I was very rebellious, but my family was strict Christians – they would ask us, “What’s the shortest verse in the Bible?” and I was the one who always said “John 11:35” straightaway. It stayed with me, the Bible has stayed with me.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINEWilliam Blake is my favorite poet of all time, and he said that he wasn’t quite familiar with the sounds of music. If so, he would have been a musician.
More Benjamin Clementine Quotes
-
-
If you’ve got great parents, once you grow up and have to live by yourself, you’re going to create some fake self as you get comfortable wherever you are.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINE -
The real self is who you are when you’re at home, when you’re comfortable, and the false self is what you’re pretending – and the reason you pretend is because you want to create a character for the surroundings you’re within.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINE -
I felt like I was homeless anyway, so the change in environment wasn’t that much of a big deal. I felt pretty much the same. After six months of living on the streets [in Camden], I started singing, busking.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINE -
Happiness is overrated and money can’t justify it.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINE -
People take things too literal in the Bible and it’s totally wrong.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINE -
Confidence came from people. I think I’m very confident in me, as a human being.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINE -
Poetry itself is music. I’m just lucky that I can convert it into music.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINE -
I’m from a middle class family but my father squandered all the money, so I didn’t really run around with rich people. I was very judgmental towards a lot of them.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINE -
The experience that I had in Paris I could never have ever again in my life. This is when I grew up as a young man.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINE -
That’s how I always try to start my thoughts. I write them down first, eventually it turns into a poem, and if I feel like composing something to it, then I do that.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINE -
[My music] is opposite to fashion.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINE -
Composing was more difficult than writing things down.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINE -
Some people will never be able to get their real self, but that’s fine, because their fake self is also part of them.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINE -
I think it is all about creating characters, mixing them up with the stars and the light-years, and coming back to Earth, because we’re from this universe. We’re not just New York or London; we’re stars.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINE -
When I started writing again, especially when I listened to French music and Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, I realized that these lots talked about themselves. The greatest artists, they didn’t sing; they only spoke.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINE