Johnny Marr > Quotes

“I am very proud of the fact that 20 years [sic] on people tell me they became a vegetarian as a result of 'Meat is Murder'. I think that is quite literally rock music changing someone's life - it's certainly changing the life of animals. It is one of the things I am most proud of.”
― Johnny Marr

“What I thought was interesting about becoming vegetarian was when I stopped eating animals I really started to appreciate them much more. I discovered an empathy with animals and started noticing the serenity of cows in fields, and the beauty of horses, which brought a new and very welcome dimension to my world. It happened quickly and I was surprised. Fundamentally I realised that animals are innocent. My”
― Johnny Marr, Set the Boy Free

“We went inside, and I knew the guitar was special before I even touched it. Seymour bought the guitar for me, and I carried it back to the Iroquois Hotel on West 44th Street. When I got to my room, i took my new 355 out of its old, beat-up case, and with the very first thing I played I wrote our next single "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now", then the B-Side "Girl Afraid". That's what happens with some instruments. They already have music inside them.”
― Johnny Marr, Set the Boy Free

“Once I’d learnt Jean Genie, I was kind of like I don’t need to know anyone else’s stuff now... That was kind of my passport. Everyone was like ‘What can you play?’ 'Well, I can play Rebel Rebel!' About three years later, they’d say ‘How are you getting on?’ I’d say… 'Well I can still play Rebel Rebel'.”
― Johnny Marr

“The thing about the red carpet is that you’re expected to look into every camera and talk into every microphone that’s stuck in your face about films you’ve not seen, to people who are not listening, and who suddenly vanish as soon as someone more famous arrives, which is every minute.”
― Johnny Marr, Set the Boy Free

“Here's a song, here's another, here's a third...now go on and write a story.”
― Johnny Marr, Punk Fiction: An Anthology of Short Stories Inspired by Punk

“in the heavy rock scene there were never any girls – it was a girl-free zone – and that’s never a good sign.”
― Johnny Marr, Set the Boy Free

“There was a whole generation of American boys who were dissatisfied with the model of masculinity they had been expected to conform to and that was irrelevant and totally out of date. They saw in the British bands a way of being that was anti-macho and pro-androgyny, where the question of whether you were gay or straight didn’t matter at all.”
― Johnny Marr, Set the Boy Free