Paul Weller Quotations

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

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.

You can't live a lie. You have to follow your heart.

The Jam went through a phase of wearing satin jackets. But that was pre-getting signed and making it, when we were still playing the pubs and clubs - around '75. Shocking, really - what would you call them apart from 'horrible?' We'd wear these white zip-up bomber jackets with black kind of loon pants and black and white shoes.

Led Zeppelin would never have reformed if he or Jimmy Page were bald.

The first thing I bought that was really stylish was in 1969 when I was eleven. I saved up for a black, grey and white tie-dye grandad vest. It was too big - they weren't catering for kids my age - and hung off me, but I loved it.

I'm always looking for something. Not in an unhappy way. I just like to try different things. I don't want to be morbid, but I'm not getting any younger.

Playing live is what it's all about for me. It's cathartic, it's emotional, it's about communing with people. The way you feel after a gig is a such a powerful thing.

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.

Everyone gets frustrated and aggressive, and I'd sooner take my aggression out on a guitar than on a person.

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

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.

In all honesty, I don't know what one song can change.

I'd heard a lot of Motown and Stax when I was a kid, but the more well-known end of it. On Jam tours, we had a DJ called Ady Croasdell who ran a '60s club. He turned me on to underground stuff and what people call northern soul. It just blew my mind.

'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.'

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.

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

I'd like to think I've left something in the world. Without in any way trying to be morbid, but life is very short, and I'd like to think I'd leave some body of work that would inspire other musicians long after I've gone.

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.

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.

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.

No man should have cowboys boots in his wardrobe. That's fair enough, isn't it? Unless you're a cowboy, of course.

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?

There is a shy side to me that evaporates when I play on stage, and I like that. I think it's another facet of my character, and I need to do that.

I've always had self-belief, though my sensitive side has never been fully appreciated. For every 'Down in the Tube Station at Midnight,' I've written an 'English Rose.' People forget.

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.

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.

I've always liked my clothes, even before I could properly afford them. Clothes for me were never a cloak, a cover. They were how I chose to express myself.

I think, with age, you learn that it comes in bursts and you've got no control over it. I'm not one of those people who says, 'I've got to write a song every day.' I just store up ideas, and really I have to wait until it finds me; I know when I'm ready to write. It used to frustrate me, but it doesn't any more. It's just how it is.

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.

Of course I'm proud of what I've done, but I'm interested in what's next. I want to be relevant now, in 2012. I've done my bit for the past. I've only ever been about what's next, really, and I'll be that way until I keel over.

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 was a time in my 40s where I thought, oh, it's all over - not just work, but I'm never going to feel young again, I'm always going to feel like I know what's going to happen, I'll know what to expect. Looking back I don't know if that was a midlife crisis, I don't know - but I don't feel that now. There's possibilities. It gets better.

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.

I'm not big on rap, to be honest. I just don't get it. It's angry people shouting. I like a song, melodies, people singing.

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 really enjoy playing America. I like the audiences there. It's the home of a lot of music I grew up with.

When I'm dead, I wanna leave a body of work, like authors or great painters do.

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

I was such a massive fan of all the '60s pop bands, but if I had to single out one band, it would definitely be The Beatles.

I suppose I was much more serious-minded in the '70s and '80s.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Most people my age, their musical life ended in the '80s. They stick with what they know. But my tastes are much broader. And I don't want to stop learning.

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.

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.

When I was a kid in Woking, every week you went to the football dance, and every week the top kids would be wearing something different. You were constantly trying to catch up with them - which you could never do because, by the time you'd saved up enough to buy the item, they'd moved on to something else. That's the whole Mod thing, I suppose.

It is nice to make a record and people like it, and it's encouraging.

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.

Right from the start with music, I was like, 'I'm just going to do this, and I don't care about anything else. There are certain things you have to give up, even at 13, 14: your Friday and Saturday nights, having a regular girl, lots of things like that. I look at Amy Winehouse, and I think perhaps she just don't want to do it that much.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

I am aware of the words 'national treasure' being attached to me occasionally. It just makes me feel old.

I could write songs about politics, but I'm conscious of not writing songs that sound the same as the ones I wrote 30 years ago.

