42+ Richard Thompson Quotes On Education, Paranoia And Death

Richard Thompson is a British musician, songwriter, and guitarist. He is best known for his work with the folk rock group Fairport Convention in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and for his solo career since then. His work often incorporates traditional folk, rock, and classical music styles, as well as more experimental elements. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Richard Thompson on love, leadership, life.

Top 10 Richard Thompson Quotes

1. Will there be any bartenders up there in Heaven, will the pubs never close?
2. I'm glad there are a lot of guitar players pursuing technique as diligently as they possibly can, because it leaves this whole other area open to people like me.
3. To stand up on a stage alone with an acoustic guitar requires bravery bordering on heroism. Bordering on insanity.
4. I try to look for the good in everybody, regardless of the way they're labeled.
5. When you stand up acoustic in front of an audience, you really are a man without any clothes on. And that can be fun - it depends how much of an exhibitionist you are, I suppose. I quite enjoy it.
6. The best thing you've got going for you is individuality.
7. I think the reason kids get into drugs and smoking is they don't have anything to do.
8. I try to make songs visual and tactile to kind of put you into the action.
9. I have to remind myself not to set boundaries.
10. You want the audience to be uncomfortable.

Richard Thompson Short Quotes

• I'm always making a conscious effort to be viable and accessible.
• I like the idea of playing in unison with yourself.
• What I wanted to hear didn't exist, so it was necessary for me to go out and create it.
• All audiences should be slightly off balance.
• To see both sides of a quarrel, is to judge without hate or alarm
• There are only three white blues singers -- Geoff Muldaur is at least two of them.
• Every day I'll wear your memory like a favorite shirt upon my back

Richard Thompson Quotes About Songs

As the writer, you're always a presence in the song. If you get close to what human beings are like, you're writing about common experience. We all do much the same things, so if you nail somebody, then you've also nailed yourself. — Richard Thompson

It's fun to sing sad songs. And it's fun to listen to sad songs. Enjoyable. Satisfying. Something. — Richard Thompson

I think you can refine what you do, and become more consistent. And you write better songs that have a better shape and a better feeling. You evolve into and out of things, and go through stages, but, ultimately, you do improve. — Richard Thompson

I just like to entertain myself by sitting down and writing songs. — Richard Thompson

It's amazing what some people read into songs. — Richard Thompson

I don't really know how writing process happens, how these songs are arrived at. One of the things I like about the writing process is, I don't necessarily know where it's going, and even if I think I know where it's going, it'll turn out different. I find that exciting and rewarding. — Richard Thompson

I want people to come to my music without prejudice. I want them to get the music first. And who I am isn't that important. If they like the songs to me that's a good thing. — Richard Thompson

I probably wrote three-quarters of the songs without an instrument in my hands. — Richard Thompson

Richard Thompson Famous Quotes And Sayings

I think it's absolutely possible to write a song and go somewhere where no one's been before, uncharted territory. In terms of content, I see limitations where there should be none. I know there are things I wouldn't write about, but that shouldn't be the case. You should be able to make a song out of anything, out of any situation. — Richard Thompson

There's a part of me that wishes I'd never said one single solitary word on any subject publicly. Then I could have been the tortured poet, and there's so much mileage in that. But it's too late to stop now. — Richard Thompson

The thing I do, really, is a communication with audiences more than any achievement through records. — Richard Thompson

But music can save your life sometimes. It probably saved me from working in a bank or something. That's a kind of salvation right there. — Richard Thompson

People want to hear about the extremes of human nature. They want things that are larger than their own lives, and more romantic, and not necessarily of their own experiences. — Richard Thompson

If you're up on a stage, naked and solo and singing songs to people, there's not much place to hide, so you may as well confess what you want to confess and say what you want to say, whatever that is. Some songs just turn out as being more about me, and some are more through the eyes of other people, or third-person descriptions of people. — Richard Thompson

The good part of writing is where it gets out of your control and turns into something else. You look at it and think "Whoa, where did that come from? That wasn't what I meant to write, but it's more interesting than what I was intending. Which part of my subconscious or my experience did that come from?" Often the answer isn't clear, and often the line between fiction and fact isn't clear, either. — Richard Thompson

If you're up there performing a song for the first time, it's as if you're hearing it through their ears. You become acutely self-conscious of the song in performance, so that's a good thing before recording. But I like to have some surprises for the audience; I don't want the audience to know everything that's going to be on the record, because these days, with the Internet, people become avid collectors of pre-knowledge. — Richard Thompson

I'm sure every pattern has been covered, but it's nice to think you might dwell on some that other people don't. — Richard Thompson

They came in the thousands from the whole human race to pay their respects at his last resting place. — Richard Thompson

Well, first of all it's entertainment. That stops us becoming too pretentious or thinking we're great artists. — Richard Thompson

I'm glad I can do both full-band electric and solo acoustic performances. It's nice to have contrast, so if you get fed up with one, you can just switch to the other one. It's great to go to a town and play an acoustic show, and then you can come back a year later and play electric, and the show's really fairly different. The repertoire will be 50 percent different. The musical energy is completely different. — Richard Thompson

Amplifying acoustic instruments more than a little is really cheating, and everything becomes a compromise. — Richard Thompson

Nothing is plainer than that, if the principles of the church of Rome prevail here, our Constitution would fall. The two cannot exist together. They are in open and direct antagonism with the fundamental theory of our government and of all popular government everywhere. — Richard Thompson

There is in fact a controversy over Darwin's theory. Clearly both theories have religious implications. But this is not about God. — Richard Thompson

I think there are shades of political songs; some are more subtle and can be more effective for being subtle, for being more metaphorical. I've written a lot of songs like that, where it's not really clear if it's a war song or a relationship song. The metaphor can be the most powerful thing of all, but sometimes you have to speak more clearly to more people, and I think this is one of those times. — Richard Thompson

Sitting around home I mostly play acoustic. I've got seven or eight guitars of various sorts, including a baritone. Sometimes at home, because a guitar is just lying around, that's the guitar I pick up rather than actually choosing something. I try to plan ahead for my laziness by leaving interesting things scattered about. If I leave a baritone guitar lying around, that's the one I'll pick up, and I'll start writing baritoney things. — Richard Thompson

Life Lessons by Richard Thompson

1. Richard Thompson's music demonstrates the power of combining traditional folk music with modern rock and pop influences.
2. His songwriting is often witty and playful, but also deals with serious themes such as love, loss, and death.
3. His work serves as an example of how to create something new and unique by blending different musical styles and influences.