John Fahey Quotations

So I was really composing for full orchestra and of course I didn't know enough chords or harmonies yet but I came up with some interesting stuff.

But when I come off stage, I do not want adulation, I do not want to be worshipped.

Regarding fame, fortune and Oregon I do wish I had more money.

Someone once said that war is God's way of teaching geography, but today, apparently war or even the threat of war cannot adequately teach geography,

We'll buy over 800,000 gallons of diesel fuel so every rise in cost is a major issue for us.

Well when I made my first record I thought it would be a good joke to have me on one side, have the lable say John Fahey on one side, and this guy Blind Joe Death on the other side.

We're trying to find ways for our kids to give back to the community, give back to the school, ... We're also really working on giving them the work they can take with them way beyond high school.

While I recognize in the back of my mind that I am an occasionally brilliant guitar composer and arranger, innovator and player.

Everybody else was just trying to copy folk musicians, I wasn't trying to do that.

As soon as the groupie finds out that you make errors in everyday life like everybody else does and that you are human, they turn on you and hate you.

Oh, 1962. The music scene was so bad that several of us decided to come out to Berkeley and take over the folk music scene here.

So what I do is this - when I go to the venue, I become the entertainer John Fahey.

So when people ask me how good I am, I usually cop to being brilliant, even better than that, but short of genius.

As for the source of the music, I believe it comes from the unconscious; that there is no such thing as talent.

A sound knowledge of geography is essential for understanding global events and their impact on the rest of the world. National Geographic has always recognized the need for geographic literacy and will vigorously continue its efforts to educate our young people and empower them to be informed citizens and responsible stewards of our planet.

They are missing a component that is very important and should be one of the skill sets for the 21st century that every kid has when they graduate from high school.

They are too focused on the audience rather than on their own emotions, or they are too focused on technique or perhaps on both.

I know many inferior guitarists who are very proud of the fact that they are as good as they are, when in fact they are only moderately good.

In the music I was composing I was trying to express my emotions, my so called negative emotions, which were depression, anger and so forth.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that I am playing emotions and expressing them in a coherent public language called music.

Geographic illiteracy impacts our economic well-being, our relationships with other nations and the environment, and isolates us from the world.

I do not even laugh at this like others do because the relationship between entertainers and groupies is pathological.

The other thing in composition is opening up the unconscious.

Being worshipped is a horrible experience.

More American young people can tell you where an island that the 'Survivor' TV series came from is located than can identify Afghanistan or Iraq. Ironically a TV show seems more real or at least more meaningful interesting or relevant than reality.

But I say these things in an objective dispassionate manner because, you know, and I can't explain why, but being one of the greatest guitarists in the world simply is not very important to me.

I had a big background in listening to classical music and I started trying to compose, like I was playing the guitar but I heard an orchestra in my head.

Well folks, that's about it for the show tonight.

Well I was on the one hand, the more I played the guitar the more I began to really love the guitar and to love virtually any kind of music that anybody played well on guitar.

So I learnt a few country western songs, I bought a chord book, and right away I started writing my own stuff, which nobody else did that, I don't know why.

I was using them as teachers for technique but I was never trying to be a folk.

When I play, I very quickly put myself into a light hypnotic trance and compose while playing, drawing directly from the emotions.

As for fame, it can go to your head and you can become full of yourself.

Early Bluegrass is my favorite kind of music, not to many people know that.

From a social perspective, I am looking for friends, not acolytes.

I also know that I am not a great technician.

I just want to be treated like an average guy.

I thought I'd be wasting my time to go to commercial record companies and make demos for them, because don't forget, I was doing what I was doing and nobody understood what I was doing.

See my father knew a lot about music, he played the piano and he would do theory and stuff like that, but I didn't learn anything from him, but I played that for him and he liked it a lot.

How can I be a folk? I'm from the suburbs you know.

There is something about guitars—maybe something magical—when played right, which evokes past, mysterious, barely-conscious sentiments, both individual and universal.