Richard Thompson
Richard Thompson
Guitarist, songwriter, and performer who played with the British folk-rock group Fairport Convention.
NationalityBritish
ProfessionGuitarist
Date of Birth3 April 1949
want uncomfortable audience
You want the audience to be uncomfortable.
balance should audience
All audiences should be slightly off balance.
kind sometimes salvation
But music can save your life sometimes. It probably saved me from working in a bank or something. That's a kind of salvation right there.
hate judging sides
To see both sides of a quarrel, is to judge without hate or alarm
race pay lasts
They came in the thousands from the whole human race to pay their respects at his last resting place.
death heaven bartender
Will there be any bartenders up there in Heaven, will the pubs never close?
song writing experience
As the writer, you're always a presence in the song. If you get close to what human beings are like, you're writing about common experience. We all do much the same things, so if you nail somebody, then you've also nailed yourself.
boundaries
I have to remind myself not to set boundaries.
people want human-nature
People want to hear about the extremes of human nature. They want things that are larger than their own lives, and more romantic, and not necessarily of their own experiences.
communication achievement records
The thing I do, really, is a communication with audiences more than any achievement through records.
kids thinking smoking
I think the reason kids get into drugs and smoking is they don't have anything to do.
fun men clothes
When you stand up acoustic in front of an audience, you really are a man without any clothes on. And that can be fun - it depends how much of an exhibitionist you are, I suppose. I quite enjoy it.
wish too-late poet
There's a part of me that wishes I'd never said one single solitary word on any subject publicly. Then I could have been the tortured poet, and there's so much mileage in that. But it's too late to stop now.
song writing thinking
I think it's absolutely possible to write a song and go somewhere where no one's been before, uncharted territory. In terms of content, I see limitations where there should be none. I know there are things I wouldn't write about, but that shouldn't be the case. You should be able to make a song out of anything, out of any situation.