Top 55 Sixto Rodriguez Quotes

The earth is going to survive, it’s the people that aren’t.

I’ve had such an ordinary life.

I’m not getting old, I’m getting dead.

The Isley Brothers, there’s a group that stays together because they’re a family band.

Education, information and knowledge are all one.

I always like to say that you’ve got to… use all your talent.

Rock ‘n’ roll is a crazy world, and it’s how things work out you can’t predict.

The film, ‘Searching For Sugar Man,’ has excited my music career.

In the music business, there’s a lot of criticism and rejection. If you embrace it, you’ll be better off when the adjustment comes.

Musicians want to be heard. So I’m not hiding. But I do like to leave it there onstage and be myself, in that sense. Because some people carry it with them.

Was ‘Crucify Your Mind’ dedicated to anybody? No, it was a generalization. ‘A Most Disgusting Song’ is like that, too.

I sing about social issues, not the boy-girl stuff.

You never throw away your work clothes. There is always something to do in the house.

Voice is the first instrument.

I don’t mind going out to do my shows but I can still retreat back into my own private world, you know? And that is very key.

I have a sloppy style of playing guitar. A percussive style. Unique in fact.

I like language, words. And I think the survival skills I’ve developed over the years have added a lot to my perspective.

There are beautiful songs people write about love and dancing. But it’s political issues that should be addressed.

I stopped chasing the music dream back in ’74.

I like Detroit.

I’m a family person, and you make those choices.

Some want to do pretty songs with pretty words about pretty people, but that ain’t me.

Entertainment news doesn’t interest me.

You want to know the secret of life? It is to breathe in and out. And the mystery of life? You never know when it is going to end.

I’ve been a candidate for office at least eight times. A couple times for mayor, state representative, city council.

Every 20 years or so, I feel that young people confront the same issues – a new war, new challenges.

I was ready for the world. I don’t think the world was ready for me.

That’s the way I always listened to music. I’d listen and copy it. I play by ear so that’s easier than reading.

I’ve only written 30 songs or something. Dylan’s written over 500 songs. There’s no comparison. He’s the Shakespeare of rock ‘n’ roll and popular music.

If I sound political, it’s because I am.

I’m lucky. It’s okay that success has come later to me, because I might have burned up if it had happened earlier.

My career, it’s been a mess.

I loved Jimmy Reed, the chord changes, the lyrics.

I did a lot of heavy-lifting – construction, demolition, that kind of thing. Dusty, dirty work.

Music is a living art.

I play guitar and I’m always trying to find out the latest kinds of riffs.

I graduated from Wayne State University, but there’s a whole lot you don’t learn in school.

I’m a musical political, I tend to stick to what I see happening outside my front door.

I play by ear – I’m self-taught. And so everything I do is through that technique.

I chose music and that’s what I do.

You can’t get around certain stuff, whether it’s in Darfur or on your block at home. What makes us political is your home turf, your family, your life space. You walk down the street, and automatically a human being is territorial, and political happens in that.

I’m a fortunate man, quite fortunate.

There are no guarantees in the music field. There’s a lot of rejection, a lot of criticism and a lot of disappointment. You have to be prepared for that. And after 1973, it just wasn’t happening for me.

My dad, he was my role model – my mom died when I was three – and the way we honor our parents is remembering their heritage.

My work is more to me than just music.

I got my style. I got my own way of playing. I’m a musician. I’m self-taught.

It’s an honor and a pleasure to be heard.

It took me 10 years to get a four-year degree, but I graduated.

I’m born and bred out of Detroit. Detroit is an interesting place. You’ve got to be from somewhere.

I know I did ‘Establishment Blues,’ and I said ‘This is not a song it’s an outburst’ and I’d play it, I never did describe it as a rant – R-A-N-T – but the thing is it’s exactly that. Sometimes it sounds like that, but there’s a lot out there on the everyday man, on the plight of the little guy.

Whenever I speak, I talk to the collective consciousness of my audience.

Where other people live in an artificial world, I feel I live in the real world. And nothing beats reality.

I’m a lucky man.

In the ’60s and ’70s, a protest song was a genre in music.

I don’t like litter and blight.