I remember running down the hallway screaming 'We're Not Gonna Take It.' It was really one of those childhood anthems that really stirred you up and made you want to rebel.
If O.J. had been accused of killing his black wife, you would not have seen the same passion stirred up.
England in the late 1940s was famously grim. As I remember it, London back then was a very dirty place, from coal dust and smoke, from the grit stirred up every day by the jackhammers still clearing out rubble from the Blitz.
Periods of tranquility are seldom prolific of creative achievement. Mankind has to be stirred up.
Americans don't have deep gastronomic roots. They wanted to get away from the cultures of Europe or wherever they came from. We stirred up that melting pot pretty quickly.
As a child growing up in World War II, I was very moved and stirred by what was going on, but I distanced myself from history. I regarded history as just one more subject.
Some persons have lived manly or womanly lives, and they lack but one thing - open confession of the Lord Jesus Christ. Some men think that they must come to him in a certain way - that they must be stirred by emotion or something like that.
When I have a creative block, I take walks. I like to see what shapes stick out - so many legs rushing by at once, it can seem abstract. I don't need to see great art to get stirred up. Music does that for me more easily.
I often feel like a nutty professor, like I'm going to try this experiment and see if it works. My hypothesis is, people in the West can absorb African women stories without any shaken or stirred mixer. It can come directly from the source.
Like all soul singers, I grew up singing in church but sometimes I would leave early and sit in the car listening to gospel band, The Blind Boys of Alabama. Hearing their lead singer Clarence made me connect the idea of church and show business and see how I could make a career singing music that stirred the soul.
