I don't see people. I don't see men and women at all. When I see them, I see... their mothers and fathers. I see how old they are inside. Like when I look at the president, or anybody in a record company, or a store owner, I may see a little boy behind the counter with the face of an old man. And that's who I talk to.
— Jeff Buckley
I'm always writing and reflecting on life. I want to suck it all in.
I don't want to do any more covers. It's good to learn to make things your own, but the education's over. 'Grace' is putting a lot of things to rest.
In my early shows, I wanted to put myself through a new childhood, disintegrating my whole identity to let the real one emerge.
When I sing, my face changes shape. It feels like my skull changes shape... the bones bend.
Words are really beautiful, but they're limited. Words are very male, very structured. But the voice is the netherworld, the darkness, where there's nothing to hang onto. The voice comes from a part of you that just knows and expresses and is.
The people who raised me musically are my mother, who is a classically trained pianist, and my stepfather.
I don't want my reputation to take me over, I just want to be judged on my songs. I want people to come and see me because they want to, not because fashion dictates it.
The most audacious thing I could possibly state in this day and age is that life is worth living. It's worth being bashed against. It's worth getting scarred by. It's worth pouring yourself over every one of its coals.
I'm convinced I got signed because of who I am. And it makes me sad.
I'm lying in my bed, blanket is warm, this body will never keep me safe from harm. I still feel your hair, black ribbons of coal. Touch my skin to keep me whole. If only you'd come back to me. To feel you at my side, wouldn't need no Mojo Pin to keep me satisfied.
She's a tear that hangs inside my soul forever.
Kiss me out of desire, but not consolation.
I started writing when I was 13. I got my first electric guitar when I was 13, but I'd always been singing. I had my first little acoustic when I was six. But I started being in bands when I was 13.
There was a time when I stopped singing, between 16 and 19, but that was done on purpose, maybe as a punishment, maybe as a cure.
I like a spirituality with a God that knows how to drive a car, that knows how to take his girl to the dance club, dance all night, have a little drink, kiss the kid when they come back in and go to sleep. God doesn't need a chauffeur - he needs to drive himself.
My personal aesthetic is to be affected directly by everything about what you're seeing... I don't mind being dashed on the rocks... My most base act of defiance is to live a long time and still rock.
I don't really need to be remembered. I hope the music's remembered.
A tune has to resonate with whatever is happening around it.
I want to be ripped apart by music. I want it to be something that feeds and replenishes, or that totally sucks the life out of you. I want to be dashed against the rocks.
I resent the fact that a parental warning sticker has to be included on an album as cover art. To me that's censorship.
I've already created my own thing.
I sacrificed my anonymity for my father, whereas he sacrificed me for his fame.
Thinking so hard on her soft eyes and memories of the signs that it's over. It's over.
To young to hold on and to old to just break free and run.
The music comes from within and outside. Within is the big mystery of life; we've all got it.
Critics try to pin so many different inaccuracies on me and my music; they look at the complicated things and try to simplify them. They think they can nail your whole life down just by knowing the bare bones of your history in partaking in 10 minutes of conversation.
I became a human jukebox, learning all these songs I'd always known, discovering the basics of what I do. The cathartic part was in the essential act of singing. When is it that the voice becomes an elixir? It's during flirting, courtship, sex. Music's all that.
Certain emotions just take you to the notes - being furious, heroic, sad, erotic, when rain comes.
The Smiths hasn't been equaled. That goes for the composition of the songs, the lyrics, and the performance.
Music was like my first real toy. I was an only child for a while, and I was alone a lot of the time - and I liked it. I still like being alone.
I've always felt that the quality of the voice is where the real content of a song lies. Words only suggest an experience, but the voice is that experience.
I made a statement all my own.
I just want to be a guy with a guitar.
Words are beautiful but restricted. They're very masculine, with a compact frame. But voice is over the dark, the place where there's nothing to hang on: it comes from a part of yourself that simply knows, expresses itself, and is.
Maybe I'm too young to keep good love from going wrong, but tonight you're on my mind, so you never know.
All flowers in time bend towards the sun, I know you say there's no one for you, But here is one.
