Joe Strummer also known as John Graham Mellor was a British musician, singer, songwriter, composer, actor, and radio host who was best known as the co-founder, lyricist, rhythm guitarist, co-lead vocalist of the punk rock band the Clash, formed in 1976. The Clash’s second album Give ‘Em Enough Rope(1978) reached No. 2 on the UK charts. These Joe Strummer quotes will motivate you.
Best Joe Strummer Quotes
- “In fact, punk rock means exemplary manners to your fellow human beings.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “Punk rock isn’t something you grow out of Punk rock is an attitude, and the essence of that attitude is ‘give us some truth'” ~ Joe Strummer
- “The way you get a better world is, you don’t put up with substandard anything.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “Don’t forget you’re alive. ‘Cause sometimes when you walk around the city and you’re in a bad mood, you can think, hey, wait a minute, we’re alive! We don’t know what the next second will bring and what a fantastic thing this is. This can get easily forgotten in the routine of life, and that’s something I’m trying to bring to my attention at all times. Don’t forget you’re alive. We’re not dead, you know. This is the greatest thing.” ~ Joe Strummer
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“When I started, they told me I only needed 3 chords and the truth… It turned out I could manage with 2 and some vague ideas.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “Everyone has got to realise you can’t hold onto the past if you want any future. Each second should lead to the next one.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “I’d like to say that people… people can change anything they want to; and that means everything in the world. Show me any country and there’ll be people in it. And it’s the people that make the country. People have got to stop pretending they’re not on the world… It’s time to take that humanity back into the center of the ring and follow that for a time… Think on that. Without people you’re nothing.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “I don’t have any other message than don’t forget you are alive” ~ Joe Strummer
- “We`re all going to have to learn to live together and develop a greater tolerance and get rid off whatever our fathers gave us in the way of hatred between nations.” ~ Joe Strummer
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“Don’t write slogans, write truths.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “The toughest thing is facing yourself. Being honest with yourself, that’s much tougher than beating someone up. That’s what I call tough.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “When you blame yourself, you learn from it. If you blame someone else, you don’t learn nothing, cause hey, it’s not your fault, it’s his fault, over there.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “A lot of the time I’m semi-insane, but there is a slight bit of intelligence there.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “The future is unwritten.” ~ Joe Strummer
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“I’m far more dangerous now, because I don’t care at all.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “Authority is supposedly grounded in wisdom, but I could see from a very early age that authority was only a system of control and it didn’t have any inherent wisdom. I quickly realised that you either became a power or you were crushed” ~ Joe Strummer
- “People can change anything they want to, and that means everything in the world.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “Strummer’s Law: No input, no output.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “If I had five million pounds I’d start a radio station because something needs to be done. It would be nice to turn on the radio and hear something that didn’t make you feel like smashing up the kitchen and strangling the cat.” ~ Joe Strummer
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“All the power’s in the hands of people rich enough to buy it.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “It is fun to be alive. It’s a hell of a lot better than being dead.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “My motto is, ‘What’s the hurry?’ I’m trying to get it across to the modern world that we need to sit around and think a little bit more.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “There is nothing more common than unsuccessful men with talent.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “To me our music is like Jamaican stuff – if they can’t hear it, they’re not supposed to hear it. It’s not for them if they can’t understand it.” ~ Joe Strummer
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“When you’re out to get the honey you don’t go killing all the bees” ~ Joe Strummer
- “Greed, it ain’t going anywhere. They should have that in a big billboard across Times Square. Without people you’re nothing.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “You have the right not to be killed unless it was done by a policeman or an aristocrat.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “I have a weird life because I live on songwriting royalties, which are a strange income. Sometimes it rains, sometimes it doesn’t.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “You’ve gotta be slightly stupid.” ~ Joe Strummer
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“I like to just feel how I feel and not worry about it really.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “If you ain’t thinking about man and God and law, then you ain’t thinking about nothin’.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “I hate it when I go out and I see parents going, ‘don’t do that’, or ‘stop doing that’ when some kid’s just hanging off a staircase or something. There’s too much of this, ‘don’t do that’. The whole thing baffles me.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “I learnt that fame is an illusion and everything about it is just a joke. I’m far more dangerous now, because I don’t care at all.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “everybody has a story to tell” ~ Joe Strummer
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“I like to read because it’s the opposite of being on the go. Reading is the perfect antidote.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “What’s holding me up is I’m confused about the nature of the music. Because the modern music doesn’t reach me. I mean to say the sound of the modern electric production. A lot of sequencers… synths. That’s what people are buying. Because that doesn’t reach me, it throws me back to like 1948, but I don’t want to be there. Back there, I’m talking about blues records… The roots of rock’n’roll is rhythm and blues and that’s like really where I’m at, where I was always at.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “We aren’t particularly talented. We try harder!” ~ Joe Strummer
- “Yeah, all those things, responsibility, pressure. It’s a bit stressful. I try and come to terms with it by not thinking about it.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “Nonsmokers should be banned from buying any product a smoker created.” ~ Joe Strummer
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“Anybody who makes speeches written by someone else is just a robot.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “I have a weird life because I live on songwriting royalties, which are a strange income. Sometimes it rains, sometimes it doesn’t. … I want to grow up with my audience. I don’t expect to be getting through to the younger pop crowd. I learned that from Paul Simon. … When you blame yourself, you learn from it. If you blame someone else, you don’t learn nothing, cause hey, it’s not your fault, it’s his fault, over there. … People have told me songs I’ve written have changed their life. That’s remarkable. That keeps your faith.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “If you’re allowed to make your mistakes, I think you should. But people don’t really like hearing you admit them. Although I’d never wanted to dump on the musicians that were involved in that… Because it was not their fault.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “I think we’re going to have to forget about the radio and just go back to word of mouth.” ~ Joe Strummer
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“A lot of people… use a calculator!” ~ Joe Strummer
- “With The Simpsons you can go back to work with a keen heart.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “I just want to go back to rockin’, but I’m uncertain as to what to actually do. The truth is, I never stopped thinking about rock’n’roll for a second that I’m on holiday.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “I don’t want to look back. I want to keep going forward, I still have something to say to people.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “All hippies around now just represent complete apathy.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “There is a time to dance to techno and a time not to.” ~ Joe Strummer
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“The hippy movement was a failure.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “For me the music is a vehicle for my lyrics. It’s a chance to get some really good words across.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “There isn’t a town in the world I haven’t run amok in.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “I`m kind of like one of those people that picks up small and interesting bits of wood and doesn`t want to let go of them. Or, you know, I`m fascinated with the wrapper on a sardine can. A little cuckoo.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “I began thinking there should be an American phrase book, ’cause I’ve got an Italian phrasebook, and an Arabic one… now a British one. I think it’d be pretty good to have an American phrase book.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “I want to grow up with my audience. I don’t expect to be getting through to the younger pop crowd. I learned that from Paul Simon.” ~ Joe Strummer
- “The only place I considered home was the boarding school, in Yorkshire, my parents sent me to.” ~ Joe Strummer
