Joe Strummer: Want

Joe Strummer was British musician, singer, actor and songwriter. Explore interesting quotes on want.

Joe Strummer: 78 quotes7 likes

“Everyone has got to realise you can't hold onto the past if you want any future. Each second should lead to the next one.”

Interview for Sounds Magazine on 17 July 1982. [Armed Combat, Sounds Magazine, 17 July 1982]

“I'll tell you something. When you see you become part of the cycle of generations, you lose your ego in the process, because you ain't nothin' special. You're just another cipher in the generations. When you devote all your interest into another person, you lose your self-obsession, and that's when you understand what it is. You don't know (anything) without that moment. You don't want anything to harm this helpless being. That's a fantastic change. And that's when you understand what's happening. I never understood anything until my first baby looked at me. I didn't understand (anything). Now I understand.”

Strummer on Man, God, Law and the Clash (31 January 1988)

“I just want to go back to rockin', but I'm uncertain as to what to actually do … The truth is, I never stopped thinking about rock 'n' roll for a second that I'm on holiday.”

Strummer on Man, God, Law and the Clash (31 January 1988)

“What's holding me up is I'm confused about the nature of the music. Because the modern music doesn't reach me. I mean to say the sound of the modern electric production. A lot of sequencers… synths. That's what people are buying. Because that doesn't reach me, it throws me back to like 1948, but I don't want to be there. Back there, I'm talking about blues records…. The roots of rock 'n' roll is rhythm and blues and that's like really where I'm at, where I was always at.”

Strummer on Man, God, Law and the Clash (31 January 1988)

“I'd like to say that people people can change anything they want to; and that means everything in the world. Show me any country and there'll be people in it. And it's the people that make the country. People have got to stop pretending they're not on the world. People are running about following their little tracks. I am one of them. But we've all gotta stop just stop following our own little mouse trail. People can do anything; this is something that I'm beginning to learn. People are out there doing bad things to each other; it's because they've been dehumanized. It's time to take that humanity back into the centre of the ring and follow that for a time. Greed… it ain't going anywhere! They should have that on a big billboard across Times Square. Think on that. Without people you're nothing.”

Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten (2007).

“If you're allowed to make your mistakes, I think you should. But people don't really like hearing you admit them. Although I'd never wanted to dump on the musicians that were involved in that…. Because it was not their fault.”

Strummer on Man, God, Law and the Clash (31 January 1988)

“The men at the factory are old and cunning
You don't owe nothing, so boy get running
It's the best years of your life they want to steal.”

“Clampdown” (1979)

“I have a big legacy of The Clash to live up to and I don't intend to uriny on a legend. I intend to build forward into the next century. The music has to be by the musicians, and there's too much changing things by the record company. I got a message for everyone in a record company: We don't care if you lose your job! You ruin music and I'll get all the smoothers out off the way, the people who smooth the sound off. Let the musicians have the music the way they want it, and not the way you think the grandmothers and 3-year olds will gonna buy it. Cause this is not about 3-year olds or grandmothers… This is Rock and Roll!”

Bizarre Festival (21 August 1999)