David Crosby famous quotes

07-10-2025

I am having so much fun performing, I feel almost guilty. I think, my God, I hope no one comes and busts me for this.
-- David Crosby

#Fun #Thinking #Guilty
There are a lot of people who look great but can't sing.
-- David Crosby

#People #Looks
When I was 11 years old, my parents wanted me to do something besides get in trouble. So they enrolled me in sailing classes at the Sea Shell Association in Santa Barbara, Calif. From the moment I climbed into that 8-foot dinghy in 1952, I knew instinctively what to do and sensed I had done it before.
-- David Crosby

#Years #Sea #Class
My songs emerge from my life, or wherever they do, unbidden and unplanned and completely on a schedule of their own.
-- David Crosby

#Song #Schedules
I can't legislate a song into being; it just will not happen for me.
-- David Crosby

#Song
Sailing became one of the mainstreams of my life. I suppose my father was an influence. I remember seeing a photo of him at home sailing a big boat to Bermuda in his 20s. I still have it.
-- David Crosby

#Father #Home #Sailing
I'd have to say that Kenny White has earned a place among my favorite singer/songwritersand particularly, lyricists. As we say in the trade â€œhe goes deep.â€ A true wordsmith AND musician who reveals a fine sense of humor, as well. Put on your headphones and listen carefully.
-- David Crosby

#White #Musician #Singers
The fact is that all the recording science and technology in the world is no substitute for a good song or for real feeling. Music is about feeling and if there isn't any genuine feeling, if the song isn't about anything that anyone gives a damn about, there's nothing you can do. All the technique that exists won't make it any good; it'll just make it technological. All the production values you add won't do anything except make it glossy.
-- David Crosby

#Song #Real #Writing
It's getting to the point where I am no fun anymore, I am sorry. / Sometimes it hurts so badly I must cry out loud, ' I am lonely.' / I am yours, you are mine, you are what you are, you make it hard.
-- David Crosby

#Lonely #Hurt #Sorry
Now record companies are run by lawyers and accountants. The shift from the one to the other was definitely related to when the takes started to get big.
-- David Crosby

#Running #Records #Lawyer
The greatest thing is the internet and that means that anybody, you have just as much access as I do. And you can make your little tape and work on it and work on it until you got it the way you want it. And then you can put it on the net. And if it's any damn good somebody's gonna notice. That's happened over and over again now. To me that's good. That's good access that isn't controlled by the companies. I think that's a great thing.
-- David Crosby

#Music #Mean #Thinking
My father being in the movie business, I thought being an actor would be great. But when I started singing to people in coffeehouses, you know, singing folk music and then, later, singing songs that I started to write myself, I felt more than an affinity for it.
-- David Crosby

#Song #Father #Writing
My songs emerge unbidden and unplanned and completely on a schedule of their own...We have, all of us, over the years, written things that responded to the world as it slapped us in the face. Me and Nash, singing "To the Last Whale" and "Find the Cost of Freedom". Stills coming up with "For What It's Worth". These came right out of the news. People have accused us of taking stances and the truth is we don't.
-- David Crosby

#Song #Years #Whales
Neil Young played Helpless, and by the time he finished, we were asking him if we could join his band
-- David Crosby

#Music #Band #Asking
I write very sporadically. I write sometimes three things in a week and then nothing for a year. I make a space for it but I don't push it. They just come and they come.
-- David Crosby

#Music #Writing #Years
Largely I write from life. ... I write from what happens to me. Mostly about love. People notice the other stuff more but I write mostly about love.
-- David Crosby

#Music #Writing #People
Sometimes the entire thing comes out in one burst. Sometimes you hack away at a thing for years before you get something that satisfies you.
-- David Crosby

#Music #Years #Sometimes
Generally we don't really consciously do it as a purpose-driven thing. ... It's really just a response to life.
-- David Crosby

#Music #Purpose #Driven
While I was an addict, I didn't write anything. I didn't have the attention span or the will.
-- David Crosby

#Writing #Attention #Drunkenness
"It can't happen here" is number one on the list of famous last words.
-- David Crosby

#Truth #Freedom #Knowledge
Describing Woodstock as the "big bang," I think that's a great way to describe it, because the important thing about it wasn't how many people were there or that it was a lot of truly wonderful music that got played.
-- David Crosby

#Thinking #People #Important
It's hard to bullshit the ocean. It's not listening, you know what I mean.
-- David Crosby

#Ocean #Mean #Sea
I'm not givin' in an inch to fear.
-- David Crosby

#Fear #Inches
You tend to write as you get older about family love more than you write about romantic love or ooh baby. ... The stuff that you want to celebrate about humanity has always been there and probably always will be.
-- David Crosby

#Music #Baby #Writing
Jimi Hendrix could play better than our best guys and he did it while he was dancing while being completely outrageous.
-- David Crosby

#Music #Play #Dancing
The people who run record companies now wouldn't know a song if it flew up their nose and died. They haven't a clue, and they don't care. You tell them that, and they go, Yeah? So, your point is?
-- David Crosby

#Running #Song #People
Right away I thought I'd been hit by a hand grenade ... her (Joni Mitchells') voice, those words ... she nailed me to the back wall with two-inch spikes... I promptly fell in love with her...
-- David Crosby

#Music #Wall #Hands
I produced her first album, and I was breaking up with her at the time. That was not comfortable. Falling in love with Joni Mitchell is a bit like falling into a cement mixer!
-- David Crosby

#Falling In Love #Albums #Firsts

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