When I'm dead, I wanna leave a body of work, like authors or great painters do. I don't wanna get ideas above my station, but why shouldn't this be comparable? Pop music was supposed to be a flash in the pan, but here we are 50 years later, and it means something to us, and it always will do. It's incredibly important.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a desire to create lasting work that holds significance over time.
Paul Weller reflects on the importance of creating a substantial body of work that endures beyond one's lifetime, similar to the great authors and painters. He emphasizes that pop music, often underestimated, has proven to have enduring value and cultural significance, arguing that it deserves recognition alongside traditional forms of art.
In practice
In a speech at a music festival about the importance of embracing creativity, this quote would resonate with aspiring artists.
I think, with age, you learn that it comes in bursts and you've got no control over it. I'm not one of those people who says, 'I've got to write a song every day.' I just store up ideas, and really I have to wait until it finds me; I know when I'm ready to write. It used to frustrate me, but it doesn't any more. It's just how it is.
If you're making music, you must want to turn other people on to it, whether you're number one in the charts or number 60. I don't know, that's a commercial thing, but just the fact that other people like you... there's no point in making music, otherwise. Otherwise, you might as well make it in your bedroom and leave it there.
I'd like to think I've left something in the world. Without in any way trying to be morbid, but life is very short, and I'd like to think I'd leave some body of work that would inspire other musicians long after I've gone.
It's quite liberating to get to a certain age, 'cos you're not chasing number one hits or trying to be an international superstar. I've done all that. I'm not out to prove much more to anyone but myself really, to be an artist and see if there is a new undiscovered music out there for me to make.
Playing live is what it's all about for me. It's cathartic, it's emotional, it's about communing with people. The way you feel after a gig is a such a powerful thing.
Writing begins in the body, it is the music of the body, and even if the words have meaning, can sometimes have meaning, the music of the words is where the meanings begin....Writing as a lesser form of dance.
Artists love other artists. Shadow artists are gravitating to their rightful tribe but cannot yet claim their birthright. Very often audacity, not talent, makes one person an artist and another a shadow artist-hiding in the shadows, afraid to step out and expose the dream to the light, fearful that it will disintegrate to the touch.
O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.
The creative act is not hanging on, but yielding to a new creative movement. Awe is what moves us forward.
I'm a musician, and I feel like musicians owe it to themselves and owe it to music to concern themselves with as much of music as interests them. Even if you decide that you're never going to compose, you will be a better performer if you concern yourself with the craft of composition.
I'm very much aware in the writing of dialogue, or even in the narrative too, of a rhythm. There has to be a rhythm with it β¦ Interviewers have said, you like jazz, donβt you? Because we can hear it in your writing. And I thought that was a compliment.
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