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Because of my politics, people think I'm anti-American. But I was quite the reverse. What I don't like about the United States is when the government acts like an old, imperial 18th- or 19th-century European power.

Robert Wyatt

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Robert Wyatt
Age: 79
Born: 1945
Born: January 28
Composer
Drummer
Musician
Recording Artist
Singer
Bristol
Gloucestershire
Robert Ellidge Wyatt
States
Anti
Government
Acts
Think
Century
Thinking
Quite
Like
Politics
Imperial
People
American
Reverse
United
Power
European

More quotes by Robert Wyatt

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I looked at what adults were doing and how they wanted to earn money, and I really didn't want to do that. I wanted to go away.
Robert Wyatt
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I think that pop, and to some extent rock, are like sport and fashion industry in that they're about the exuberance of youth. That's the sort of subliminal ideology.
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There are singers that I have enjoyed, from Nina Simone and Ray Charles onward. But the music that made music the number one thing for me as a youth was jazz.
Robert Wyatt
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I don't know how many thoughts we have a second, but it's quite an amazing number, and just to pin down the appropriate sequence of those, all you really need is a pencil and a piece of paper.
Robert Wyatt
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People who had empires, unfortunately, want them back eventually, somehow, someway.
Robert Wyatt
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People say, oh it's a shame, you're not nostalgic about the '60s. Well actually, it's quite good, when you think of it. Wouldn't it be sad if I was sitting here wishing it back?
Robert Wyatt
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I play music a lot but on my own mostly, so it was nice to be around other people. There was a certain sense a relief in the physical act of just playing and being with other musicians.
Robert Wyatt
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My heroes are people like Picasso and Miro and people who at last really reach something in their old age, which they absolutely couldn't ever have done in their youth.
Robert Wyatt
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I'm not a soldier for anything, either. I'm only a singer and I don't think it makes a difference what we sing.
Robert Wyatt
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The most effective instruments do have a vocal quality.
Robert Wyatt
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I don't do live things.
Robert Wyatt
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I find writing songs hard, because it does not come naturally to me. I never set out to be a songwriter or a singer.
Robert Wyatt
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If you've never felt that you quite got a hold of it, you just feel that before you die, you've got to try and get it right once. And hope that the experience you have makes up for the some of the diminishing energy.
Robert Wyatt
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In theory, I'd like to work in a group. But the group I'd like to work in, all the musicians in them are long since dead.
Robert Wyatt
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People have habits about what they think songs should be like. There's the folky thing of: Poor me, I'm a sensitive person in a cruel world. Or the pop thing of: Hey, look at me, I'm sexy.
Robert Wyatt
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I don't find the business easy. The moment you start talking about the business, you start sounding like someone in Spinal Tap.
Robert Wyatt
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There are people I would like to work with. Its a bit harder, because I live out in the sticks anyway, and plus being in a wheelchair means that I cant really circulate. So I tend to stick to my own thing.
Robert Wyatt
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On the whole, I tend not to listen to my peers.
Robert Wyatt
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There are a lot of composers who were fantastic, but I challenge them to write a record that you could play five times a day for two months on the radio, songs that people will want to dance to on a Saturday night.
Robert Wyatt
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Drinking was a big help with me making music, because drinking gives you courage. But it also makes you reckless, and that's the trouble.
Robert Wyatt