Paul Weller Quotes

There's more to distract people, isn't there? When I was a kid there was music and football and clothes. And that was kind of it, really. Those three things defined you as a person.

I never get too many problems. You can never please everyone anyway, obviously. And some people take the easy route and just play the greatest hits, and their audience is happy to hear that as well, and that's fine, but it wouldn't please me. But it doesn't trouble me.

I'd like to think that what I've written over the years and what I'm doing now means something to people. People in the street all the time are saying "love the new record" or "I love that record," this tune or that tune. It means an awful lot, or it's been a big part of their lives. As a songwriter, what else would you really want? You're trying to connect with people, people's emotions, and maybe say something about their lives or feelings. That's probably a good enough compliment to receive, really.

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.

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

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.

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 don't feel old or young, I just am

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.

Today, we're even into the whole sweat thing. They'll wear a [suit] jacket like this, but they'll wear it with sweat pants and sneakers. But I do think there is every generation - and it won't be as big as it was when you and I were those ages - but every generation all of a sudden experiences that they want to dress up.

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

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.

It's important to know all those things, but part of our jobs is to move people along and to make people excited to buy music or buy clothes, and give them enjoyment, I think, too.

When I discovered blues - I was 12-years-old - I didn't discover it in America where it was from; I discovered it from Fleetwood Mac - the original Peter Green Fleetwood Mac, Saveloy Brown - like British blues interpretations of it,' which then, when I started the liner notes and seeing all these names, I was like, 'Who's Willie Dixon?' Then I go to the record store and ask the guy there and he goes, 'Oh, you don't know anything.' And so, to me, that's the root of most of it anyway.

I don't know if there's any formula. I'm not sure I believe in that, to be honest. I don't know if there's any rhyme or reason to music. Sometimes it hits and sometimes it doesn't, really.

I only put an album out every two or three years.

Being a musician is a noble profession.

So much is filtered by pop music today, because the music industry is driven by single, single, single, single, the next single, not the nurturing of artists and that kind of thing.

If you're in music, you're in music, and if you're in music you just want to keep making records and playing. That's what it's about, isn't it? At least, that's what I always thought it was about, anyway. I don't think I could bear years and years off. Perhaps in me older, older age, maybe I will, for physical reasons. But to me you've always got to keep proving yourself. I never want to just sit on me laurels. You have to keep forging, to prove yourself to yourself. I always think, every time I start a record, this could be the best thing I've ever done.

I love the Kinks, but I like all sorts of music. If I stay at home at night and play records, I just go through the whole spectrum, really. I just love music.

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.

People say you make your best work when in despair, but I think happiness is a good place to write from.

I've not had Botox, no.

I'm still a mod, I'll always be a mod, you can bury me a mod.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

It's a global fashion thing; because of the Internet it has gotten really small. It's cluttered, but it's gotten small.

I saw an interview with Keith Richards. He said, 'How else could a kid in Dartford suddenly connect with and understand what Muddy Waters is singing?' There's a cultural difference, but there's just something in that music that subconsciously or internally you just understand; it just makes sense.

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

There's always something in most world folk musics that always seems connected; whether it's a bagpipe or a tambura, there's always some sort of drone instrument, and there's always percussion.

It's just something internal that says, 'I've got to do this now. This is what I'm doing now.'

I play out my role, I've even been out walking -They tell me that it helps, but I know when I'm beaten.

The '40s were quite austere and super glamorous.

Sometimes you're ahead of the game and sometimes people don't get it and that's just one of those things you have to accept and carry on.

The way that house music has become so white and so sanitized over the decades and the fact it's still going on, well I think it's sad really, but at the time I really loved it. I loved all the black house music that was coming out of Chicago and New Jersey, which I just thought was really soulful.

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

You do your runway show, and it's all over the Internet before I see anything on there.

"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." You know what I mean?

In the past we used to come over to see what was going on in London or Paris or Milan or wherever - it's pretty much the same stuff everywhere [now], and people are wearing the same things, because it's all instantaneous with the Internet.

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.

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.

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.

I get bored quickly. I kind of take my hat off to bands who have been around for a long time and still do the same thing, because it's hard to keep a band together for decades. But I couldn't do that. I couldn't play the same songs night after night or just trade on my past glories, because it wouldn't interest me as a person.

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