Donovan Quotes

Donovan

Profession : Musician

Birth : May 10, 1946

When I was a boy, I had a grand, big tape recorder, and I made late-night radio shows with glasses of water and funny voices. I just loved radio plays.

Donovan

The songs I write are about searching, and they're ambiguous - always to be understood in different ways.

Donovan

I went on the Andy Williams show, the Smothers Brothers show, and maybe I shouldn't have. But regrets - I don't think I have any.

Donovan

I have amassed an enormous amount of songs about every particular condition of humankind - children's songs, marriage songs, death songs, love songs, epic songs, mystical songs, songs of leaving, songs of meeting, songs of wonder. I pretty much have got a song for every occasion.

Donovan

I first met Linda Lawrence in March 1965 in the green room of 'Ready Steady Go!,' the British pop TV show. Linda was a friend of one of the co-hosts. She had an art-school vibe, and after a brief conversation, I asked her to dance to a soul record playing. As we jazz danced, I fell in love.

Donovan

My guitar-playing always included bass lines, melody lines, and rhythm-guitar grooves.

Donovan

Any nobody from the folk blues world could avoid being influenced by Woody Guthrie, who is actually of Scottish-Irish ancestry.

Donovan

The audiences used to say, 'Are you a Donovan fan or a Dylan fan?' It was all very naive, really.

Donovan

Having had polio never held me back as I got older. Although having one leg smaller than the other isn't much fun, I could always get about without any trouble. Luckily, in the music industry, everyone was only interested in my singing and playing and not the size of my legs.

Donovan

I feel strongly that having a disability in one area makes you explore others instead.

Donovan

After having polio, my right leg was weaker, so I wasn't great at football. But I swam lots and even did long-distance running.

Donovan

My father was a part of that generation, and my mother, too - the late-'30s, early-'40s big-band generation. Frank Sinatra, Art Blakey, Gene Krupa, Billie Holiday - all that stuff was in my background.

Donovan

I'm in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Jimmy Page gave me the MOJO Maverick award. I got an Ivor Novella Award for my very first song.

Donovan

I was a virtuoso of all the folk-blues guitar styles by the time I reached 17.

Donovan

Society may shun bohemia, may put it down, may consider it useless and ineffective, but it is where everything cooks and boils and is created.

Donovan

Songwriting is a burst of inspiration and then a long bit of work and a tremendous bit of desperation.

Donovan

I was listening to a lot of bebop. And to Miles Davis. Everyone thinks I was just in the folk world in 1966, but in 1963 and 1964, I was absorbing enormous amounts of music, from baroque to jazz to blues to Indian music.

Donovan

I found in Rick Rubin a kindred soul. When I visited his home and looked in his library, I saw he was reading the very same New Age books I had picked up the month before.

Donovan

A young person coming up and saying, 'I absolutely love your music,' is very encouraging.

Donovan

I have to say, post-fame was difficult because it wasn't just fame: it was super-fame of a kind that few have. It was attached to a generation's dreams, and my own personal dreams were mixed up in it, too.

Donovan