A Quote by Peter Tosh

My songs is hard stuff which politicians don't want on them radio station because they still want people to live in ignorancy. — © Peter Tosh
My songs is hard stuff which politicians don't want on them radio station because they still want people to live in ignorancy.
People want to be the first with the record, they want to be the first to know which songs are on the record, all that kind of stuff. So I like to just stall them a bit. Personally, I love the idea of an album that's completely new, that no one's heard any free downloads, any pre-record releases, all that kind of stuff, and nothing's been played on the radio. Totally virgin, you know, a sealed record. That's my ideal, but it's very hard to get anybody else to agree to do that.
The America I do want to live in, is seeing how people respond to the victims of Hurricane Harvey. People of all races, all colors, all religions. You don't care what a person looks like, what their beliefs are - I'm helping them, because they are my fellow brother, or because they need my help. That's the America I want to live in. I don't want to live in Charlottesville, where you hate somebody because of the way that they choose to live their life. That's not a place where I want to live.
The American Dream means being part of a society that allows you to be or do whatever you want, and to have a sense that your individual optimism and hard work will be rewarded. It exists outside of the U.S. as well as inside. People continue to come here because they want to improve their lives, they want to be able to support themselves and they want to live in freedom. A lot of people who criticize this country still send their children here to study.
In the years that I've seen concerts, when I've paid to see somebody I want to see, there would be a certain amount of songs I'd want to hear. So whether it's stuff I want to play every night or not - or stuff I've been playing for years or stuff you get tired of playing - you have to play what people pay for and make it fair for them.
Licensing is how indie rock people make a living these days, so whatever about that. But I want good films and good placement for the songs because I want to be exclusive. I don't want to just sign it away because I don't want songs to lose meaning, but I'm also...I don't care [that] Wilco sold songs to Volkswagen. That's great. They probably drive Volkswagens.
I made a decision at some point to live a nontraditional life. I've become like, the opposite of a consumer. I just want freedom. I don't want stuff. I don't want clutter. I just want to be able to move freely. I want to be good to the people I love. But I don't want stuff. I just want, you know, love and big ideas.
I recorded a lot of songs that I knew I didn't like just because maybe part of me wanted to be nice, maybe part of me just wanted to be in the studio, but I've been learning that it's really important to do what you want to do. Even though I might not write all of it, I am still picking out the songs that I want to do. A lot of people who are writing for me are people I have worked with for a while so they know who I am and what I want. I have a lot of opinions and I have learned that it is absolutely okay to express them and to say, "No, I don't want this."
I like to write sad songs. They're much easier to write and you get a lot more emotion into them. But people don't want to hear them as much. And radio definitely doesn't; they want that positive, uptempo thing.
In the years that Ive seen concerts, when Ive paid to see somebody I want to see, there would be a certain amount of songs Id want to hear. So whether its stuff I want to play every night or not - or stuff Ive been playing for years or stuff you get tired of playing - you have to play what people pay for and make it fair for them.
Every time I meet people working in radio, I'm a little embarrassed. It's all pre-programmed, rigidly formatted stuff. Time and time again, when I talk to jocks, they say how jealous they are of the freedom we have on WKRP. I sometimes have to explain to them that it's not a real radio station.
If you really want a radio station to play your song, go to that radio station every day with that song in your hand and say, 'Please play it.'
America was the funder of petro-dictatorships. We treated all these countries as basically big, large gas stations: Libya station, Iraq station, Iran station, Egypt station, Syria station, and all we asked of them were three things: Keep your palms open, your prices low and don't bother Israel too much, and you can do whatever you want to your own people.
What politicians want and what creative writers want will always be profoundly different, because I'm afraid all politicians, of whatever hue, want propaganda, and writers want the truth, and they're not compatible.
There's no passive success on radio. Well, in radio, one of the ways in which you engage people and make them active listeners and have them glued so that they don't want to do anything else, you have to find ways to incorporate this mystery called the theater of the mind. And it's the one ingredient that radio has that television does not that if used properly, if perfected and learned and executed properly, it can have a much greater impact than TV because it can create a much more intimate, direct connection with the audience.
If there's a group like Amish people, that want to live their own lifestyle – they don't want to live in our city – they want to live out in the country, with their own projects. We’ll put up the buildings for them, design the buildings for them, design the food production systems for them – if they want us to. But we don’t control them.
I could care less about the radio or the TV or album sales. I want that connection with people because when I'm able to walk down the street, I want them to feel like I've done something for them and helped their life because I've never felt that way about a musician.
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