quotations about rock 'n' roll
Rock 'n' roll starts between the legs and goes through the heart, then to the head. As long as it does those three things, it's a great rock song.
JOHN COUGAR MELLENCAMP
interview, Spin Magazine, February 1992
Rock-and-roll, on the other hand, presumes that the four of us--as damaged and anti-social as we are--might possibly get it to-fucking-gether, man, and play this simple song. And play it right, okay? Just this once, in tune and on the beat. But we can't. The song's too simple, and we're too complicated and too excited. We try like hell, but the guitars distort, the intonation bends, and the beat just moves, imperceptibly, against our formal expectations, whether we want it to or not. Just because we're breathing, man. Thus, in the process of trying to play this very simple song together, we create this hurricane of noise, this infinitely complicated, fractal filigree of delicate distinctions.
DAVE HICKEY
Air Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy
Rock and roll is a music, and why should a music contribute to ... juvenile delinquency? If people are going to be juvenile delinquents, they're going to be delinquents if they hear ... Mother Goose rhymes.
ELVIS PRESLEY
attributed, "The All American Boy: Enter Elvis and the Rock-a-billies", Pop Chronicles
Shall I tell you what rock and roll is?... It's restless and rude. It's defiant and daring. It's a fist shaken at age. It's a voice that often screams out questions because the answers are always changing.
NORA ROBERTS
Public Secrets
Apple's [music] suggestions are not from your buddy in a band, your cool uncle who is a walking rock and roll encyclopedia, or a friend who runs an indie-rock show at the local university radio station. Instead you've signed up for the most soulless, artless, corporate-earworm-driven music agenda imaginable.
KRISTY LOYE
"Rock and Roll is Dead, and Even Axl & Slash Can't Save It", Houston Press, January 5, 2016
Rock-and-rollers seem to accept their minority status as given and even to revel in it. Which poses an enormous contradiction, for real rock-and-roll almost by definition aspires to convert the world.
ELLEN WILLIS
Beginning to See the Light: Sex, Hope, and Rock-And-Roll
Rock and roll doesn't necessarily mean a band. It doesn't mean a singer, and it doesn't mean a lyric, really. It's that question of trying to be immortal.
MALCOLM MCLAREN
attributed, The New Penguin Dictionary of Modern Quotations
Love and equality meet rock 'n' roll in the space where joy -- generated by noise, outrageous pleasure, dancing, and voices raised together -- overcomes judgment.
ANN POWERS
"Kesha Annihilates Authenticity", NPR, September 28, 2017
Rock and roll is not a musical genre; it is a communal spirit.
GAIL BUCKLAND
Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 to the Present
I don't want to be turning flips at 60. I see rock musicians who really don't understand how old they are, and it's undignified. I find those people embarrassing.
TOM PETTY
"With 'Mojo,' Tom Petty happily sings the blues", USA Today, June 9, 2010
Long live rock, I need it every night.
Long live rock, come on and join the line.
Long live rock, be it dead or alive.
PETE TOWNSHEND
"Long Live Rock"
Hail, hail rock and roll
Deliver me from the days of old
Long live rock and roll
The beat of the drums, loud and bold
Rock, rock, rock and roll
The feelin' is there, body and soul
CHUCK BERRY
"School Days", After School Session
Rock and roll is the music of America, of youth, of rebellion, and of the common spirit that ties all that together.
TOM LARSON
History of Rock and Roll