Chrissie Hynde Quotes

1. I preferred rock when it was in the dark, when it was a secret between me and the audience, when it wasn't mainstream.  














2. The amount of suffering that animals endure doesn't surprise me because it's mirrored by the scale of human suffering. There are whole continents where people are starving to death and the cause is the same - enforced slavery and exploitation. Violence breeds violence and gentle ways promote more gentle ways. The reaction to murder is murder and people who eat meat are responsible for wholesale murder. They take pleasure in eating meat, which has nothing to do with necessity, and killing for pleasure is murder.

3. A ballad once in a while doesn't go amiss.


4. Why, why do you insist on this meat-eating habit? You don't need it, it's not healthy, it's causing a lot of suffering, look at the mess we're in.

5. Music is not my life. Being in a rock and roll band is not my life. It's my hobby. I've got a life, thanks.

6. The bottom line is that you certainly don't need to eat meat to live so why are you doing that? Unless an animal is trying to kill me, why would I want to kill it? I question any parent who can bring their child up thinking that this act of unnecessary violence should become a part of their life and that they accept it as normal. I think it's gross irresponsibility by the parent. I think it's shameful.





7. Don't think that sticking your boobs out and trying to look f*ckable will help. Remember you're in a rock and roll band. It's not "fuck me," it's "fuck you"!

8. Remember those black-and-white films with Frank Sinatra? Those guys looked like men and they were only 27! Listen to Otis Redding singing "Try A Little Tenderness". That was a man who understood what a man has to know in the world. Show me a real man now! Where are they?

9. Whatever suffering I cause to anything while I'm here, I'm going to get that back. So when I see the mass scale of factory farming it makes me sad, not just for the animals but for the people who perpetuate it. They're gonna have to go all the way back to the beginning and start over and they're gonna have to endure a lot more suffering than a bull in a bull ring. I wouldn't want to be in their shoes because I believe that every pig you slaughter, you are that pig eventually - and sooner than you think, pal, so tread lightly.

10. When I was about 17, I heard the word vegetarian. I didn't know any, not in Ohio but it occurred to me that if you can live without killing animals then what on earth had I been doing for the last 17 years? As I became aware of farming - the forcible control of animals, the cages, tethers, mass transport - I thought of Nazi Germany and the holocaust where the images were akin to factory farming.




11. I have no sense of patriotism, but I do have a sense of community.

12. Accepting widespread cruelty is the worst thing a society can do because it will all be reflected back on us. Whatever damage we do to the animal kingdom we are doing to ourselves and to our own children and families - the whole human community.

13. I just want to keep it basic: four players, boom, boom, boom, a couple notes, three chords. It's like a real small bank job. Just enough to get by. Quick in and out.

14. When I hear myself singing, I hear Iggy Pop and Jimi Hendrix. There's a conversational thing going on. I suppose it depends on which The Pretenders song you're listening to.

15. Well you don't need your meat so that's a lie - that's not even an argument. Clearly you don't need it and we veggies are proof of that. It's a silly thing to say when for thousands of years in India a whole nation hasn't eaten meat. As far as you liking it, ha, if you think that's an argument for killing then you're giving license to serial killers to keep at it because the reason they kill is because they like it, too.




16. Don't try to compete with the guys; it won't impress anybody. Remember, one of the reasons they like you is because you don't offer yet more competition to the already existing male egos.

17. I just want to play guitar and be in a band. Same as I always did.

18. Learning about how horses have died in accidents and seeing their pathetic night stalls got me to change my tune about carriage horses. I love horses and hate seeing them reduced to beasts of burden in one of my favorite cities in the world.

19. The so-called feminist writers were disgusted with me. I did my thing, and so I guess by feminist standards I'm a feminist. That suits me fine.

20. I got hitched to Jim Kerr ("Simple Minds") in a horse drawn carriage in New York. The marriage didn't last and I hope the carriages meet the same fate.


21. If you sing, don't "belt" or "screech." No one wants to hear that s*it; it sounds hysterical.

22. Bring it on! Give us what we deserve!


23. (about her decision to become a vegetarian) It is the most important step you can ever take in your life. Without taking that step you just can't progress, you can't get on with the important things in your life. It's just never going to happen and you're going to end up very frustrated at the end of your life - and that's guaranteed.

24. Being on tour sends me crazy, I drink too much and out comes the John Mcenroe in me.

25. In my experience lust only ever leads to misery. All that suspicion and jealousy and anguish it unleashes. I don't want those things in my life.


26. Yeah, the industry has always been both the enemy and the best friend of the artist. They need each other. That's the bottom line.

27. Shave your legs, for chrissakes!

28. I don't think it's good to be sentimental, so I try not to be.

29. All these fifty-year-old guys wearing baseball caps and shorts and acting like children. It winds me up. Men don't have to take responsibility anymore. Most of the guys I know would punch me on the nose for saying this, but maybe we do have to bring back conscription.

30. Don't take advice from people like me. Do your own thing always.

31. Don't moan about being a chick, refer to feminism or complain about sexist discrimination. We've all been thrown down stairs and f*cked about, but no one wants to hear a whining female. Write a loosely disguised song about it instead and clean up ($).

32. I've done lots of songs for film soundtracks and things like that - stuff I'm not ashamed of, but that doesn't represent my legacy with the Pretenders.

33. Never pretend you know more than you do. If you don't know chord names, refer to the dots. Don't go near the desk unless you plan on becoming an engineer.

34. I'm not a figurehead for anything. I was a single mom with two kids. What else was I going to do? It was either be in a band or be a waitress.

35. Make the other band members look and sound good. Bring out the best in them; that's your job. Oh, and you better sound good, too.

36. Songwriting isn't my life; it's just something I do. It was a way for me not to be a waitress.



37. I don't think it's good to be sentimental, so I try not to be.

38. I don't know anything about guitars, really. A guitar is just a thing, a tool.

39. Do not insist on working with "females"; that's just more b.s. Get the best man for the job. If it happens to be a woman, great - you'll have someone to go to department stores with on tour instead of making one of the road crew go with you.

40. I don't know any guitar player, any of the real greats, who don't rate Joni Mitchell up there with the best of them.









41. Try not to have a sexual relationship within the band. It always ends in tears.


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