I had tremendous fun fooling around with the way people talked about songs, just the way that became another way of understanding the world.
Greil MarcusRock 'n' Roll is a combination of good ideas dried up by fads, terrible junk, hideous failings in taste and judgment, gullibility and manipulation, moments of unbelievable clarity and invention, pleasure, fun, vulgarity, excess, novelty and utter enervation.
Greil MarcusIt may be that the most interesting American struggle is the struggle to set oneself free from the limits one is born to, and then to learn something of the value of those limits
Greil MarcusBob Dylan continues to release odd and unsettling records, and to do odd and unsettling things on stage. So the term "still" seems meaningless to me. But the real answer is simple: I listen to Bob Dylan for pleasure more than I listen to anyone else for pleasure.
Greil MarcusListening is like running down a mountain on a switchback trail, the sound of surprise generating its own momentum. Thereโs a punk glee inside the bluegrass craftโand a punk vehemence inside the bluegrass smile.
Greil MarcusThe Sixties are most generously described as a time when people took part - when they stepped out of themselves and acted in public, as people who didn't know what would happen next, but who were sure that acts of true risk and fear would produce something different from what they had been raised to take for granted.
Greil Marcus