Crossfire Hurricane Quotes
Brett Morgen, Himself: [referencing Brian Jones death]Was there a reason you didn't attend his funeral?
Keith Richards, Himself: It was going to be too much of a circus. And, anyway, I didn't ever go to my mother's funeral or my father's. We didn't have one. We're like that in my family. You know, my dad is now an oak tree. We put his ashes where there's an enormous oak tree growing and every year he gets a little bit bigger. And my mum, she said, Don't make no fuss over me, boy. I promise I'll make no fuss, mum. And Hyde Park was the funeral.
Keith Richards, Himself: It was going to be too much of a circus. And, anyway, I didn't ever go to my mother's funeral or my father's. We didn't have one. We're like that in my family. You know, my dad is now an oak tree. We put his ashes where there's an enormous oak tree growing and every year he gets a little bit bigger. And my mum, she said, Don't make no fuss over me, boy. I promise I'll make no fuss, mum. And Hyde Park was the funeral.
Movie: Crossfire Hurricane
Keith Richards, Himself: To me, the real interest in playing guitar is to play guitar with another guy. Two guitars together, if you get it right, it can become like an orchestra. And, Mick Taylor, is a virtuoso.
Movie: Crossfire Hurricane
Mick Taylor, Himself: At the end of the '69 tour we went to Muscle Shoals and we cut Wild Horses, Brown Sugar and You've Got To Move - which are great tracks. During those recording sessions or just before, somebody must have put it to somebody in the Stones organization that we went to Altamont to do a free concert. It was never planned to be part of the 1969 tour.
Keith Richards, Himself: It was really just a throw-away. You know, there are a lot of these free shows going on and we said, Well, you know, why don't we do one?
Keith Richards, Himself: It was really just a throw-away. You know, there are a lot of these free shows going on and we said, Well, you know, why don't we do one?
Movie: Crossfire Hurricane
Mick Jagger, Himself: [historical footage]We are giving a free concert in San Francisco.
Interviewer: When?
Mick Jagger, Himself: On December sixth. It's creating a sort of microcosmic society, which it sets an example, to the rest of America, as to how one can behave in large gatherings.
Interviewer: When?
Mick Jagger, Himself: On December sixth. It's creating a sort of microcosmic society, which it sets an example, to the rest of America, as to how one can behave in large gatherings.
Movie: Crossfire Hurricane
Mick Jagger, Himself: [referring to Altamont]The whole thing was out of control. I mean, all normality and control had gone. There was no - nothing.
Movie: Crossfire Hurricane
Mick Jagger, Himself: [referring to Altamont]The Hell's Angels were the people doing the security. So, you know, I thought that's the way they do things in San Francisco. You know, it was a very hippy-dippy thing.
Charlie Watts, Himself: Except, these were actual, proper, Hell's Angels. It was a bit like asking the Nazi Party to sort out the fun at the auditorium.
Keith Richards, Himself: When I got a bad vibe about it, when I saw the condition of the Angels. Now, I can tell these guys are on acid and ripple wine. And already in the early afternoon, they're startin' to get antsy. These guys are out there just lookin' for trouble. Now, I went Uh-oh. This'll get ugly tonight. And it did.
Charlie Watts, Himself: Except, these were actual, proper, Hell's Angels. It was a bit like asking the Nazi Party to sort out the fun at the auditorium.
Keith Richards, Himself: When I got a bad vibe about it, when I saw the condition of the Angels. Now, I can tell these guys are on acid and ripple wine. And already in the early afternoon, they're startin' to get antsy. These guys are out there just lookin' for trouble. Now, I went Uh-oh. This'll get ugly tonight. And it did.
Movie: Crossfire Hurricane
Mick Jagger, Himself: [referring to Altamont]We were scared. I mean it was scary. And these people were crazy and they were like standing next to you and we didn't know how to control it, stop it. It was completely out of our control. It was just a nightmare.
