Every record I have done was because I was a person's friend. The only time we did not continue to be friends was if the record did not become a hit. If it did, we became great friends.
Nile RodgersRead
I used to play flute and clarinet at school, and although I wasn't thinking about making a living or getting a pay cheque, I already knew I was going to play music all my life.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a passion for music that transcends the idea of earning a living from it.
Nile Rodgers reflects on his early experiences with music, highlighting that his love for playing instruments like the flute and clarinet was intrinsic and not motivated by financial gain. This underscores the idea that true passion for an art form can exist independently of commercial considerations, suggesting that music and creativity can be lifelong pursuits driven by personal satisfaction and joy.
In practice
During a motivational speech about pursuing one's passion, this quote can serve as an illustration of finding joy in what you love.
Every record I have done was because I was a person's friend. The only time we did not continue to be friends was if the record did not become a hit. If it did, we became great friends.
Music has to keep moving. But I was lucky. For me there was always something around the corner.
There's been this strange irony to my whole life. All my original bandmates have died, when I was the most wild and most reckless of us all. But I'm still here.
Music is the one part of the entertainment business where you can't fool anybody into buying a record.
With Sumthin Else Music Works, I wanted to spread the love and give newcomers a chance to make it because something that really helped me were all the people who had given me an opportunity when I was putting my career together.
I'd probably be a super wealthy guy if I had sat around writing songs and getting them placed like everyone else I know. But I write songs about people or after I meet them and they're somewhat biographical - they're fiction but also non-fiction.
Writing has... been to me like a bath from which I have risen feeling cleaner, healthier, and freer.
I have not seen a film as powerful, surreal, and frightening in at least a decade unprecedented in the history of cinema.
I started out really young, when I was four, five, six, writing poems, before I could play an instrument. I was writing about things when I was eight or 10 years old that I hadn't lived long enough to experience. That's why I also believe in reincarnation, that we were put here with ideas to pass around.
Fashion you can buy, but style you possess. The key to style is learning who you are, which takes years. There’s no how-to road map to style. It’s about self-expression and, above all, attitude.
For two extraordinary years I have been working on it - learning to write - but mostly learning how to tell the truth. At first it is quite impossible. You make yourself better than anybody, then worse than anybody, and when you finally come to see you are "like" everybody - that is the bitterest blow of all to the ego. But in the end it is only the truth, no matter how ugly or shameful, that is right, that fits together, that makes real people, and strangely enough - beauty.
How do poems grow? They grow out of your life.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.