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Portrait of Don Van Vliet

Don Van Vliet

20 quotes in 79 categories

Don Van Vliet, known by his stage name Captain Beefheart, was an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and visual artist.

Quick Facts About Don Van Vliet

Notable works: Stand Up to Be Discontinued: die Malerei von Don van Vliet = the art of Don van Vliet.

About Don Van Vliet

Don Van Vliet, known by his stage name Captain Beefheart, was an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and visual artist. Conducting a rotating ensemble known as the Magic Band, he recorded 13 studio albums between 1967 and 1982. His music blended elements of blues, free jazz, rock, and avant-garde composition with idiosyncratic rhythms, absurdist wordplay, and Vliet's gravelly singing voice with a wide vocal range.

Biography source: Wikipedia

Quotes by Don Van Vliet

It's not worth getting into the bullshit to see what the bull ate.

Bulls

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I think people have had too much to think and ought to flex their magic muscles. It takes awhile to get oriented…

Able

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I think Shakespeare is really the one. Words as music and music as words. Everything he wrote was good, which is really…

Frightening

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I think that men has the most highly developed intelligence. I think men get so intelligent that they're stupid.

Intelligence

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It makes me itch to think of myself as Captain Beefheart. I don't even have a boat.

Boat

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The largest living land mammal is the absent mind.

Absent

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Beatle bones and smokin' stones the dry sands fall.

Bones

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Bob Dylan impresses me about as much as... well, I was gonna say a slug but I like slugs.

Bob

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Be kind, man - don't be mankind.

Be kind

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A carrot is as close as a rabbit gets to a diamond.

Carrots

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Earth ... God's golf ball.

Balls

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An audience can really lift you right up off the stage.

Audience

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If you got ears, you gotta listen.

Communication

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I would say that it's an awfully overrated aspirin and very similar to the old people's Disneyland.

Aspirin

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“It's hard to use the English language. I'd rather play a tune on a horn, but I've always felt that I didn't…

English language

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The earth is Godʹs golf ball.

Balls

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Art is rearranging and grouping mistakes.

Art

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But I have been in some very beautiful churches, then I've looked outside and seen people starving to death.

Beautiful

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I don't want to sell my music. I'd like to give it away because where I got it, you didn't have to…

Giving

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I like the blues..... but I like aqua marine just as much.

Aqua

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