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 had a total belief in The Style Council. I meant every word and felt every action.

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

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.

I'm so lucky, I'm just really grateful for what I've got around me - children and my wife and everything else.

I'm very, very open to experimenting with different people and trying to find different methods of writing and making music.

If you're into a certain band, you're into the way they dress.

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.

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.

I don't think about what I can't do or what I shouldn't be doing. I just think there are endless possibilities musically, really.

I never saw myself as a spokesman for a generation. It was all a bit heavy for me. I saw myself as a songwriter and wrote for myself, which I still do, and I also wanted to communicate with my audience.

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.

I think I come from a time when all the artists I grew up with and I loved always used to try and push the boundaries, and there doesn't seem so much of that, really.

I want to see where and how far I can go as an artist. I look back and see what I've done, and I want to do as much as I can in my lifetime. I love doing it. If I didn't have that passion or love for it, I wouldn't do it.

I was always taught as a kid that if there's anything you want in life, you've got to work towards it. I guess that sort of stayed with me, really.

If you're making music, you must want to turn other people on to it, whether you're number one in the charts or number 60.

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.

In the '90s, I think I rediscovered my guitar. The Jam was obviously very guitar-based, but in the Style Council I just got really disillusioned with playing the guitar. The further it went on, the less and less I played, to a point where I couldn't pick it up any more.

For me, my entry point, when I was old enough, was the skinhead/suedehead thing, sort of like '70/'71. People didn't have much money - they would save up, or whatever - but everyone always dressed up. You'd go to a dance at the football club on a Thursday night and all of us kids - all of us from maybe like 12 to 16 - were all dressed up.

I just pretty much love from 1966 to 1972, that's my time. I think everything that needs to be said was said within that time. That's just a subjective thing, as well.

In my world [of fashion] there's more things that kind of affect it. There's the retailers we do business with, our own stores, my merchandising team... Everybody has opinions, and so you definitely have to filter through a lot.

My own personal theory is that all popular music, in whatever form it is, to me, it all comes from Africa. Whether it's filtered through America or whatever - African-American. But I still think there's something in that roots music that's very, very African, and I think that's what unites people.

Even somebody like The Black Keys or Royal Blood, they all have this original roots base to what they do.

Our campaigns have always been based on what we consider music icons that transcend generations and they're not of the moment - they continue to evolve.

I think part of what we do is there is a bit of dandy influence, always, or a little sprinkle of it. Not literal Savile Row dandy, but there's a bit of sartorial dandiness in everything that we do - every collection that we do.

There's this British elegance that we, at times, have really missed in the States. We've always been more of a sportswear culture.

The '40s were quite austere and super glamorous.

In the early-'60s, when you look at that period of time - up to the mod time - when everybody was wearing skinnier suits and skinny lapels and skinny ties - that came out of the States, and that was quite cool.

There's always peripheral things that you like that you don't know, but starting with whatever his British influences are, are some of my favourite artists, and the American things are what I grew up on as well. In the end, for me, it's those foundations of the music business - those things that are a lot of the foundations of what music today is. You can hear a bit of all of those things that we talk about in almost all music today.

If you take skinny jeans - skinny jeans didn't just happen in the US, they were happening in Japan, they were happening in the UK, they were happening everywhere. Some places a little faster than others. But, if we look at our best sellers in this store, they're the same best sellers that we have in the States.

I think if you're a creative person, then you're always kinda looking to move things along - 'Where else can I go? Where can I take this?' From painters to photographers - anything creative in the arts - if you're a true artist, I think you'll always look to do something else. 'Where else can I go with it?' Do you know what I mean?

The whole nostalgia thing, and just sticking with what you always liked and what you know and not taking a chance on something or expanding. I think especially after a certain age.

The Beatles changed the world. They certainly changed my world, and many, many other individuals as well.

You can listen to music at any moment in the day or night. Which is great, but I think it kind of devalues it as well.

Young people can listen to music at any moment in the day or night. Which is great, but I think it kind of devalues it as well. They don't feel the need to own it. They certainly don't feel the need to pay for it. I'd have to save up for weeks to buy an album when I was a kid, and that made it even more great for me when I finally got that thing in my hand.