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Legs McNeil Quotes

Rock & Roll is so great, people should start dying for it. You don't understand. The music gave you back the beat so you could dream. A whole generation running with a Fender bass...The people just have to die for the

Rock & Roll is so great, people should start dying for it. You don't understand. The music gave you back the beat so you could dream. A whole generation running with a Fender bass...The people just have to die for the music. People are dying for everything else, so why not the music? Die for it. Isn't it pretty? Wouldn't you die for something pretty?Perhaps I should die. After all, all the great blues singers did die. But life is getting better now.I don't want to die. Do I? - Lou Reed (1965-1968)

Legs McNeil
Running, Dream, Rocks

Overnight, punk had become as stupid as everything else. This wonderful vital force that was articulated by the music was really about corrupting every form-it was about advocating kids to not wait to be told what to do, but make life up for themselves, it was about trying to get people to use their imaginations again, it was about not being perfect, it was about saying it was ok to be amateurish and funny, that real creativity came out of making a mess, it was about working with what you got in front of you and turning everything embarrassing, awful, and stupid in your life to your advantage.

Legs McNeil
Real, Stupid, Creativity
Legs McNeil, Gillian McCain (2006). “Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk”, p.334, Grove Press

So rich people could go slumming? Come on, give me a break [it’s a] masturbatory fantasy for Anna Wintour and Vogue. They always go and try to co-opt what they can’t own. They try to co-opt authenticity and turn it into something boring.

Legs McNeil
People, Giving, Trying

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