Keith Richards, Himself: Everybody was fuckin' scared, man. I mean, I'm sure it was far more frightening for the people in the audience than it was for us.
Charlie Watts, Himself: What we should have done was just closed shop and gone home. But, you couldn't. You got 300,000 people out there that had come, you know.
Keith Richards, Himself: It's a - It's a hard line to call, you know. I mean, if we'd a walked off, I think there'd a been a riot. So, I just did the best I fuckin' could, under a bad circumstances, you know.
Mick Jagger, Himself: It was just realizing that you were out of control. The whole thing was out of control. If you were in any kind of arena or theater, you can just leave, you know, off stage. There wasn't - you were very aware you were, sort of, surrounded; so, you were very vulnerable too - so, that was the feeling. That's why you shouldn't have been in this situation.
Keith Richards, Himself: And then, some bastard gets killed, you know.
Keith Richards, Himself: Everybody was fuckin' scared, man. I mean, I'm sure it was far more frightening for the people in the audience than it was for us.
Charlie Watts, Himself: What we should have done was just closed shop and gone home. But, you couldn't. You got 300,000 people out there that had come, you know.
Keith Richards, Himself: It's a - It's a hard line to call, you know. I mean, if we'd a walked off, I think there'd a been a riot. So, I just did the best I fuckin' could, under a bad circumstances, you know.
Mick Jagger, Himself: It was just realizing that you were out of control. The whole thing was out of control. If you were in any kind of arena or theater, you can just leave, you know, off stage. There wasn't - you were very aware you were, sort of, surrounded; so, you were very vulnerable too - so, that was the feeling. That's why you shouldn't have been in this situation.
Keith Richards, Himself: And then, some bastard gets killed, you know.
Movie: Crossfire Hurricane
Keith Richards, Himself: It's all a bit of a kaleidoscope. [laughs]
Keith Richards, Himself: I was definitely on another planet at the time. Everybody's got a different way of dealing. You know, I didn't for awhile. [laughs]
Keith Richards, Himself: I took to the stuff. As I say, I never had a problem with drugs. I did have a problem with cops. I'd been pushed up against the - my front door, while they're leaping out of the bushes. They were just harassing me, really. There was a definite move on. And while it became obvious, we had to make a decision, you know, okay, we're moving, you know.
Mick Jagger, Himself: Keith always says he was chased out of England by the cops. Well, he may believe that; but, I mean, it's not actually true. But, the real reason the band left was money.
Bill Wyman, Himself: We all thought that our taxes had been paid. We discovered in 1971 that we all owed in the region of a 100,000 pounds each.
Mick Jagger, Himself: Income tax was so high that to earn the money to pay back the tax, we decided that we, the best way of doing that was to leave the UK.
Bill Wyman, Himself: You know, we got shipped to France.
Keith Richards, Himself: I was definitely on another planet at the time. Everybody's got a different way of dealing. You know, I didn't for awhile. [laughs]
Keith Richards, Himself: I took to the stuff. As I say, I never had a problem with drugs. I did have a problem with cops. I'd been pushed up against the - my front door, while they're leaping out of the bushes. They were just harassing me, really. There was a definite move on. And while it became obvious, we had to make a decision, you know, okay, we're moving, you know.
Mick Jagger, Himself: Keith always says he was chased out of England by the cops. Well, he may believe that; but, I mean, it's not actually true. But, the real reason the band left was money.
Bill Wyman, Himself: We all thought that our taxes had been paid. We discovered in 1971 that we all owed in the region of a 100,000 pounds each.
Mick Jagger, Himself: Income tax was so high that to earn the money to pay back the tax, we decided that we, the best way of doing that was to leave the UK.
Bill Wyman, Himself: You know, we got shipped to France.
Movie: Crossfire Hurricane
Keith Richards, Himself: I think in France I felt a sort of lifting of the weights. But, I didn't realize that there are hardly any - we couldn't find a studio in the south of France. So, eventually, we stopped rummaging and I said I got an enormous basement and I love to live on the factory. You know, it saves going to the studio. Its great just to go downstairs.
