Poetry itself is music. I’m just lucky that I can convert it into music.
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.
More Benjamin Clementine Quotes
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Confidence came from people. I think I’m very confident in me, as a human being.
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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.
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In fact, I might be confident for the human race because of what the human race has given me. When I was in the street and bars, people always came up to me and said, “Don’t stop, keep going.”
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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.
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When I started singing about my life and what I was going through, I felt more confident. It was my own life, I was being myself, I was telling people what was happening.
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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.
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I 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.
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[My music] is opposite to fashion.
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If I’m being forced to do something I don’t want to do, my real self comes out. But whether or not I’m aware of it, no matter what happens, I’m always going to have a fake self and I’m not going to judge my fake self.
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Even if someone thinks there’s a mistake I’ve made on the piano, to me it’s not a mistake; it’s how it’s meant to be.
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Some people will never be able to get their real self, but that’s fine, because their fake self is also part of them.
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I’ve always been shy, but every time that I sing or I perform, when music comes out of me, it is the only thing I can relate to, it’s the only thing I can give.
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I’m not dismissing prostitutes, but a lot has changed. This so-called gentrification, it can never be stopped.
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I was lucky to have read a lot of poetry when I was younger; it helped me to remember a way to write.
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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.
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