Paul Weller Quotes

I get labelled as just being about one thing, but there’s lots of layers to what I do.

All my children inspire me in life, and that always comes out in the writing.

For me, the best thing I can do is play live. The best way for me to put over what I’m trying to do is to play live. Whether it’s an acoustic show, electric or whatever… if I shine at all, that’s where it all really happens – it just took me a while to rediscover that.

I come from a time when every kid dressed up. Everybody. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be able to hang out. It was very tribal. There’s nice things in that. It’s culture; it’s roots for me.

There were aspects of stardom I didn’t like, which were of no consequence, really, but the positive things far outweighed the negative. By the time I came to write ‘Setting Sons,’ I felt my writing was more like prose, set to music.

Going to college was never an option. I was passionate about music, but how much talent I actually had was another matter.

I want to hear as much music as I possibly can before I leave this mortal coil but it’s impossible to hear it all because there’s so much of it.

When I listen to a record, or when I’m making a record, I listen to everything. I listen to the drums, the bass, the voice, the arrangement. I listen to the whole piece as an ensemble. I don’t only listen to the guitar player.

I don’t really wanna talk about politics, I’m not clever enough.

I’ve bought clothes based on record covers. Particularly from the formative music that turned me onto it in the first place when I was a kid, with the Beatles and the Small Faces. A lot of those Sixties soul artists were in really sharp sharkskin or mohair suits, and Motown artists looked amazing.

I didn’t imagine getting to 50, let alone still be playing music. When I was 18, I thought it’d all be over by the time I was 21.

I take my hat off to people like the Stones, but it’s not for me. I couldn’t do that. Jagger is brilliant and long may he rock. I couldn’t make my career out of old songs; it would do my head in.

Music is the most natural thing in the world. When we go to a gig and we all like it and we share that experience, it’s the same sense of communion as a sacred rite in Borneo or wherever it may be; it just gets dressed up different. Its good for the soul.

The only time I ever really got into rap was back in the early ’90s, and bands like A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Gang Starr. Musically, they were really interesting. But when hip-hop acts start sampling Sting or Phil Collins, then I just don’t get it at all.

I never, ever wanted to be the Rolling Stones. Bless their hearts, but I don’t necessarily want to go on doing the same old thing for the next 10, 20 years… I could see how easy it is to get into that rut, the whole touring mindset.

When I got into the Beatles, I must have only been about six or seven but old enough to take notice. We used to have an old radiogram which, for readers of a certain age, was like a big cabinet thing with a record player inside it.

When I told my mum I was going to play my first gig when I was 14, she couldn’t believe it, cause I was painfully shy at that time. But I just done it, put my head down and got through it. And I suppose there’s still a little bit of that, even though it’s many years later and I’ve been doing it for a long time.

The Zombies were really unique – they had elements of jazz and classical music in their songs and songwriting. They had a very, very different sound compared to a lot of their contemporaries at the time.

There have been records I’ve been really, really pleased with that haven’t connected with people. But I felt good about them.

People say you make your best work when you’re in despair and all that, and at your lowest – but for me, I think happiness makes you positive, and I think that’s a good creative place to write from.

I don’t like the royal family, I don’t like the establishment, I don’t like the civil service.

I hear an album so many times during the course of making it that when I’ve just finished it, I don’t want to hear it again. After you’ve taken a little bit of time away from it, you can come back to it, which can be scary. I’m happy with ‘Sonik Kicks,’ man.

No one told Miles Davis or BB King to pack it in. John Lee Hooker played literally up to the day he died. Why should pop musicians be any different?

I’ve not had Botox, no.

Pop music was supposed to be a flash in the pan, but here we are 50 years later and it means something to us, and it always will do. It’s incredibly important.

Getting to No. 1 makes everyone feel better; of course it does. But it’s swings and roundabouts with these things. Sometimes you make a great record, and it clicks with people. And other times it passes them by; there’s nothing you can do. It’s still the same record.

We can’t stop a baby in Africa from starving to death… but we can afford enough technology and weaponry to blow the world up a million times over.

‘Ageism,’ or whatever you want to call it, is a very English phenomenon. You don’t get it too much in many other cultures. And no one says it about authors or poets or filmmakers. ‘Oh, they’re too old to make films or write books.’

I wear jeans and a T-shirt sometimes. I just like clothes – since the first time I can remember, like age ten or eleven; I was just obsessed with music and clothes. Just like a lot of people in England from my generation.

I’m fine with being thought of as a guitar player, and if I can get any recognition or respect for doing that, that’s a pretty good thing for me.

I still love playing music. It was all I ever wanted to do, and I got the chance to do it.

In my old age, my mind gets more open, and I listen to so many different types of music and I guess that all reflects in my work.

I kept the first Rickenbacker I ever got, a little short-scale John Lennon-type model. And I’ve got a couple of 12-string models, which are really nice, and I’ve got a Pete Townshend model, which Pete gave me a few years ago. But that’s about it.

You have to keep challenging yourself. I’ve always tried to do that, and I’m not saying I’ve always been successful. Maybe I’ve rewritten the same song; it’s inevitable, but I’ve always been mindful of taking the writing somewhere else. You can’t stick in your little comfort zone.

The Jam were a good band, however I feel that the Style Council were better. A lot of people I know will disagree with me. Some things we did with The Style Council were misinterpreted or over their heads.

When I’m dead, I wanna leave a body of work, like authors or great painters do. I don’t wanna get ideas above my station, but why shouldn’t this be comparable? Pop music was supposed to be a flash in the pan, but here we are 50 years later, and it means something to us, and it always will do. It’s incredibly important.

Coming from a little suburban town, I wasn’t a hip city kid. I was quite the opposite, really. Songs like ‘Saturday’s Kids’ rang a bell for kids all over the country. That song was about the kids I grew up with.

I’m sure there’s a subconscious ‘go for it’ thing with turning 50. You want to do as much as possible and there are thoughts of how little time we have on the planet. For a lot of musicians in their 50s, the best days are behind them. I’d like to try and show that there is a future.

People say that if you’re still angry at 52, you’re not an angry young man, just a grumpy old git.

There are so many artists who get to my age that get comfortable and just stick in a groove, and I really don’t want to do that.

Playing music is a lifetime’s work. And if you want to carry on with it, you have to try to better yourself. You have to see where the music can take you.

When I lived in a little flat in Pimlico in 1981, I’d write in the hallway. As you walked in, there was a tiny little recess type thing, hardly a hallway, really, and I’d sit there writing songs with my guitar.

I think people are just really disappointed, disappointed with Blair as well, who’s just like Bush’s lapdog. I think everyone’s just disillusioned with politics in our country, and it must be the same in your country.

I think politicians are so far out of step with what people really want.

It’s quite liberating to get to a certain age, ‘cos you’re not chasing number one hits or trying to be an international superstar. I’ve done all that. I’m not out to prove much more to anyone but myself really, to be an artist and see if there is a new undiscovered music out there for me to make.