I always want to play the songs that people want to hear.
Praise doesn't mean anything to me. I don't judge myself.
If the people in the audience are talking, you're being ignored. If the people are gazing at you, you've got something they want to hear.
A contract is an ask game, and if it asks for an hour, and I submit to an hour, then it's an hour. When I look at a contract, I look at the obligation - where, when, how long, the compensation. If I agree to it, that's the way it is. I have an obligation. They have an obligation.
I should have been a son of Einstein.
You know, your ears record. You might can sing a song once you hear it.
A song is a song. But there are some songs, ah, some songs are the greatest. The Beatles song 'Yesterday.' Listen to the lyrics.
You don't just go to the studio and say, 'I'm going to write a hit.' It becomes a hit when people like your compositions.
My dad was the cause of me being in show business. He was not only in poetry but in acting a bit. He was Mordecai in the play 'A Dream of Queen Esther.'
In a way, I feel it might be ill-mannered to try and top myself. The music I play is a ritual. Something that matters to people in a special way. I wouldn't want to interfere with that.
The music played most around St. Louis was country-western and swing. Curiosity provoked me to lay a lot of the country stuff on our predominantly black audience. After they laughed at me a few times, they began requesting the hillbilly stuff.
That's the misconceptions that people have, that Chuck Berry went to jail. They're just totally wrong. It might have said something in the large papers in the bigger city headlines and things. But, you take a look at any of the local papers, and you will see that I was acquitted. I never went to jail.
My singing days have passed. My voice is gone. My throat is worn. And my lungs are going fast.
I've written songs on everything. Menus. Napkins. Little pieces of paper.
I eat meat daily. I'm not Jewish. I'm not Arabic. What's the kind of person that doesn't eat meat? That's right - I'm not a vegetarian.
If I wasn't a musician, I'd take up the law. They are the rottenest, wealthiest people in America.
There had to be a market in order for you to be successful in a business. The market had to need your business, or the product of it.
I have lots of ambition!
Elvis' songs will always be there, and I hope mine will be after I'm gone.
Rather than have joy, I would rather be absent of pain.
