Top 101 Quotes & Sayings by Chris de Burgh
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an Irish musician Chris de Burgh.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
I think it's the Canadian spirit that encourages people to dream a little bit.
My father fought behind Japanese lines in the second world war and it traumatised him. Everybody who knew him from before said he was the life and soul of the party - fun to be with - but after the war he was different.
If you love yourself there's plenty left for everyone else. You just have to deflect natsy things.
I have found myself able to cure people with my hands.
I am a humanist.
I'm a strong believer in the importance of energies - ley lines, energy streams, whatever you wish to call them - within a house. They can affect your health as well as your happiness.
I love myself. I'm not saying this in a narcissistic way.
Singing in a restaurant is very demeaning and humiliating but you learn from it, because people aren't there for a show, they're there to eat.
I thought I would be an overnight star when I had a hit record in Brazil with my first album - but things didn't work out quite like that.
People always try to pigeonhole you, especially the media, who are happy if they can label you as a particular kind of artist. But the spectrum of songs I write and record is vast.
Love songs are the most complex to write because everyone knows about it.
You know you get a tube of toothpaste... such a bloody con. You squeeze and squeeze and nothing more comes out? Well, take a pair of scissors and cut it about an inch and a half from the bottom and it's absolutely packed with stuff! I do that, then cut off the top bit, so I can stick that back on and it doesn't dry out!
The role of Miss World is one that my daughter has fulfilled to the best of her abilities.
I generally write the songs accidentally. They generally come out of nowhere.
You know what happens if I walk out on the stage in Montreal? They stand up and they cheer for three or four minutes. It just brings tears to your eyes, because it's a love affair.
I don't spend much on myself. It's a bit of a joke within the family.
I have never subscribed to public confessionals.
You get tarred with the brush of 'Lady in Red.' I play Russia or China or places all over the world. They don't even speak English but they know the words. You get a big song like that, and people love it or hate it. And if they don't like it, they don't like anything at all by the artist.
I like to be subtle, without being too obvious.
I always bring divining rods when I'm on tour because you can change energy streams by moving furniture around your hotel room.
I am much loved.
It's tough going out as the opening act of a band especially when you're solo.
In my 20s, I got into giving people massages and realised I was able to encourage their bodies to heal by passing my hands over them. I'd never describe myself as a faith healer - it's just that if someone believes in this type of healing, I can help release whatever blockage it is that's preventing them healing themselves.
My wife and I are rock solid together and, curiously enough, always have been.
My secondary schooling was at Marlborough College, Wiltshire, so I'm fond of that part of the world. It's quintessentially English, with village greens, pubs and cricket pitches, and resonates strongly with me.
I know it sounds glamorous, but it was bloody cold growing up in a castle.
Canada has a great tradition of supporting songwriters.
I'm not a fool with my money. I've known what it's like to be poor and I don't splash it around stupidly.
I will never forget seeing Alien when it came out in 1979. I'm not that big a fan of horror, but I remember the slow build, the claustrophobic feeling on the spacecraft, this tremendous sense of impending doom.
You see, when I go on stage I perform with just a guitar and you have to have very strong material to hold an audience from getting bored or restless. One strong way of doing that is the story because everybody will listen to a story.
I believe that music is an international language and deserves to be heard all over the world.
It's critically important to have family around me, and some of my happiest moments are when I'm just with my family.
I always have to have what I believe are the pillars of an album - songs which I can go back to and admire personally as a piece of writing.
My dad had a dream of living in an Irish castle, even when we were in Argentina, and in 1960 he found a place without any heat or running water. We had no money, so it was tough.
I spent a lot of my childhood saying goodbye because I went to boarding school. I didn't resent my parents for sending me there so young as I understood the limitations of the education system in Africa, where we lived at the time.
Robert Browning - I like his dramatic revelations, his allegorical form.
People just love stories.
I know every side of the industry after all these years.
If you look at the big rock hits I've had - 'High on Emotion,' for example - the songs I write have to have a real meaning. There has to be depth.
I developed my armour at prep school. I was the smallest guy in the school. I got bullied a lot. So I developed broad shoulders.
I find it amazing when I get letters from people in Israel and people in Lebanon and they both love the music, but in real life they hate each other.
Canada was one of the first countries that took an interest in my career. Apart from a freak hit I had in South America, Canadians took my 'Spanish Train' album to heart and have stuck with me ever since. They've been very loyal, and it's been a long and rewarding affair.
I've got a room full of gold and platinum records, a lot of them are Canadian, and I've got a very soft spot for that country.
I read about wine every day.
In America, if you say 'Chris de Burgh,' they won't have a clue, but they all know 'Lady in Red.'
There wasn't a lot of physical tenderness with my parents. There was plenty of love but we weren't into the hugging thing, which now I've totally reversed with my family to the point where it probably drives them crazy.
I know what it's like to go to a concert, wait to hear your favourite song - and then they don't play it!
I went to Bethlehem in Christmas 2015 to do a television show for German TV and we filmed in the Church of the Nativity, literally above the place where Christ was born.
As a song-writer I have always written with one instrument - either guitar or piano - because I believe that if a song is strong enough to be performed completely stripped down then it is a good one to go on and record.
I remember years ago hearing a top band talking about a song of theirs that was a monster hit and they were really dissing it, saying that they hoped they'd never have to play it again. I thought: 'That's not right. If people love a song, play it.'
Songs don't just suddenly arrive like a taxi you have to work on them and you have to put a lot of time and energy and self discipline into creating that kind of thing.
I'm emotionally untouchable.
I met someone in the West Indies who was not able to walk. I put my hands on him and he was able to get up. I know the tabloids will get excited by this so I try to play it down.
Being hydrated is a key thing for a singer, especially if you're spending three hours on stage five nights a week, and wine dehydrates me faster than beer.
I have always had a long term view on records as I want them to be books and not magazines and newspapers that you discard very quickly.
My house is a very calm and beautiful place and is full of positive energy.
The first confrontation I had with an Aussie wine was a well-known Cabernet/Shiraz and it reminded me of boiled sweets. I find a lot of Australian wines unsubtle.
I remember talking to an architect and he said 'I am making so much money I don't know what to do' - I am in a business where you don't have an idea from one end of the year to the next how what you are going to earn and it is not like a salary that you can guarantee.
We are not politically naive.
I would hate to go out as a legend on tour just playing all the back hits.
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