Iggy Pop: Want

“I'll tell you about punk rock: punk rock is a word used by dilettantes and, uh… and, uh… heartless manipulators, about music… that takes up the energies, and the bodies, and the hearts and the souls and the time and the minds, of young men, who give what they have to it, and give everything they have to it. And it's a… it's a term that's based on contempt; it's a term that's based on fashion, style, elitism, satanism, and, everything that's rotten about rock 'n' roll. I don't know Johnny Rotten.. but I'm sure, I'm sure he puts as much blood and sweat into what he does as Sigmund Freud did. You see, what, what sounds to you like a big load of trashy old noise… is in fact… the brilliant music of a genius… myself. And that music is so powerful, that it's quite beyond my control. And, ah… when I'm in the grips of it, I don't feel pleasure and I don't feel pain, either physically or emotionally. Do you understand what I'm talking about? Have you ever, have you ever felt like that? When you just, when you just, you couldn't feel anything, and you didn't want to either. You know, like that? Do you understand what I'm saying, sir?”

Iggy Pop

Peter Gzowski's 90 Minutes Live interview (1977)

Men , Pain , Pleasure , Music

“Yeah, she's heard the war stories … I tell it all to her. I think one has to, because one wants to know somebody, and one wants to feel that somebody knows one. I mean, the embarrassment quotient has been going down for a long time, and the fond amusement has been rising.”

Iggy Pop

On discussing his past escapades with his girlfriend.
Rolling Stone interview (2003)

War , Feeling , Thinking , Time

“Everybody's a little more worldly now, and there's more exposure to things. When I made Fun House, back in 1970, nobody wanted to interview me. It was wonderful.”

Iggy Pop

Interview interview (1999)
Context: Everybody's a little more worldly now, and there's more exposure to things. When I made Fun House, back in 1970, nobody wanted to interview me. It was wonderful. I was like one of those little white things you find living under rocks, that every once in a while people pull up by mistake and go, "aagh!" But now everybody has a video camera, and that may have changed the nature of "the message from below," as it were.

Housing

“Before I kick it I want to be able to carry a tune in a living room if called upon. Of course, mine come out all dark and twisted and weird.”

Iggy Pop

Interview interview (1999)
Context: You know, I'm fifty-two now and I call myself a singer. Before I kick it I want to be able to carry a tune in a living room if called upon. Of course, mine come out all dark and twisted and weird.