A collection of quotes and thoughts by Thom Yorke on life, truth, stand, political, preach, hope, music, guitar, responsibility, time, art, media and simplicity.
53 Great Thom Yorke Quotes That Will Motivate You To Speak Your Mind
Thomas Edward Yorke, popularly known as ‘Thom’ Yorke, is an English composer and musician. He is the singer-songwriter of the rock band ‘Radiohead’. Yorke is a multi-faceted musical talent who is not only adept at playing a range of instruments that includes piano, guitar and drums but is also among the most gifted singers with a special gift of falsetto. In a career spanning over three decades, Yorke has become one of the notable singers. Apart from music, he has also been quite vocal about his thoughts on human rights, wars and the environment. Those themes often found their way into the songs that he wrote for ‘Radiohead’ and for his solo albums. Over the years, Yorke has emerged as an extremely free speaking member of the music industry and has spoken at length about some of the latest trends in the industry as well. Here is a collection of some of his views, rants, tirades and thoughts in his own words on music, environment and the world in general. Read through the quotes and sayings by Thom Yorke which have been curated from his writings, songs, lyrics, tweets, interviews and public utterances.
My dad spent his whole life getting into fights for telling what he believed to be the truth. Basically it comes from my dad-and he's screaming right-wing, so there you are.
We don't have to stand on a soap-box and preach because hopefully we're channelling it through the new record.
Thom Yorke
Well, I've been reading a lot about the fifty years since the Second World War, about Western foreign policy and all that. I try not to let it get to me, but sometimes I just think that there's no hope.
Sometimes the nicest thing to do with a guitar is just look at it.
Thom Yorke
I think maybe since there isn't a great deal of access to the mainstream media and people don't understand the language of mainstream media, if you put music out there with lyrics that are loosely political, people absorb some of it and spit it back out.
My songs are my kids. Some of them stay with me, some others I have to send out, out to the war. It might sound stupid and it might even sound naive, but that's just the way it is.
There's the beautiful people and then there's the rest of us.
Thom Yorke
Well, my son really loves wildlife. And everytime he draws a polar bear I want to tell him there probably won't any by the time... he's my age. That's kinda hard to deal with.
At home I've got a very puerile, juvenile sense of humour.
Thom Yorke
Coming from Britain, I was terrified of meeting all these other artists, because artists over there tend to fight with each other a lot, the premise being that there's not enough room for everybody.
Generally speaking, if people are prepared to stick their heads above the power pit, like Zinn says, and absorb what's going on around them, it makes them think.
I don't see it in terms of changing things, but rather using language and music as weapons for fighting a mainstream media which is predominately right wing, and loyal to the political framework and its corporate interests.
I grew up under Thatcher. I grew up believing that I was fundamentally powerless. Then gradually over the years it occurred to me that this was actually a very convenient myth for the state.
I think no artist can claim to have any access to the truth, or an authentic version of an event. But obviously they have slightly better means at their disposal because they have their art to energize whatever it is they're trying to write about. They have music.
I think we're entering a very dangerous time. The West has set itself up, decided it's in charge, not for good intentions, not for the benefit of mankind.
I wrote a lot of stuff quickly: pages and pages of notes that seemed pretty incoherent at first. Most of it was taken from the radio because -suddenly being a parent- I'd be confronted by the radio giving a news report every hour of the day.
If we got into a situation where people start burning our records, then bring it on. That's the whole point. The gloaming has begun. We're in the darkness. This has happened before. Go read some history.
Thom Yorke
It is difficult to make political art work.
Thom Yorke
My argument would be that I don't think there is much that's genuinely political art that is good art.
One of the interesting things here is that the people who should be shaping the future are politicians. But the political framework itself is so dead and closed that people look to other sources, like artists, because art and music allow people a certain freedom.
So ultimately, it's idealistic to think that artists are able to step away from the power of the media and the way it controls things, and go on doing their own things.
So how come it looks so beautiful?
How come the moon falls from the sky?
Thom Yorke
Someone needs to tell the truth, but it shouldn't be my job.
Thom Yorke
The people in charge, globally, are maniacs. They are maniacs, and unless we do something about it these people are going to deprive us of a future.
Thom Yorke
They love me like I was a brother
They protect me, listen to me
They dug me my very own garden
Gave me sunshine, made me happy
Nice dream, nice dream
Nice dream
This was something that was obsessing me and creating a writer's block. To get involved and get stuck in, get the proper information about what's going on has really helped.
We didn't start out to make a protest record at all. That would have been too shallow. As usual, it was simply a case of absorbing what's going on around us.
And if the world does turn, and if London burns, I'll be standing on the beach with my guitar. I want to be in a band, when I get to Heaven. Anyone can play guitar, and they won't be a nothing anymore...
People in bands don't have the kind of conversations people might think they have. The best things about being in a band are the things that are unsaid.
I had a series of mini-breakdowns where the public persona - this thing, this face, this person who writes this music... I would walk past that person in the mirror or listen to that person playing guitar and I didn't know who they were.
Music is more difficult - try naming a political band. The Dead Kennedys. The Dead Kennedys are political, but they are more funny than they are political.
We toyed with the idea of making it a double album, but I think that would only have confused everybody even more, so we decided to stick with the songs we picked.
I went to a boys' school, and I didn't realize that most guys join bands because they wanted to get girls. I was not really focused on that the way everybody else was.
I think a lot of tunes can suffer from being so simple, so either they get over-complicated or their simplicity means the simple way to lay them down becomes the difficulty.
I think artists can influence only through making music that challenges people, excites them and flips them out. Music that repeats what you know in ever-decreasing derivation, that's unchallenging and unstimulating, deadens our minds, our imagination and our ability to see beyond the hell we find ourselves in.
I feel like, as musicians, we need to fight the Spotify thing. I feel that in some ways what's happening in the mainstream is the last gasp of the old industry. Once that does finally die, which it will, something else will happen.
