I don't necessarily want a higher education, I want a wider education. I want to know everything and experience everything.
Sixto Rodriguez
I loved the Woody Guthrie tradition of speaking about what's happening to the country.
You want to know the secret of life? It is to breathe in and out. And the mystery of life? You never know when it is going to end.
I learned that South Africa is a beautiful country with gorgeous people, and I got to see it from a different perspective than most people do.
In Detroit there are a lot of houses they are going to demolish because no one is taking care of them.
You can't get around certain stuff, whether it's in Darfur or on your block at home. What makes us political is your home turf, your family, your life space. You walk down the street, and automatically a human being is territorial, and political happens in that.
I love my country. It's just the government I don't trust.
I've always covered some Dylan songs. I do one or two. And I do them because they're great songs. You know some people cover songs they wish they could have written, not me. I like to cover songs I know I could not have ever written.
There are beautiful songs people write about love and dancing. But it's political issues that should be addressed.
My entry level has always been pretty high in the music business.
I live below my means. I think that's a good discipline because you never can tell.
I used protest music as a vehicle.
I'm not getting old, I'm getting dead.
About love, don't be a silent partner. And be gentle with your anger.
Every 20 years or so, I feel that young people confront the same issues - a new war, new challenges.
I renovate homes and buildings and residences in Detroit.
Rock 'n' roll is a crazy world, and it's how things work out you can't predict.
There's no blueprint for success in rock'n'roll.
I want to be mayor of the world. Don't give me too much money or too much power.
In the music business, there's a lot of criticism and rejection. If you embrace it, you'll be better off when the adjustment comes.
Whenever I speak, I talk to the collective consciousness of my audience.
I'm a worker, but I think that all workers get an idea of what to do to get free. Any kind of bondage, even economic bondage, is slavery.
I like Detroit.
You either live under a rock or you walk in the sunshine. That's pretty much how it goes.
Musicians want to be heard. So I'm not hiding. But I do like to leave it there onstage and be myself, in that sense. Because some people carry it with them.
I think that many of the issues they were facing in South Africa were the same as those I was singing about. Conscription, resisting the draft, government repression - I mentioned all those things in my songs.
I'm not an ascetic.
Education, information and knowledge are all one.
I graduated from Wayne State University, but there's a whole lot you don't learn in school.
There are no guarantees in the music field. There's a lot of rejection, a lot of criticism and a lot of disappointment. You have to be prepared for that. And after 1973, it just wasn't happening for me.
I like to say that I do covers of my own songs. And I have about a dozen bands all over the world. That's no exaggeration. I have a South African band, an Australian band, Swedish bands, English bands, American bands. They're all notable musicians, too.
I'm a musical political, I tend to stick to what I see happening outside my front door.
I loved Jimmy Reed, the chord changes, the lyrics.
I did a lot of heavy-lifting - construction, demolition, that kind of thing. Dusty, dirty work.
I play by ear - I'm self-taught. And so everything I do is through that technique.
I'm Mexican, and we do a lot of singing, and it was my brother's guitar that I'd practice on, and he would say, 'Who's that playing my guitar?'
Was 'Crucify Your Mind' dedicated to anybody? No, it was a generalization. 'A Most Disgusting Song' is like that, too.
The social realism of ' Establishment Blues' or 'Like Janis,' are what I chose to use to express what was happening in the U.S. and what was happening to me personally.
The earth is going to survive, it's the people that aren't.
My dad, he was my role model - my mom died when I was three - and the way we honor our parents is remembering their heritage.
My family, we're indigenous people from San Luis Potosi in Central Mexico. My father moved to Detroit and brought all of us because the automobile companies were paying great wages.
I've had such an ordinary life.
Music is a living art. You re-create it.
I was ready for the world. I don't think the world was ready for me.
Where other people live in an artificial world, I feel I live in the real world. And nothing beats reality.
All my life, I never gave up on music and though there was a lot of disappointment for some that the commercial thing never happened, it has never been a disappointment for me.
I like people who can write and sing, and play an instrument.
I have a sloppy style of playing guitar. A percussive style. Unique in fact.
I don't much listen to music as I study it: who's doing what, who wrote it.
I have fun with words.
