Donald Fagen famous quotes

07-20-2025

Popularity has everything to do with business and nothing to do with music.
-- Donald Fagen

#Popularity
What a beautiful world this will be What a glorious time to be free
-- Donald Fagen

#Beautiful #World #Beautiful World
When you get a groove going, time flies.
-- Donald Fagen

#Time Flies #Groove
What do you do with what you're given, and how do you transform it into something worthwhile?
-- Donald Fagen

#Transformation #Worthwhile #Given
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
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
As jazz fans, it was amusing for us to play jazz harmonies on these big, ugly electric guitars.
-- Donald Fagen

#Guitar #Play #Fans
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
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
My style is a little quirky. I can't play as fast as most professional jazz players.
-- Donald Fagen

#Player #Style #Quirky
Anthemic rock music is inherently fascist - anything intended to move huge masses of people is politically offensive to me.
-- Donald Fagen

#Moving #Rocks #People
I've never been comfortable as a lead performer, and I never wanted to be a singer, particularly.
-- Donald Fagen

#Singers #Wanted #Performers
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
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
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
I tried to grow up. Honest. Didnâ€™t quite happen. I guess Iâ€™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
People are usually afraid to say what's on their mind.
-- Donald Fagen

#People #Mind
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
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

You may also like:

Al Jarreau
Singer
Billy Joel
Pianist
Bob Seger
Singer-songwriter
Boz Scaggs
Singer-songwriter
Carly Simon
Singer-songwriter
Christopher Cross
Singer-songwriter
David Foster
Musician
Eric Clapton
Musician
George Benson
Musician
George Duke
Musician
Jackson Browne
Singer-songwriter
Jeff Baxter
Guitarist
Jeff Beck
Guitarist
Kenny Loggins
Singer-songwriter
Larry Carlton
Guitarist
Levon Helm
Musician
Pat Metheny
Guitarist
Phoebe Snow
Singer-songwriter
Rita Coolidge
Musician
Walter Becker
Musician