There’s a part in every person that has a fake self. We’ve had this since infancy due to our parents and our upbringing.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINEThere’s a part in every person that has a fake self. We’ve had this since infancy due to our parents and our upbringing.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINEI like it when cities are melancholic. When it started snowing for example, I felt very lonely. I felt very comfortable and very relaxed. When that happens, I write. So I’ve been writing, not a lot, but I’m inspired everyday.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINEPeople take things too literal in the Bible and it’s totally wrong.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINEI loved English literature – if didn’t it would have been hard – but I had to learn it myself. I remembered ways to repeat words, to put more emphasis on certain lines.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINEI started understanding William Blake and George Orwell more and more. It’s amazing how we go to school when we’re so young, read all of these books, just trying to memorize them. When you start to live, you don’t have to memorize anything.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINEHappiness is overrated and money can’t justify it.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINEThat’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 CLEMENTINEThe 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 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.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINEPoetry itself is music. I’m just lucky that I can convert it into music.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINEI’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 CLEMENTINEI 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 CLEMENTINEI was independent. There was no one there to talk to; I didn’t even want to talk to anyone. I started to write about what I was experiencing, and I had no choice, so I was never scared.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINEI wasn’t quite used to writing a diary – I didn’t understand why people did it – but I wrote down notes and they went into a poem.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINEI 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 CLEMENTINE[My music] is opposite to fashion.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINE