Donald Fagen Quotes

• Popularity has everything to do with business
  and nothing to do with music.

  Donald Fagen

  Popularity

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

  56 Copy quote

• I had a dream that Britney Spears rubbed her breasts in my face and Jennifer Lopez gave me head while Salma Hayek sucked my toes and the Olsen twins videotaped everything. I would have kept dreaming it, too, if I hadn't set off the smoke detector.

  Donald Fagen

  Dream, Sex, Faces

  13 Copy quote

• When you get a groove going, time flies.

  Donald Fagen

  Time Flies, How Time Flies, Groove

  20 Copy quote

• I tried to grow up. Honest. Didn’t quite happen. I guess I’m someone for whom youth still seems more real than the present, or the half century in between. And why not? I'm deeply underwhelmed by most contemporary art, literature, music, films, TV, the heinous little phones, money talk, real estate talk, all that stuff. The Internet, which at first seemed so fascinating, appears to be evolving into something even worse than TV, but we'll see.

  Donald Fagen

  Art, Growing Up, Real

  Donald Fagen (2013). “Eminent Hipsters”, p.5, Penguin

  18 Copy quote

• It's great to know that our old stuff still sounds good to our fans, just as it's wonderful to think that we've turned a few people on to jazz over the years.

  Donald Fagen

  Thinking, Years, People

  21 Copy quote

• What do you do with what you're given, and how do you transform it into something worthwhile?

  Donald Fagen

  Rock N Roll, Transformation, Worthwhile

  18 Copy quote

• Anthemic rock music is inherently fascist - anything intended to move huge masses of people is politically offensive to me.

  Donald Fagen

  Moving, Rocks, People

  17 Copy quote

• We don't think of ourselves as being perfectionists, really. To us it's more about desperately trying to have it sound more or less OK.

  Donald Fagen

  Thinking, Design, Trying

  9 Copy quote

• Now why the hell would I want to increase the volume of my ejaculation ? They can already hear me in the apartment next door.

  Donald Fagen

  Sex, Doors, Ejaculation

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• Melodies can be good depending on the context. You can have a simple melody, and if the harmony behind it is interesting, it can make a very simple melody really different. You can also have a complex melody. The more complex it is, the harder it is to sing, and then sometimes it can sound contrived. You could write a melody that would be fine on a saxophone but if you give it to a singer, it can sound raunchy.

  Donald Fagen

  Writing, Simple, Giving

  10 Copy quote

• What a beautiful world this will be
  What a glorious time to be free

  Donald Fagen

  Beautiful, World, Beautiful World

  Song: I.g.y, Album: The Nightfly

  20 Copy quote

• I took some lessons as a kid but trained myself by ear. I did it the way jazz musicians used to learn years ago, which is to play records and slow them down to figure out the notes. At first I tried to imitate Red Garland, who was my favorite jazz pianist.

  Donald Fagen

  Kids, Years, Play

  13 Copy quote

• I like it when songs develop in some way. Four minutes usually isn't enough time for something to develop musically.

  Donald Fagen

  Song, Enough Time, Four

  13 Copy quote

• I have a critical nature, in the sense that when I look at something I often look for the flaws.

  Donald Fagen

  Looks, Flaws, Critical

  8 Copy quote

• People are usually afraid to say what's on their mind.

  Donald Fagen

  People, Mind

  "Steely Dan 'Everything Must Go'". Interview with George Petersen, www.mixonline.com. August 1, 2003.

  7 Copy quote

• My writing is really intuitive. As a kid, I went to school in New Jersey and hung out in New York, so the way kids used to talk got into our earlier songs.

  Donald Fagen

  Song, New York, Writing

  7 Copy quote

• As jazz fans, it was amusing for us to play jazz harmonies on these big, ugly electric guitars.

  Donald Fagen

  Play, Guitar, Ugly

  8 Copy quote

• My style is a little quirky. I can't play as fast as most professional jazz players.

  Donald Fagen

  Player, Style, Quirky

  4 Copy quote

• I'm starting to get older, and began to think about mortality a little more. My mother died in 2003 and that was a big shock. When your parents start to die off, that's going to be a revelation. So for me, this album - although it might sound quite cheery - is really talking about death.

  Donald Fagen

  Mother, Thinking, Talking

  10 Copy quote

• I think of Steely Dan as being of its time, and it may be inseparable from its time.

  Donald Fagen

  Thinking, May, Inseparable

  6 Copy quote

• Randy Newman seemed like an even worse singer than me. I liked Ray Charles, Levi Stubbs, Jack Jones, Joe Tex, Wilson Pickett.

  Donald Fagen

  Rays, Singers, Wilson

  5 Copy quote

• I don't think you can escape the environment we live in now.

  Donald Fagen

  Thinking, Environment

  5 Copy quote

• I've never been comfortable as a lead performer, and I never wanted to be a singer, particularly.

  Donald Fagen

  Singers, Wanted, Performers

  8 Copy quote

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