Top 118 Quotes & Sayings by Paul Young
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English singer Paul Young.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
Generally, musicians find that as they get older, their popularity starts to wane. Pre-Covid, however, I was going through a good phase and finding my live shows were really well received.
I fancy a safari in South Africa. Watching animals in the wild must be amazing.
Chrysalis Records saw my group, Q-Tips, as a party band. They weren't doing much for our careers.
I've always seen myself as a working musician but now there's no money in records for the artist at all, it's all in live performance.
When I was in L.A. in the 80s I got talking to Bruce Springsteen at a dinner party about the Harley-Davidson I'd just bought and he said, 'Do you fancy going for a ride?' No one's going to say no to that are they?
I did part-time jobs until my apprenticeship as a milling machinist at Vauxhall when I was 16. I got £15 a week and I used to give my mum a fiver of that.
Even as a child I knew I wanted to be a singer, and in 1976, at the age of 20, I quit my job at Vauxhall Motors in Luton and became a musician.
One of the main reasons people get bullied, in any walk of life, is because they are different. So I think that to throw kids in at the deep end when they are young is a good thing. It gets them used to other people and some of the things they will face. It takes them out of their comfort zone.
I do like a good bike ride and my wife Stacey and I also have a personal trainer twice a week to keep our basic fitness up.
When I was doing lots of live shows I was able to eat what I wanted because it was worked off easily.
There was that 'anything is achievable' attitude in the Eighties. Everything was very positive and gung-ho. Well, 'hedonistic' is the word they use a lot. We were all confident bordering on arrogant.
I think it's really good to get early work experience. I'm not sure if it will happen with my children, but for many young people it's character-building and sets them up for what comes later.
I'm fascinated by the challenge of navigating the oceans.
When I was given a tricycle, aged eight, I'd disappear for hours and do my own thing.
I want to be alive for as long as possible and as I have got older, my body seems to tell me what I should and shouldn't have which means I have less red meat and more vegetables.
Vangelis, who wrote the music for 'Chariots Of Fire,' is a bit of an idol of mine - his music is stunning. So when I got a call from my manager in the 90s asking if I'd like to do some songwriting for him I couldn't believe it.
I'm desperate to learn how to sail a boat.
Dad's like the Six Million Dollar Man - as soon as he feels a twinge, he wants it fixed. He's even had laser surgery on his eyes. What really annoys me is that I have to put glasses on to read something to him - but he reads it without glasses.
I flew to Malaga once and instead of going left to Marbella, turned right and went to Nerja. I wanted to get as far away from the British as possible, which is tough to do in Spain, but Nerja is slightly less infested and I loved the local culture there and the food.
My parents were still living with my grandparents, on my dad's side, when I was born, but when I was three, we moved to our own house near Luton airport. It was a typical street where the kids all played outside.
After performing in various bands, my big break came when I signed for the record label CBS. I had a couple of hits, then my third single, 'Wherever I Lay My Hat,' reached No 1 in 1983.
My dad was a trained carpenter and worked for Vauxhall Motors. We had money, though not a great deal.
I became a qualified machinist at Vauxhall. For some reason it's been erroneously reported that I used to screw on hubcaps, but that's not true. You can't screw on a hubcap, anyway, so I have no idea where that came from.
A large part of me becoming a performer was a make-or-break way of getting over that stutter. I sometimes wonder if, subliminally, that was part of the reason I got into the business, and the more I became a performer and grew in confidence, the less pronounced the stutter became.
I started off with a paper round when we were just about old enough to drive. I couldn't drive myself, so someone else would have to drive me and I'd drop off the papers.
I used to have a spider phobia, but I'm pretty fearless now.
When I was younger, every time I stopped work and had a holiday, I'd break out in a rash. A dermatologist put it down to stress, but it never seemed to affect me when I was busy.
I wanted to do music at school but they discouraged it. If you did music you couldn't do technical drawing, which meant you couldn't work in engineering and as Vauxhall was the local employer that's what we were all being groomed for.
Music was always a big part of our family life. My dad's brother used to play the harmonica at family parties, and my mum was in the Luton Girls Choir, who did lots of radio broadcasts and performances in the 50s. I have older cousins who used to play me their soul and ska records.
I don't travel that much with my band Los Pacaminos as it's quite a big crowd, but we got invited down to southern Italy once.
I'd driven through all these amazing places in America on tour buses, so I decided to take my family on a U.S.A. road trip. We loved it so much we did it three times - in 1995, 2000 and 2005.
People think I can burst into song any time of the day, it's crazy.
I'm moved by song lyrics, particularly Tom Waits' 'Take It With Me.' It's about a man on his deathbed, wanting to take the heart of the woman he loves with him when he goes.
Although it wasn't my era, Soul is the root of what I do.
Someone at an airport in Germany asked me to sing Wherever I Lay My Hat. It's strange, they wouldn't ask people in other professions to perform on the spot.
I've crossed paths with fanatical fans all over the world.
I look after my voice and I warm up... I tend to do it in the car, which must look a little strange!
Everything that happens in your life is a lesson learned.
Look to the future; don't dwell on a past that you can't change.
You are what you decide you want to be. You can be some horrible, bitter person who's not a pleasure to be with. That's your choice.
I appeared three times with Jools Holland on 'The Tube.'
We once employed a girl in Texas to produce a fanzine, and after meeting her there she seemed fine. Then the letters started and they got strange and she began to claim we were an item. She also sent me a rhinestone cow bone sprayed silver and mounted on a plinth. Don't ask me why.
I performed at Live Aid in front of a worldwide TV audience of 1.9 billion but I wasn't nervous - the atmosphere was electric.
We were far from being the kind of band that threw TVs out of hotel windows. In fact, we carried our own toolbox with us so that if anything got broken, we could nail it back together and not be charged for it.
You can have talent, but unless you're in the right place at the right time, then it isn't going to happen for you.
My mum said I used to sing on the bus. I was about five and would simply sit, staring out of the window, singing to myself. When I got to the end of the song and everyone gave me a round of applause, it scared me because I was in my own little world, but I obviously loved singing even then.
One of my better qualities is that I accept what's in front of me and deal with it.
I want a church service with New Orleans funeral jazz music. I'd like people to say a few words about me and I may have my ashes scattered in the sea.
If you do something right you get a real sense of achievement and an adrenalin rush.
For every musician there's a certain point when your kids get to 13 or 14 and you become an embarrassment. They don't want you to drop them off at school and they don't like that you are different from the other parents, but thankfully mine are over that now, and are pretty cool with what I do.
I've spent all my money on the kids' education.
There are people who sit at home and decide to anonymously troll people on the Internet - what is wrong with these people? Or you can be a positive person and put some good energy into this world.
The royalties from downloading are bad enough but the royalties from streaming are non-existent.
Growing up, we visited Devon and Cornwall where I learnt to surf and had my first horse riding lesson. We stayed in caravan parks and I have fond memories of Paignton and Newquay.
I don't mind people talking to me as they are only ever nice. Although I had one frightening experience when I had a stalker who thought he was the son of God and thought I was, too.
I'm great at untangling knots and will sit there for 20 minutes until it's done.
I thought I could make a solo album, then go back to the band. But 'No Parlez' was the end of me and Q-Tips.
I was a dreamer as a kid.
My 'No Parlez' album in 1983 - which went quadruple platinum - changed my life. The funniest thing though is the pictures we shot for the cover were rubbish, so we had to use a set we'd done for Smash Hits magazine instead.
I didn't think I was scared of heights until I did ITV's 'Splash!' in 2014.
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