Alex Turner
The first time I went to New York, it was really exciting, and I thought, given half the chance, it would be nice to live there - the same with London.Collection: Chance
Someone asked me what the key to being a good frontman was, and I think having a sense of humor about it is pretty near the top of that list. It's a very strange place to be in, and I don't take that role too seriously.Collection: Humor
I am a romantic fool, no doubt about that.Collection: Romantic
I'm in a difficult position in the sense that, preposterous as this might sound, I don't like being the centre of attention. I get up on stage every night and play songs, but I almost feel the songs are the centre of attention. I don't like opening my birthday presents in front of people, either.Collection: Birthday
Every time you write a song, you're looking for some sort of perfection, and you never quite reach it. You're always looking for that extra missing piece.
I can't draw. I'm good on the yo-yo, but I don't draw.
There's something to be said for writing in the morning. At other points in the day, you're a bit more defensive.
I know my lyrics might be weird to some, but they're not like that to me because I know where they come from - I know the secret.
Television? It's a gateway to writer's block, isn't it?
If anyone asks me about songwriting, I guess I'd say that you just gotta do it.
I get nervous about gigs sometimes, but not with records - I always get excited.
Songwriters always reminded me of that kid at school who would go around with his guitar, like, 'Yeah, songwritin' man,' looking wistful. That wasn't me - those kinds of people put me off. In the early days, I'd write a bunch of lyrics and almost look at them as a sort of joke, to make the rest of the boys laugh.
There's something about a Gucci loafer kicking on a fuzz pedal.
I think New York is a good place to write in general because it's a grid. It's organized. You know where you are on the map. That centers you, and your imagination is perhaps freer to roam.
Sometimes, writing songs is like waiting in for deliveries. They give you a window, and your washing machine is going to show up, whether the window is the album or something you're thinking, like, 'This thing is going to come to me.'
I'm like the Ben Affleck of crowd surfing.
Rock n' roll seems like it's faded away sometimes, but it will never die.
I'm not really one for collaborations, to be quite honest.
I usually sit around with the guitar in reach and grab it when I get an idea. Sometimes it lasts five minutes, and sometimes it lasts all day.
I'm not even sure where home is. Probably Terminal 5. There is a strange sense of calm about arriving back at Heathrow.
I like The Four Freshmen, anything with good harmonies, some Beach Boys. I like the girl groups as well, like The Dixie Cups and all that.
You don't meet that many people that you can talk about Roots Manuva with, but that was my favorite in school, this record of his called 'Run Come Save Me.' When I first started writing lyrics, it came from that.
I think I'm alright as a lyricist, you know? But then what will happen every couple of months or so is that I'll hear a song I've never heard before and feel I've gone right back to square one.
The idea that talent is directly proportional to your trophy cabinet is one I oppose.
I can be a woodsman if need be. I grew up very close to some forest, and I spent a lot of my formative years up and down trees, fooling around in the woods. I'm no stranger to that sort of landscape.
Guitar music or rock n' roll or whatever you want to call it sort of goes away with trends, but it'll never go away completely. It can't die because it's so fundamentally attractive.
I still very much appreciate the storytelling of the best rappers.
Sometimes I don't want to be in the confines of what a band seems to provide.
'Hatful of Hollow' and 'The Smiths' were lent to me, and they made me want to create music that might make another person feel like they made me feel - to have an effect on someone.
I just don't think I'm equipped to soundtrack the times. There might be someone out there who can do that, but I haven't cracked it.
It's a very unnatural environment to be in, up on a stage. So you put up defenses to hide. Like looking at the ground with your hair in your eyes, or being tightly wound and quite aggressive and uncooperative, as I used to do.
A lot of peopletell me I'm a bit dreamy, but I like the idea of that. Of being somewhere else.Collection: Somewhere Else
You spend your time thinking about that and you get lost in reflection.Collection: Thinking
Maybe I'm too busy being yours to fall for somebody new.Collection: Fall
Love's not only blind but deaf.Collection: Blind
I just wanted to do something that would freak people out. That's the best thing to do.Collection: People
That rock ‘n’roll, eh? That rock’n’roll, it just won’t go away. It might hibernate from time to time, sink back into the swamp. I think the cyclical nature of the universe in which it exists demands that acquiesce to some of its rules. But it’s always waiting there, just around the corner,” he added. “Ready to make its way back through the sludge and smash through the glass ceiling, looking better than ever. Yeah, that rock’n’roll, it seems like it’s faded away sometimes, but it will never die. And there’s nothing you can do about it.Collection: Thinking
What came first the chicken or the dickhead?Collection: Firsts
There is always that one band that comes along when you are 14 or 15 years old that manages to hit you in just the right way and changes your whole perception of things.Collection: Years
I think each thing in a way acts as a stepping - stone for whatever the next thing is.Collection: Thinking
You can't worry what people think.Collection: Thinking
There's that 15 quid we put on One Direction to win down the drain.Collection: Winning
I still miss the days when a haircut was just a haircut. It was only your mates you had to face. Now there's a whole industry centred around people analysing your 'look'. I just cannot understand how anyone could get so worked up by... hair.Collection: Hair
Sometimes writing songs is like waiting for deliveries.Collection: Song
I took the batteries out my mysticism / And put them in my thinking capCollection: Thinking
There have always been jokes all over our songs; I originally started writing lyrics to make my friends crack a smile, which is difficult.Collection: Song
It was 2002, we all got guitars for Christmas and started playing in my garage that summer, rehearsed there and in a warehouse for a bit for about a year. We did our first gig in June 2003 and we played a few gigs in and around Sheffield for a bit then started doing gigs outside of Sheffield about this time last year, recording demos while all this was going on.Collection: Summer
I've come to recognize songwriting as something that I do, and I want to be good at that. At that craft, if you like. I want to practice it.Collection: Songwriting
I saw that something changed in terms of the way I approach writing. I don't know. Before, everything was just sort of pieced together; and more and more nowadays I'll have complete songs - chords, lyrics, a melody - and we'll apply to those songs what we feel is required. That has happened much more on Humbug album than on any of the others.Collection: Song