17 Great Things Said By Musicians About Life And Love

Because ‘Real Music’ fans don’t listen to their parents. Why would you trust Mom and Dad when you could follow the lead of Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, or Jay-Z? Mom is all like, “The early bird gets the worm,” and 2Pac is out there thugging it out and dropping metaphorical wisdom at the same time. Who are you going to listen to? A lot of the best musicians live fast and die young, but while they’re here, they’ve shared some knowledge that the rest of us lame non-rock stars could really use.

Check out the 17 Quotes from these 17 great musicians.

1. “I’m the one that’s got to die when it’s time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to.” – Jimi Hendrix

2. “I don’t want to give any advice to a 19-year-old, because I want a 19-year-old to make mistakes and learn from them. Make mistakes, make mistakes, make mistakes. Just make sure they’re your mistakes.” – Fiona Apple

3. “A lot of people make money off of fear and negativity and any way they can feed it to you is to their benefit in a lot of ways. You can’t avoid it completely; you have to be open enough that shit doesn’t stick on you, it goes through, because you are gonna be hit and bombarded all the time with negativity … You just let things go on through without trying to stop them or block them.” – Willie Nelson

4. “The duty of youth is to challenge corruption.” – Kurt Cobain

5. “When you’re drowning, you don’t say ‘I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,’ you just scream.” – John Lennon

6. “No matter what happens in life, be good to people. Being good to people is a wonderful legacy to leave behind.” – Taylor Swift

7. “The reason we’re successful, darling? My overall charisma, of course.” – Freddie Mercury

8. “I don’t know why, it’s the same reason why you like some music and you don’t like others. There’s something about it that you like. Ultimately I don’t find it’s in my best interests to try and analyze it, since it’s fundamentally emotional.” – Jerry Garcia

9. “It’s like if you plant something in the concrete and if it grow and the rose petal got all kinds of scratches and marks, you ain’t gonna say, ‘Damn, look at all the scratches and marks on the rose that grew from the concrete.’ You’re gonna be like, ‘Damn, a rose grew from the concrete?’” – Tupac Shakur

10. “The focus on my appearance has really surprised me. I’ve always been a size 14 to 16, I don’t care about clothes, I’d rather spend my money on cigarettes and booze.”– Adele

11. “Hip-hop has done so much for racial relations, and I don’t think it’s given the proper credit. It has changed America immensely. I’m going to make a very bold statement: Hip-hop has done more than any leader, politician, or anyone to improve race relations.”– Jay-Z

12. “The ocean scares me.” – Brian Wilson (of The Beach Boys)

13. “To some extent I happily don’t know what I’m doing. I feel that it’s an artist’s responsibility to trust that.” – David Byrne (of Talking Heads)

14. “There’s always that argument to make – that you’re in better company historically if people don’t understand what you’re doing.” – Elliott Smith

15. “Life is like Sanskrit read to a pony.” – Lou Reed

16. “I am a sexpert! I was born by sex. When you make love… you make two people into one and out come a baby and make it three in one! The church fight against it, but they all wrong. If there was no sex, we would die and with us would die truth and religion. God loves sex.” – Lee “Scratch” Perry

17. “Y.O.L.O.” (You Only Live Once) – Drake.