Don Van Vliet Quotes

• You can tell by the kindness of a dog how a human should be.

  Don Van Vliet

• You can almost judge how screwed up somebody is by the kind of toilet paper they use. Go in any rich house and it’s some weird coloured embossed stuff.

  Don Van Vliet

• With my voice and my band, I can do anything.

  Don Van Vliet

• When I see a dolphin, I know it’s just as smart as I am.

  Don Van Vliet

• The wind is a very difficult sound to get. It’s always changing.

  Don Van Vliet

• The stars are matter, we’re matter, but it doesn’t matter.

  Don Van Vliet

• That Sid Vicious was obviously a schizophrenic, kind of a mean one too.

  Don Van Vliet

• Most of modern rock and roll is a product of guilt.

  Don Van Vliet

• Man has done a lot to make himself dangerous and animals get the worst of all of it. But then, man too is an animal.

  Don Van Vliet

• Johnny Rotten. He’s a big fan of mine. I used to see him out in the audience in England and he’d stand up and holler. He’s funny. Smart too, and a nice guy. Don’t think he’s a jerk because he isn’t.

  Don Van Vliet

• James Brown is important because he decorates the clock correctly and he’s good with lower mathematics. Don’t get me wrong – he’s good.

  Don Van Vliet

• I’m interested in playing, not working.

  Don Van Vliet

• I’d rather play a tune on a horn, but I’ve always felt that I didn’t want to train myself. Because when you get a train, you’ve got to have an engine and a caboose. I think it’s better to train the caboose. You train yourself, you strain yourself.

  Don Van Vliet

• I’d never just want to do what everybody else did. I’d be contributing to the sameness of everything.

  Don Van Vliet

• I think Shakespeare is really the one. Words as music and music as words. Everything he wrote was good, which is really frightening.

  Don Van Vliet

• I needed to purge myself of all the attention my parents had given me – I wasn’t neglected enough as a child.

  Don Van Vliet

• I live in a Mobile Home – I’ve never had a house, except once; I rented a log cabin.

  Don Van Vliet

• I have no neighbours other than animals and Joshua Trees.

  Don Van Vliet

• I don’t think artists are made, I think they’re born.

  Don Van Vliet

• I don’t look like a desert person because I stay indoors most of the day and fool around at night. That’s what the desert animals do – they don’t have a tan either.

  Don Van Vliet

Don Van Vliet (26)

Birth:	15th January, 1941
Death:	17th December, 2010
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Artist, Musician, Poet, Lyricist, Singer

About

Don Van Vliet was an American musician, singer-songwriter, artist and poet widely known by the stage name Captain Beefheart. His musical work was conducted with a rotating ensemble of musicians called The Magic Band, active between 1965 and 1982, with whom he recorded 13 studio albums.

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Today's Anniversary - 27th April

Births

• 1898 - Ludwig Bemelmans
• 1952 - Larry Elder
• 1959 - Nicholas D. Kristof
• 1822 - Ulysses S. Grant
• 1944 - Michael Fish

Deaths

• 1882 - Ralph Waldo Emerson
• 1999 - Al Hirt
• 2002 - Ruth Handler
• 1915 - Alexander Scriabin
• 1972 - Kwame Nkrumah