Patriotism in America, as I understand it, is a matter of suffering, when the country fails to live up to its promises, or actively betrays them.
Greil MarcusI never find myself even catching lyrics until something in the sound has taken me captive. Thinking about anything else is just the pleasurable byproduct of wow.
Greil MarcusWe make the oldest stories new when we succeed, and we are trapped by the old stories when we fail
Greil MarcusWhatโs the impulse behind art? Itโs saying in whatever language is the language of your work, โIf I could move you as much as it moved me โฆ if I can move anyone a tenth as much as that moved me, if I can spark the same sense of mystery and awe and surprise as that sparked in me, well thatโs why I do what I do.โ
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 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