listening to from beginning to end. — Dan Bejar

The future of rock n roll is Justin Bieber. — Iggy Pop

Elvis may be the King of Rock and Roll, but I am the Queen. — Little Richard

Daltrey was by all accounts the toughest man in the Who; maybe the toughest man in London. Filled with blue collar attitude, he strutted around the stage, screaming out the rage of a century of London's dead end lives, roaring like a young lion trapped in a decadent, dying England. Townsend wrote prettily, daydreaming foolishly individualistic dreams of artistic expression, but it was Roger's sledghammer voice that smashed the skulls of the enemy. — Dave Marsh

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

I grew up around music. My father was a professional musician. We used to have a trailer house that we travelled in. I've always loved music. Started out loving to sing to the standards and songs of the early 50s, then that interest shifted to rock and roll, Motown, folk. — Timothy B. Schmit

Quentin flicked a quick glance back at her again. Poppy. This girl had the wrong name. She should have been Rose. Great face, lots of prickles. — Ros Baxter

I like everything from hard-style techno to rock n' roll. — Kodi Smit-McPhee

It's a big shame, because 'Trixter' in my mind were what a real rock n' roll band is all about. — Steve Brown

You either evolve or you don't. I don't like old people on a rock n' roll stage. I think they look pathetic, me included. And the fact that I represent an era means I can't just go out there and do all new stuff. They would all say, 'Sing 'White Rabbit,' and I'd say no? That's rude. — Grace Slick

Violence existed before our music was even suggested. — Big Pun

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

I was the illegitimate child of the legitimate theater. I had no training. I came from downtown rock and roll, and when I came in and auditioned for the Broadway revival of 'Hair,' I had no eyebrows - kind of a Bowie-esque glimmer kid. And it was hard representing the flower power era when we were stone cold punks. — Annie Golden

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

The best designers and the best programmers aren't the ones with the best skills, or the nimblest fingers, or the ones who can rock and roll with Photoshop or their environment of choice, they are the ones that can determine what just doesn't matter. That's where the real gains are made. — Jason Fried

I didn't read this book
I inhaled it. This a terrific new take on a great old rock n roll story, a clash of the musical titans. — William McKeen

I don't like old people on a rock and roll stage. Me included. — Grace Slick

Ian Gillan, Roger Glover and I wanted to be a hard rock band - we wanted to play rock and roll only. — Ritchie Blackmore

He kissed her then. Not tentative. Not polite.
This was no first-kiss kiss. It was demanding. Dirty. And it went on and on. Deep, open-mouthed, head-twisting, tongue-fucking, rock'n'roll kissing. — Amy Andrews

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

My son is a great kid and does super well in school. I couldn't be prouder of him. What I tell him is, 'You don't want to just be known for being the son of a rich rock 'n' roll star.' I've seen a lot of kids like that. I want him to be happy, work hard and create his own thing. I tell him, 'You're not gonna be one of these kids up on stage playing with me. If you wanna have hits - write your own. Then we can play together.' — Kid Rock

I...wanna party every night and rock n roll all day — Kiss

I refuse to age disgracefully in rock 'n' roll. — Ben Harper

Why would you want to be anything else if you're Mick Jagger? — Keith Richards

'The Queen Is Dead' is not merely the Smiths' best album, but it is one of those timeless, perfect, inexhaustible artifacts that could only have been made by a gang of sullen, sun-deprived rock & roll boys fighting off adulthood tooth and nail. — Rob Sheffield

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

The simple life is holding some appeal," he said and I nodded because I could see where he was coming from.

My life had been simple a day ago. Work, coffee, rock 'n' roll. Now I was being shot at, dragged around by bad guys and propositioned by the love of my life who I had decided I didn't want anymore.

The simple life seemed far superior to all of that. — Kristen Ashley

But I'm a rock 'n' roll singer; that's my livelihood, my occupation. — Little Richard

I like to think I have quite a few different styles - sometimes it's a bit rock n' roll, other times more girly and feminine. — Kristin Cavallari

Hey, hey, my, my, rock and roll will never die. — Neil Young

There would be no Rock and Roll without Ike Turner, James Brown, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Allen Toussaint, etc. Fake ghetto books and fake ghetto music. Elvis Presley, whom they idol, is merely a karaoke makeover of James Brown and Chuck Berry. — Ishmael Reed

You want a showman, go see rock 'n' roll bands today. You want to have a shamanistic experience, get psychedelic, then you watch The Doors. — Ray Manzarek

These days, rock 'n' roll is much more about rock than about roll. I don't do rock. But I'm interested in that roll part, because that's the funny little bit that makes it hip. — Nick Lowe

Sold my guitar to the baker's son for a few crumbs and a place to hide. — Bob Dylan

The Pumpkins love rock-and-roll, we absolutely love it, but we also think it's a flatulent, ego-serving kiddie playground. You can have your cake and eat it too. — Billy Corgan

What I've always tried to do is to express the highest point of me, and rock 'n' roll is the first and the most open form created by our generation. The cool thing about it is that you get the power, you get the rhythm; you can be taken over sexually, you can be taken over cerebrally; it's great to look at - it's a package deal. — Patti Smith