Top 99 Quotes & Sayings by Jimmy Barnes
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Scottish musician Jimmy Barnes.
Last updated on December 3, 2024.
Most people I know think that I'm crazy - but anybody who actually knew Billy Thorpe didn't think that. When I was a young kid growing up in Adelaide, he was a big pop star - a well-dressed, nice young guy seen on television every week. Mums liked him.
I find that cooking is relaxing and makes me feel at home.
Everything that happened to me as a child was the perfect breeding ground for a rock n' roll singer. It toughened me up. I was on edge; I was needy. I needed people to like me 'cause it made me feel safe... and that gave me confidence.
I never take for granted how great Australia is and how well I have been treated here, so thank you for this chance at making a good life.
My dad was a prize fighter in his youth. My boxing skills are very limited. I did train for most of my youth but couldn't really see the point of getting punched in the head. I'm a lover, not a fighter, but I do enjoy the sport in its purest form. As a child, my heroes were my dad and Muhammad Ali.
I know I've made a lot of mistakes, but I've done some good things along the way.
The best times in Cold Chisel were when we were all in the back of the car together, us against the world.
I was actually wilder before I joined Cold Chisel. I was really wild.
We're a whole country full of migrants - we need each other, and we should help each other.
It's one of the beautiful things about Australia that people do get to share this life here, away from trouble.
If anything, I label myself as sort of Buddhist. My wife Jane is Buddhist.
No matter what day we celebrate Australia Day, let's celebrate it together and give thanks to the original inhabitants of this vast country. We are lucky to be sharing it with them.
I'm hyperactive.
I like people of faith, and I believe the more people who have spirituality, the better the world will be. It's about peace and tolerance.
Around 2001, I went to rehab in Arizona, and I started to see what was going on and how the past affected me. I started to get a grip on it. But over the next decade, I reverted to the behaviour I used to protect myself when I was young - being mindless, being defeatist and full of bravado.
I used to think anyone with abandonment issues was a waste of space. But you do need to get help. Blokes don't talk about those things. It's a taboo in the bloke world.
I'm one of those people who can't sit still. I like to be doing something. I cook; I've been painting.
I know that life is full of lessons to be learned, and my children will have to learn their own, but I hope I have broken the cycle of shame and fear that plagued my childhood.
The Internet has been a godsend and a nightmare for the music industry.
I learned that the public and the press don't need to know everything about you, or they might turn on you.
There's something about the energy and the expectations that an audience projects at you. I get up on stage and work and work, and there's chaos all around me, then I'll shut my eyes, and boom! I slot into the zone. It's like the eye of the hurricane. Everything is easy, and I'm capable of doing things I didn't know I was.
Kids are the best thing ever.
I've had a lot of ups and a lot of downs, but I don't look back on anything with regret.
For a long time, it was all about chart position. 'If my record doesn't come in at No. 1, I'm a failure.' I cared too much about what people thought of me, and that was symptomatic of the trauma from my childhood.
I'm not running out of inspiration.
I sat in on some songwriting classes, and it was really bloody hard, a lot of music theory. I'd be sitting there, and they'd be talking all this music theory, and the teacher would say, 'Let's ask our guest Jimmy what he thinks,' and I'd be sitting there thinking, 'Please don't ask me, please don't ask me.'
'Working Class Man' is my second memoir and is a continuation of my story from where 'Working Class Boy' left off. The book is really an attempt at explaining the impact of my childhood on myself and the ones I loved as an adult.
Cold Chisel had their moments, but basically, they were all decent, quiet chaps. I was just a lunatic. Those guys didn't know what had hit them when I joined the band.
I think I got stamina from my dad, although he didn't have a lot of drive.
People change naturally when they have children.
My childhood in Adelaide was filled with sport. I played soccer from morning until night.
I don't want to become a laid-back artist by any stretch of the imagination.
I think it's criminal the way poverty is allowed to flourish.
I wouldn't give Peter Dutton any of my time. It's a waste of time speaking to someone like him because they just spread lies and propaganda. He doesn't represent me, he doesn't care about people, and I wouldn't give him the time of day, to tell you the truth.
Politicians have been spreading fear, saying if we're letting in refugees, we're letting in terrorists. It's not the truth. We've got to recognise the difference between terrorism and people who are refugees; people who are struggling.
I keep my Scottish connection. I know where I was born, and that's an important part of my history, and I think all immigrants are the same. But if I could live anywhere in the world, it would be Australia.
In 1972, I climbed out of my bedroom window and ran away from home with my older sister and her friends to go to the infamous Sunbury rock festival.
All the religions are basically good, but there's something about organised religion that leads to corruptness and poison.
Where I grew up, there were times when we didn't have anything to eat.
When I first started, all the reviews of Cold Chisel would say, 'This singer won't have a voice in six months.'
When I came to Australia, it was like heaven.
Thais are one of the nicest people I've ever met. It's not called the land of smiles for nothing.
We still had all our problems growing up as a struggling immigrant family, but Australia was like a breath of fresh air, literally. Playing on grass, having good schools - trees. I didn't even know trees where I'd come from. So from the day I got here, I've loved Australia.
Where I lived in Glasgow looked like Dresden after the war. It was a bomb site. I don't think I'd ever played football on grass until I moved to Australia.
Success isn't about reaching your goals; it's about striving for things, like the joy of trying to raise a family, trying to be a successful singer, trying to write good songs, trying to be a better person. It's that old thing about life being about the journey, not the destination.
I think tax is tough in this country. Every time I sign a cheque to pay tax, it drives me crazy. But at the same time, I'm happy to live here. I want to have a good medical system, good education, good roads, so it's a Catch 22. I hate it, but it's a necessary evil.
There are new children arriving and trying to reach our lucky country every day, and I hope that we can all work together to help them find their dream, too.
I used to think I was tough, but there's a difference between bravado and courage, and I only started to show courage when I began to get help. So now I make a point of telling people, 'Hey, it's a good thing to ask for help, not a bad thing.'
I always thought I could be brave and charge at things and smash 'em and walk away, but it takes courage to sit and look at things and say, 'This is what I am. How do I fix it? How do I live with it?'
As a teenager, I didn't really think about anything. I was just stumbling around trying to find something.
You see politicians talking about negative gearing or tax on your second home - most people I knew growing up couldn't afford the rent, let alone buying a house, or a second house.
I was probably born an alcoholic.
I've been writing books because it's been my way of dealing with the demons. The act of sitting down and writing the books down has started healing process that's been long overdue.
I hate fear politics.
It's a real bloke thing, not talking to people because it's not manly to get help.
Jim Swan was my father, but Reg Barnes was my dad.
Everything affects you, and it doesn't measure how tough you are by being a rock and sitting by yourself. People need to talk. It's not a sign of weakness.
No matter how much poverty you grow up with, you shouldn't be subjected to violence and abuse.
If there was one thing I tried to instil in my children as they were growing up, it was that you get nothing for nothing. You have to work hard to get any rewards. That applies in music or whatever you choose to do. The same goes in relationships; you will only get back what you put in.
My mum and dad came from lower-working-class Glasgow, which was tough. Literally, if you see a cat there with a tail, it's a tourist.
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