Movie: Crossfire Hurricane
Keith Richards, Himself: It was a troglodyte existence down there. Nine, ten at night until seven or eight in the morning. The idea of playing a note before the sun went down was ludicrous - whenever you take Dracula time.
Mick Jagger, Himself: My kind of structure is a loose structure. But, when you have no structure - it's really bad. Recording in the south of France was like that, because of all the drugs...
Keith Richards, Himself: The junk was there to help me do the music. It gave me a space that I probably wouldn't have found otherwise.
Mick Jagger, Himself: My kind of structure is a loose structure. But, when you have no structure - it's really bad. Recording in the south of France was like that, because of all the drugs...
Keith Richards, Himself: The junk was there to help me do the music. It gave me a space that I probably wouldn't have found otherwise.
Movie: Crossfire Hurricane
Mick Jagger, Himself: It just becomes disorganized. You got some recording engineers strung out on heroin. You know, because they all want to be strung out on heroin because they think its the thing to do. When it isn't the thing to do for a recording engineer, I can assure you.
Charlie Watts, Himself: I thought it was quite amusing the lot of it. People sort of - they hang around Keith and they think they're Keith! It's like, it's ridiculous.
Charlie Watts, Himself: I thought it was quite amusing the lot of it. People sort of - they hang around Keith and they think they're Keith! It's like, it's ridiculous.
Movie: Crossfire Hurricane
Brett Morgen, Himself: The band always thrives when there's...
Keith Richards, Himself: Adversity? [laughs]
Keith Richards, Himself: I don't know, eh, probably by then, I mean, we felt very much like a, sort of, Pirate Nation to ourselves. And you dig in your heels and say, We may go down, but, we're not going down your way, you know. [laughs]
Keith Richards, Himself: So you kind of got the bulldog comes out in ya.
Keith Richards, Himself: Adversity? [laughs]
Keith Richards, Himself: I don't know, eh, probably by then, I mean, we felt very much like a, sort of, Pirate Nation to ourselves. And you dig in your heels and say, We may go down, but, we're not going down your way, you know. [laughs]
Keith Richards, Himself: So you kind of got the bulldog comes out in ya.
Movie: Crossfire Hurricane
Mick Jagger, Himself: Hedonism was very much on the rise. It was a hedonistic period. The nature of restraint would have been a big pun. The idea of being restrained and disciplined was perhaps a kind of no-no.
Movie: Crossfire Hurricane
Mick Jagger, Himself: It's got its own film crew, it's got journalism, it's got its celebrities. It becomes more than just a tour. It becomes a grand event.
Movie: Crossfire Hurricane
Bill Wyman, Himself: When we got together, something happened. Something magical happened and no one could ever copy that. Every band follows the drummer. We, we don't follow Charlie. Charlie follows Keith. So, the drums are very slightly behind Keith. There's only fractions, seconds, you know, miniscule. And I tend to play ahead. It's got a sort of a wobble. And it's dangerous because it can all fall apart at any minute.
Movie: Crossfire Hurricane
Keith Richards, Himself: You talk about Rolling Stones, you know, it was an unstoppable momentum going on. And in a way you were swept along with it. It's not as if you were particularly in control of it. Or, any of us were.
Movie: Crossfire Hurricane
Brett Morgen, Himself: What is a Rolling Stone?
Charlie Watts, Himself: What is a Rolling Stone? It's someone that is not settled. Like a pirate, a gypsy. Someone who likes to travel, voyage, an adventurer.
Charlie Watts, Himself: What is a Rolling Stone? It's someone that is not settled. Like a pirate, a gypsy. Someone who likes to travel, voyage, an adventurer.
