Top 50 Paul Young Quotes

Generally, musicians find that as they get older, their popularity starts to wane. Pre-Covid, however, I was going through a good phase and finding my live shows were really well received.

One of my better qualities is that I accept what’s in front of me and deal with it.

I’ve done more than a few concerts on the same stage as Nik Kershaw, and I’ve done a couple with Go West.

I’m a mad fan of American guitarist Ry Cooder and he made a record using Mexican musicians, but with American soul singers doing the backing. It opened my eyes to the fact that the Mexicans played very differently.

There was that ‘anything is achievable’ attitude in the Eighties. Everything was very positive and gung-ho. Well, ‘hedonistic’ is the word they use a lot. We were all confident bordering on arrogant.

There are people who sit at home and decide to anonymously troll people on the Internet – what is wrong with these people? Or you can be a positive person and put some good energy into this world.

I’ve always liked Iggy. He did an album, ‘New Values,’ in the punk days that I played to death. When you see him live, the way he moves, what he does – nothing is planned.

I appeared three times with Jools Holland on ‘The Tube.’

I fancy a safari in South Africa. Watching animals in the wild must be amazing.

I want a church service with New Orleans funeral jazz music. I’d like people to say a few words about me and I may have my ashes scattered in the sea.

I’m desperate to learn how to sail a boat.

I didn’t think I was scared of heights until I did ITV’s ‘Splash!’ in 2014.

I’m interested in all types of music.

After performing in various bands, my big break came when I signed for the record label CBS. I had a couple of hits, then my third single, ‘Wherever I Lay My Hat,’ reached No 1 in 1983.

I was a dreamer as a kid.

I wanted to do music at school but they discouraged it. If you did music you couldn’t do technical drawing, which meant you couldn’t work in engineering and as Vauxhall was the local employer that’s what we were all being groomed for.

I’d driven through all these amazing places in America on tour buses, so I decided to take my family on a U.S.A. road trip. We loved it so much we did it three times – in 1995, 2000 and 2005.

I suppose I was lucky to be born in a time where I was in my early ’20s in the ’80s. It was just a happening time to be around.

I want to be alive for as long as possible and as I have got older, my body seems to tell me what I should and shouldn’t have which means I have less red meat and more vegetables.

Chrysalis Records saw my group, Q-Tips, as a party band. They weren’t doing much for our careers.

I don’t remember how much money we got when I was in Streetband. It was whatever cash was left at the end of the night once we’d paid off the roadies etc for a gig.

Everything that happens in your life is a lesson learned.

I was trying to do L.A. style in the U.K. and it didn’t really work.

I became a qualified machinist at Vauxhall. For some reason it’s been erroneously reported that I used to screw on hubcaps, but that’s not true. You can’t screw on a hubcap, anyway, so I have no idea where that came from.

I do like a good bike ride and my wife Stacey and I also have a personal trainer twice a week to keep our basic fitness up.

The great thing about people in the ’80s is there was a great zest for life. It was a really exciting era and the people who were around then are growing up very slowly. They almost don’t want to!

It makes no sense to me at all to give away music for free. The very fact that we have to do that cheapens the music. And there’s a huge effect to that of music not playing such a big part in peoples’ lives anymore.

My bajo sexto, a big Mexican acoustic guitar, comes from a shop in L.A. run by three generations of Mexicans.

We once employed a girl in Texas to produce a fanzine, and after meeting her there she seemed fine. Then the letters started and they got strange and she began to claim we were an item. She also sent me a rhinestone cow bone sprayed silver and mounted on a plinth. Don’t ask me why.

When I was younger, every time I stopped work and had a holiday, I’d break out in a rash. A dermatologist put it down to stress, but it never seemed to affect me when I was busy.

I’ve spent all my money on the kids’ education.

Swimwear on TV is something I should have done in my 20s.

Recording everything with analogue equipment, as we did with ‘No Parlez,’ left space for the sorts of happy accidents that can make the most interesting sounds.

Growing up, we visited Devon and Cornwall where I learnt to surf and had my first horse riding lesson. We stayed in caravan parks and I have fond memories of Paignton and Newquay.

It doesn’t pay to get too familiar with your songs. Going off to do other things in between recording sessions gives you a chance to think.

I love playing live and I love to travel. I don’t get bored by either one.

Look to the future; don’t dwell on a past that you can’t change.

I’m fascinated by the challenge of navigating the oceans.

Rick James was a force to be reckoned with. He was an underground success here but huge in the U.S. – people used to compare him to Prince. Sadly, he had an early death.

Whatever I do, I do it in moderation.

I did part-time jobs until my apprenticeship as a milling machinist at Vauxhall when I was 16. I got £15 a week and I used to give my mum a fiver of that.

Music was always a big part of our family life. My dad’s brother used to play the harmonica at family parties, and my mum was in the Luton Girls Choir, who did lots of radio broadcasts and performances in the 50s. I have older cousins who used to play me their soul and ska records.

When you’re playing Wembley Arena the emotion comes in waves, but in a tiny club it hits you in the face.

Although it wasn’t my era, Soul is the root of what I do.

I’ve crossed paths with fanatical fans all over the world.

I’m a musician and I go places and perform to people that want to listen to good music.

I’ve always seen myself as a working musician but now there’s no money in records for the artist at all, it’s all in live performance.

People forget that scenes and fashion trends changed very rapidly during the ’80s. We went from glam rock to punk, to new romantic, to flashy sportswear… and this all happened just as I was coming up through the ranks.

Vangelis, who wrote the music for ‘Chariots Of Fire,’ is a bit of an idol of mine – his music is stunning. So when I got a call from my manager in the 90s asking if I’d like to do some songwriting for him I couldn’t believe it.

Since I’m known for recording other artists’ material, I’m absolutely deluged with mail from all the publishing companies. They take all the songs that’ve been lying around the office for months and throw them at me. Most of them are terrible, but you have to listen… just in case.