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Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Joe Strummer Quotes

I get on all right with my parents. But I don’t see them very much. They split up when I was eight. I stayed with my mum, but I felt it was a bit soft with her. I could do whatever I liked, and I wasn’t getting nowhere, so I went to stay with my dad.

– Joe Strummer

The hippy movement was a failure. All hippies around now just represent complete apathy. There’s a million good reasons why the thing failed, OK. But the only thing we’ve got to live with is that it failed.

– Joe Strummer

The only place I considered home was the boarding school, in Yorkshire, my parents sent me to.

– Joe Strummer

All hippies around now just represent complete apathy.

– Joe Strummer

Yeah, all those things, responsibility, pressure. It’s a bit stressful. I try and come to terms with it by not thinking about it.

– Joe Strummer

I don’t want to look back. I want to keep going forward, I still have something to say to people.

– Joe Strummer

I think we’re going to have to forget about the radio and just go back to word of mouth.

– Joe Strummer

When we played Paris, the English punks would come over, and they got to know the French punks. There was some nice scenes in the back alleys.

– Joe Strummer

If you ain’t thinkin’ about man and God and law, then you ain’t thinkin’ about nothin’.

– Joe Strummer

We sing in English, not mimicking some American rock singer’s accent. That’s just pretending to be something you ain’t.

– Joe Strummer

What I like about playing America is you can be pretty sure you’re not going to get hit with a full can of beer when you’re singing and I really enjoy that!

– Joe Strummer

I began thinking there should be an American phrase book, ’cause I’ve got an Italian phrase book, and an Arabic one… now a British one. I think it’d be pretty good to have an American phrase book.

– Joe Strummer

I found that I was just hopeless at school. It was just a total bore. First, I passed in art and English, and then just art. Then I passed out.

– Joe Strummer

The hippy movement was a failure.

– Joe Strummer

I’m proud of all our records. Even the crap ones.

– Joe Strummer

We did eight gigs in super-stadiums, all the biggest joints – L.A. Coliseum, Oakland Coliseum, Shea Stadium.

– Joe Strummer

To me, our music is like Jamaican stuff – if they can’t hear it, they’re not supposed to hear it. It’s not for them if they can’t understand it.

– Joe Strummer

I only saw my father twice a year. If I’d seen him all the time I’d probably have murdered him by now. He was very strict.

– Joe Strummer

The only place I considered home was the boarding school in Yorkshire my parents sent me to. It’s easier, isn’t it? I mean, it gets kids out the way, doesn’t it?

– Joe Strummer

Anyway, it’s good to be sent back to the underground. There’s always a good side to bad things and the good side to this is that at least everyone has to go back down.

– Joe Strummer

When you blame yourself, you learn from it. If you blame someone else, you don’t learn nothing, cause hey, it’s not your fault, it’s his fault, over there.

– Joe Strummer

With The Simpsons you can go back to work with a keen heart.

– Joe Strummer

I have a weird life because I live on songwriting royalties, which are a strange income. Sometimes it rains, sometimes it doesn’t.

– Joe Strummer