Ray Davies
When I wrote the song, I had the sea near Bombay in mind. We stayed at a hotel by the sea, and the fishermen come up at five in the morning and they were all chanting. And we went on the beach and we got chased by a mad dog - big as a donkey.Collection: Morning
Money and corruption are ruining the land, crooked politicians betray the working man, pocketing the profits and treating us like sheep, and we're tired of hearing promises that we know they'll never keep.Collection: Money
I like surfers. Their imagery, it's great.
If I had to do my life over, I would change every single thing I have done.
People take pictures of the Summer, just in case someone thought they had missed it, and to proved that it really existed.
No one can penetrate me. They only see what's in their own fancy, always.
When you are making a record and if you spend too much time over it, you have to record it a tone lower or cut the tones lower because you can't reach some of the notes, I find this. But when you go on stage, you have to put the key up and it really changes the whole thing.
What I try to do probably doesn't come out. What I've worked out what I do - I might not be right - is to do something very personal, and then suddenly I look at it, up in the air. I blow it up and look at it and then I come down again - a better man.
Those three chords were part of my life - G, F, Bb - yeh, it is, it is, and I can't help noticing it. But there have been other things nearly as close to it which people haven't noticed, other things we have done.
Then I got together with my brother and a friend and we decided to play dates. The more we played, the more we wanted to do it. And it got to a stage where we wanted to do it all the time.
Our repertoire consisted of rhythm and blues, sort of country rhythm and blues, Sonny Terry things.
If New Orleans is allowed to die, a crucial part of the world's music heritage will disappear.
I've written so many songs about Englishmen, I have to go elsewhere.
I'm susceptible to that sort of thing - to walls and flowers. You can probably get something more from a wall than a person sometimes. It's just put somewhere.
I'm easy driving, But I'm not a person who loves living pleasantly above all else. I'm not that way at all. I might think I'm that, but I'm not really that.
I was an art student at the time, like thousands of others.
I think that songwriting changed when groups started spending more time in the studio.
I still like to keep tapes of the few minutes before the final take, things that happen before the session. Maybe it's superstitious, but I believe if I had done things differently - if I had walked around the studio or gone out - it wouldn't have turned out that way.
I got that idea from being in India. I always like the chanting.
I don't think England is that gray but India is like a long drone.
At one time they've been the most important thing to me. So I can't hear our records on the radio, I can't stand it, because they sound so out of what everyone else is doing.
Learn to be positive, it's your only chance.Collection: Education
Everybody needs some inspiration, Everybody needs some motivation, mix it up with some imagination, and use your natural gifts.Collection: Motivational
Take a look around, there are misfits everywhere.Collection: Inspirational
You don't have to be a genius to find the hidden potential deep in your mind.Collection: Inspirational
Live life, see it through. Carry on, it's all you can do.Collection: Philosophy
Here's hoping all the days ahead, won't be as bitter as the one's behind you. Be an optimist instead, and somehow happiness will find you.Collection: Inspirational
I think when you write songs, you write about people... People are the source of my material. And London is a wonderful place to be for people. So, the next time you're sitting in a park somewhere, and you see someone like me looking at you, don't phone the police. I'm just writingCollection: Song
Pity is easy, but it is difficult to care.Collection: Care
In the end you become part of everything you hate, basically.Collection: Hate
The aristocrats and bureaucrats are dirty rats.Collection: Dirty
Arty farty, you'll never fool your Aunt, who knew you picked your nose and wet your pants.Collection: Art
The battles, the fights, the bruises, the bites. That's the way true love grows.Collection: Love
Life is only what you wonder. Day is light as your brightest dream.Collection: Inspirational
Everything is reduced to what's physical in the end, because it's the filth inside people's minds that creates all the evil. What is a body, anyway? I suppose you've got to abuse your body to understand it. If you're not prepared to humiliate yourself in order to give somebody else a moment's pleasure, I don't believe that you've actually lived.Collection: Believe
All you have to do is relax and feel your history, because it will never go away and there is no future without it.Collection: Life
Educate us with your media machine, tell me what to dream.Collection: Dream
Accept your life and what it brings, I know tomorrow you find better things.Collection: Inspirational
Yesterday love was such an easy game for you to play. But now let's face it, things are so much easier today. Let it be like yesterday.Collection: Games
It doesn't matter who you are, there are stars in every city, in every house, and on every street.Collection: Inspirational
If after two weeks you still can't write your middle-eight, the best course of action is to see a psychiatristCollection: Writing
Money's the solution, curing all the ails of the nation. But what about the hearts of man?Collection: Heart
If you weren't naggin', honey, you'd be so sweet.Collection: Sweet
On the surface I'm a mild mannered person, that's until you scratch the animal inside.Collection: Philosophy
Plastic man got no brain, plastic man don't feel no pain.Collection: Pain
Standing in the middle of nowhere, wondering how to begin. Lost between tomorrow and yesterday, between now and then.Collection: Philosophy
He thinks he is a flower to be looked at And when he pulls his frilly nylon pants right up tight He feels a dedicated follower of fashion. When a waiter at Buckingham Palace spilled soup on her dress: Never darken my Dior again!Collection: Fashion
Life is so groovy when your record is hot.Collection: Hot
Drinking helps us to forget what we are, we leave the office and walk straight to the bar.Collection: Work
She would be ready, but she would always make him wait.Collection: Evil