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Song Quotes by David Bowie

47 Song quotes by David Bowie

All Song quotes David Bowie’s page

David Bowie felt like he was putting a box around himself when he went mainstream with “Let’s Dance.” He often said he used “overwhelming illogic” to finish a lyric when he was stuck. His songs mix anxiety, spiritual searching, and a desire to be a visual prop for his music.

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I wanted to prove the sustaining power of music.

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I've always tended to write songs prolifically.

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I was never particularly fond of my voice.

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Rock's always been the devil's music.

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I believe in Beatles, I believe my little soul has grown.

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This ain't rock 'n' roll; this is genocide

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In fact, everything I do is about the conceptualizing and realization of a piece of work, whether it's the recording or the…

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I once asked [John] Lennon what he thought of what I do. He said 'it's great, but its just rock and roll…

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Hear this Robert Zimmerman, I wrote a song for you, about a strange young man called Dylan with a voice like sand…

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Songwriting as an art is a bit archaic now. Just writing a song is not good enough.

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The younger people get into the lyrics in a different way; there's much more of a tactile understanding, which is the way…

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I think a lot of that album ["Tonight" ] is still very good . . . the songs, but I think I…

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I'm quite certain that the audience that I've got for my stuff don't listen to the lyrics.

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When I'm stuck for a closing to a lyric, I will drag out my last resort: overwhelming illogic.

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Anxiety and spiritual searching have been consistent themes with me, and that figures into my worldview. But I tend to make my…

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There's an effort to reclaim the unmentionable, the unsayable, the unspeakable, all those things come into being a composer, into writing music,…

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I thought that I wrote songs and wrote music, and that was sort of what I thought I was best at doing.…

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There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say. The words just jolly it along. It's always been my…

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Rock has always been the devil's music... I believe that rock & roll is dangerous... I feel that we're only heralding something…

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I could imagine at a certain age, when I have no vocal cords left, that I would find a young man who…

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Frankly, I mean, sometimes the interpretations I've seen on some of the songs that I've written are a lot more interesting than…

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Rather than really have, like a close relationship to anything that's coming out today, people are just, they've got it on as…

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A song has to take on character, shape, body and influence people to an extent that they use it for their own…

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I went mainstream in a major way with the song "Let's Dance." And what I found I had done was put a…

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Searching for music is like searching for God. They're very similar. There's an effort to reclaim the unmentionable, the unsayable, the unseeable,…

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Actually, my ambition at eight or nine years old was to be one of Little Richard's sax players, and that's when I…

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I think that the history of rock could be recycled in a different way and brought back into focus without the luggage…

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I am a moderately good singer. I am not a great singer but I can interpret a song, which I don't think…

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On the other hand, what I like my music to do to me is awaken the ghosts inside of me. Not the…

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I think it's rather a waste of time endlessly singing the same songs every night for a year, and it's just not…

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I think the first song I ever wrote ... was called "Can't Help Thinking About Me." That's an illuminating little piece, isn't it?

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I cannot with any real integrity perform songs I've done for 25 years. I don't need the money. What I need is…

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I don't profess to have music as my big wheel and there are a number of other things as important to me…

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When it comes down to it, glam rock was all very amusing. At the time, it was funny, then a few years…

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On "Tonight" I think I was torn dreadfully between writing what I wanted to write, but keeping it in a style that…

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What I do is I write mainly about very personal and rather lonely feelings, and I explore them in a different way…

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These are all personal crises, I'm sure, that I manifest in a song format and project into physical situations. You make little…

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Songs don't have to be about going out on Saturday night and having a good rink-up and driving home and crashing cars.…

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It's much easier for me to say that, the kind of music I didn't listen to was pretty much that. I mean…

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What I like doing is writing and recording and much more on the, I guess, the - on that creative level. It's…

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More by David Bowie

I don't crave applause. I'm not one of those guys who comes alive on stage. I'm much more alive at home, I think.

No more free steps to heaven.

I'm not sure whether it is me changing my mind, or whether I lie a lot.

I do some kind of work, whether writing or painting or recording, on a daily basis. And it's so essential that when I'm involved…

To not be modest about it, you'll find that with only a couple of exceptions, most of the musicians that I've worked with have…

I went mainstream in a major way with the song "Let's Dance." And what I found I had done was put a box around…

“Keep your 'lectric eye on me babe Put your ray gun to my head Press your space face close to mine, love Freak out…

I'm in awe of the universe, but I don't necessarily believe there's an intelligence or agent behind it. I do have a passion for…

TV has eaten up everything else, and Warhol films are all that are left, which is fabulous. Pork could become the next I Love…

“My brain hurt like a warehouse It had no room to spare I had to cram so many things to store everything in there…

I suppose for me as an artist it wasn't always just about expressing my work; I really wanted, more than anything else, to contribute…

... And these children that you spit on as they try to change their worlds are immune to your consultations. They're quite aware of…

I think the first song I ever wrote ... was called "Can't Help Thinking About Me." That's an illuminating little piece, isn't it?

I've come to the realizations that I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing half the time.

I never really felt like a rock singer or a rock star or whatever.