A Quote by Denny Laine

Nostalgia is one thing. It's great to go and play the old songs. People know them and appreciate them. You got to give them what they want to hear. — © Denny Laine
Nostalgia is one thing. It's great to go and play the old songs. People know them and appreciate them. You got to give them what they want to hear.
Well, you know, when you're putting together a show, you've got to be careful not to load it up with the new stuff. We have to play the songs that people want to hear, too. People may come thinking, "Oh, I've just got to hear this song." Or maybe they'll write me a letter saying a certain song is really meaningful to them, so we'll be sure to play those songs.
I like playing at public schools. I like when there's more of a diverse audience. I'll play wherever people want to hear my music, and I'll be glad and grateful for the opportunity, but I'd rather not play for a bunch of white privileged kids. I'm not meaning that in a disrespectful way; you go where people want to hear your music. So if that's where people want to hear me play, I'm glad to play for them. But I'd rather play for an audience where half of them were not into it than one where all of them were pretending to be into it, for fear of being uncultured.
When people are dying, they call their old enemies and try to forgive them and try to be forgiven by them. They call their old friends and affirm their love for them, as well as detach themselves from them, and they try to get into as free a space as they can so they're really ready to go. They give away all their possessions and are as generous as possible. They give up old hatreds and grudges, and that's a wise intuitive thing, because it's much freer to live like that.
You want to give me chocolate and flowers? That would be great. I love them both. I just don't want them out of guilt, and I don't want them if you're not going to give them to all the people who helped mother our children.
The thing I'm obsessed with is really great bad paintings. I have a storage locker full of them and I want to give them their own museum. You don't even know who these artists are - you can buy them at garage sales, antique stores and places like that. They're brilliant because they were done with the intention of being great, but the artist sort of made a wrong turn. Some of them are hilarious and I can't get enough of them.
There's a lot of guys who have great technique, people practicing a lot and you hear them, but there's not that many people who when you hear them, you go, "Man, that guy must practice a lot," right? Then you hear Miles Davis play, and you go, "Man, I had a girlfriend like that." That's a whole another level of musicianship.
The trouble is, most people are not so generous. Everybody wants love for themselves. I hear this all the time from the women I work with. I hear them say, "I want, I want." I never hear them saying what they want to give.
I want to start my own airplane business. I'm going to buy two Dakotas, paint them up in war colours and do, er, nostalgia trips to Arnhem - you know, where the old paratroopers used to go - and charge them about 20 quid a time.
We never do the same set twice... We play for at least two and a half hours, sometimes longer, so there's a lot of songs from all the records. And we know there's a stable we as fans would want to hear, so we always give them, then we change up a bunch of songs and throw in a couple new ones.
That's my dream job, to be able to mail songs out to people who want to hear them. Paste my face on them and not travel all over the world trying to sell them.
That's what I've always loved about music, that I could go be another guy for two hours. But ultimately it all comes back to: do you have the songs, can you sing them, do you have a great band that can play them with you? You're charging money to have people come watch you play; I want them to feel taken someplace good or provoked into thinking my way for an hour and a half or two hours. I have been a provoker and I'll probably always be one in the public arena for the rest of my life.
I got a solid fan base and they love me and I love them. They know I'ma give them what they want to hear.
I like people who, you know, as you go along in life, you know, a thing happens, and people become a seeker. They look for something to give them the path to their full potential. I like them to know about transcendental mediation, but they've got to make up their own mind to take it and use it.
It's a great thing that the United States has given the rest of the world - no other country has given such great popular music to the Far East and Europe. When I play those great countries, a lot of times, the audience starts singing the songs with me. They know them. They love them.
People are flawed. I like peaking into their flaws. The way to humanize them is not to play them in any general way, but to make them very specific. If you make them specific, they have hopes and dreams and loves and vulnerabilities and quirks and you get to know them and you get to appreciate them.
With DJing, there's still an art to it - you get two DJs and give them songs to play, one can play it better. There is a way, and it's not just about the songs you're playing, it's about how you mix, the timing, when you cut out and in. I love it, and I love feeling the excitement of the crowd - you go on this journey with them for an hour or so.
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