I was stuck with the dark glasses. They took all these pictures that went around the world. I guess once you become successful, you don't want to change anything too drastically.
— Roy Orbison
Every once in awhile, the world will push up an Elvis Presley or a Beatles. But that's really outside the realm of show business.
I learned my first songs when I was six and seven, and when I was eight years old, I won a local talent show.
I got my group together when I was about thirteen. We had a local radio show, and then we started touring for the principal of the high school - he was in the Lions Club, and so we were the entertainment.
It's a gift, and a blessing, just to have a voice. And I'm proud that people do appreciate it, you know?
My voice is a gift. My talent is a gift. The life process is a gift. The opportunity for the journey is a gift.
I close my eyes, then I drift away, into the magic night I softly say. A silent prayer, like dreamers do, then I fall asleep to dream my dreams of you.
Only the lonely know the way I feel tonight.
I may be a living legend, but that sure don't help when I've got to change a flat tire.
I started using sunglasses in Alabama. I was going to do a show with Patsy Cline and Bobby Vee, and I left my clear glasses on the plane. I only had the sunshades, and I was quite embarrassed to go onstage with them, but I did it.
Looking back on it now, I felt that I was blessed much like the masters, I guess - the guys who wrote the concertos.
My dad was an auto mechanic, but we moved to Fort Worth, where he worked in defense, building B-24s.
When I was six years old, Mom and Dad gave me a guitar for my birthday, and Daddy taught me the chords to 'You Are My Sunshine.'
To be a songwriter-singer means the songs come from deep within, and you treat them as an artist, with that much respect. I couldn't hardly cheat myself.
I got a woman that's mean as she can be, sometimes I think she's almost as mean as me.
I've really learned a lot, really learned a lot, love is like a stove, burns you when it's hot.
Love hurts, love scars, love wounds, and mars.
If you have faith, then your whole life is put in a new perspective. You get to work but enjoy the work at the same time. If you grow spiritually, you do what's in front of you and let the results speak for themselves.
The image, like the voice, came in stages. I never sat down with anyone and said, 'Let's design an image.'
I always felt each instrumental and vocal inflection had to be special... I'd spend almost as much time on those as I'd spend on the song itself.
Barbara and I wanted to do a television special, and she put it together with T Bone Burnett, and they came up with the idea of it being black and white. It was fabulous; we had a great time. It was wonderful.
We used to say, 'I don't wanna be jumping around and going crazy when I'm thirty,' you know? Even Mick Jagger said, 'Well, I can't see myself at forty jumping around.' Well, here we are, you know?
You set out to whip the world, and then, when you get beat up a little bit... In my case, you say, 'Father, I'm gonna let you have it. I've done what I can do.' You turn your will over to God.
You wiggle to the left, you wiggle to the right, you do the Ooby Dooby with all your might.
Pretty woman, I don't believe you, you're not the truth. No one could look as good as you, mercy.
As you stopped to say hello, oh, you wished me well, you couldn't tell that I'd been crying over you.
