Quotes by Ian Anderson

About Ian Anderson:

Ian Scott Anderson is a British musician, singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist best known for his work as the lead vocalist, flautist and acoustic guitarist of British rock band Jethro Tull. Anderson plays several other musical instruments, including keyboards, bass guitar, bouzouki, balalaika, saxophone, harmonica, and a variety of whistles. His solo work began with the 1983 album Walk into Light, and since then he has released another five works, including the sequel of Jethro Tull album Thick as a Brick (1972) in 2012, entitled Thick as a Brick 2.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

If Jesus Christ came back today, He and I would get into our brown corduroys and go to the nearest jean store and overturn the racks of blue denim.

Ian Anderson

It's only the giving that makes you what you are.

Ian Anderson

I think we always view people who make us feel uncomfortable and appear to intrude on our middle-class cozy space, we view them with, if not hostility, at least suspicion, discomfort, embarrassment.

Ian Anderson

I suppose when I started playing guitar, it was the means to an end. I never thought of myself as a fully fledged guitar instrumentalist. And my early excursions on the electric guitar were curtailed when Eric Clapton came on the scene, and I decided...

Ian Anderson

There's always going to be a little bit of autobiographical content to everything. It's how you lend some authority to what you write - you give it that weight by drawing on your direct experiences and indirect experiences from people that you know w...

Ian Anderson

Prog didn't really go away. Just took a catnap in the late Seventies. A new generation of fans discovered it, and a whole new array of bands and solo artists took it on into the new millennium.

Ian Anderson

Touring is what you make it. I like to organise as much as possible myself.

Ian Anderson

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame traditionally has had a management style that is very supportive of American talent, first and foremost, over everything else. And I think that's right and proper.

Ian Anderson

When I was in my teenage years, I went to sign up as a cadet entrant to the police force but was at the very last moment rejected, just as I was about to sign my name on the dotted line. I won't get into why that happened, but it was a moment where i...

Ian Anderson

I was always more interested in the ultimate live performance rather than the recording for its own sake. And, for the audience too, that thrill of - just being there.

Ian Anderson

Our politicians may fail us, but Status Quo always delivers on the promise.

Ian Anderson

I'm really terrible with small children; they're small, noisy, irritating, damp and soggy.

Ian Anderson

In most cases, my favorite Jethro Tull songs will be determined by how I feel about them as live performance songs, not by the recorded identity.

Ian Anderson

I'm not one for Sudoku or crosswords - the thing that fires my little brain is doing tour budgets.

Ian Anderson

Writing lyrics is part spontaneous, intuitive and part really thought through and carefully analyzed as you write it. It's a mixture of two approaches, and I imagine writing anything is like that, really. Some of it just flows, and you just go with i...

Ian Anderson

Just once I would like to persuade the audience not to wear any article of blue denim. If only they could see themselves in a pair of brown corduroys like mine instead of this awful, boring blue denim.

Ian Anderson

I'm very much an observer and a conduit of thoughts and ideas.

Ian Anderson

I think it's really the job of the composer, the artist, the painter, the writer to present people with options. I'm just really reflecting the thoughts and actions around me.

Ian Anderson

Most people, from their second album on, find it much harder to be as spontaneously creative as they were with their first couple of records, and some people only have one thing that they do.

Ian Anderson

If you're gonna use simile, analogy, metaphor, be descriptive and have some flowery adjectives and a few odd nouns and some engaging bits of dialogue or sentiment, then you're sort of writing a novel, really. But rock lyrics are not really known for ...

Ian Anderson

My old black cat, he passed away this morning. He never knew what a heartache was. Woke up late and he danced till noon. If questioned why, answered just because. He never spoke much, preferring silence. Eight lost lives was all he had.

Ian Anderson

Author Bio

  • NameIan Anderson
  • DescriptionScottish musician
  • BornAugust 10, 1947
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionComposer; Singer; Guitarist; Flautist
  • AwardsMember Of The Order Of The British Empire