Movie: Crossfire Hurricane
Keith Richards, Himself: Really all you wanted to do is play music, you know. Always trying to get it better. Trying to get the band tighter. After a show, we'd be in a hotel room, knocking out songs for the next album or the next single. It was a continual day-by-day process.
Movie: Crossfire Hurricane
Mick Jagger, Himself: When you're working with another person, its great to bounce things off, you know. And if you're really working well together, you feed off each other's ideas and build upon each other's ideas. So, you've got someone who takes your thing and takes it to another level.
Keith Richards, Himself: Writing songs is a great thing. It's like a jigsaw puzzle and a kaleidoscope put together; except, its all done through the ears. And on that I would say Mick and I are probably very much on the same groove.
Keith Richards, Himself: Writing songs is a great thing. It's like a jigsaw puzzle and a kaleidoscope put together; except, its all done through the ears. And on that I would say Mick and I are probably very much on the same groove.
Movie: Crossfire Hurricane
Keith Richards, Himself: If I wanted to hear the essence of Jagger and Richards together, I suppose it would be Midnight Rambler. Anybody else could have written any of our other songs; but, I don't think anybody could have written Midnight Rambler except Mick and me. And nobody else would have thought of making an opera out of the blues. [laughs]
Movie: Crossfire Hurricane
Mick Jagger, Himself: I don't want to be my extrovert character all the time.
Movie: Crossfire Hurricane
Mick Jagger, Himself: A lot of times when you're being interviewed, you don't want to talk about what they want to talk about. You kind of don't answer their questions. And you can't get rid of it. It's a kind of protection against intrusion.
Brett Morgen, Himself: What are you trying to protect?
Mick Jagger, Himself: You're trying to protect your inner self, I think, is the answer.
Brett Morgen, Himself: What are you trying to protect?
Mick Jagger, Himself: You're trying to protect your inner self, I think, is the answer.
Movie: Crossfire Hurricane
Keith Richards, Himself: You've been thrown into this. I mean, you started being a blues player and then suddenly this fame thing comes in. And everybody has to handle that in their own way. Charlie hates it. Charlie's perfect world would to be in the Rolling Stones but except nobody gives a shit who you are. [laughs]
Movie: Crossfire Hurricane
Keith Richards, Himself: Heroin can be a, sort of, state of suspended animation, really.
Movie: Crossfire Hurricane
Mick Jagger, Himself: I've no idea why he left the band. I thought it was the stupidest idea I've ever heard. And he never told me, really, the reason.
Brett Morgen, Himself: Why in the world would you leave the Rolling Stones?
Mick Taylor, Himself: I don't know. Maybe I thought that I would be able to protect my family from - not Keith's orbit - but, drugs. Because, I slowly became addicted to heroin. There comes a point where you have to choose between one or the other or you die. And I, you know, I survived.
Mick Jagger, Himself: Mick Taylor leaving was a curve ball; because, that was a really good band and it had this balance between Keith and Taylor.
Brett Morgen, Himself: Why in the world would you leave the Rolling Stones?
Mick Taylor, Himself: I don't know. Maybe I thought that I would be able to protect my family from - not Keith's orbit - but, drugs. Because, I slowly became addicted to heroin. There comes a point where you have to choose between one or the other or you die. And I, you know, I survived.
Mick Jagger, Himself: Mick Taylor leaving was a curve ball; because, that was a really good band and it had this balance between Keith and Taylor.
Movie: Crossfire Hurricane
Ronnie Wood, Himself: I was there at Robert Stigwood's party, sittin' between Mick Taylor and Mick Jagger, when Taylor leaned across to me and said to Jagger, I'm leaving the band. And Mick went, What? He said, Is he serous? I said, I think he is, Mick. So, Mick Taylor said, Yes, I am and he got up and walked out. And Mick said, Will you join? And I said, Yes, of course, in a New York minute.
Movie: Crossfire Hurricane
Ronnie Woods, Himself: Fitting into their mold was easy for me. I found the compatibility with playing, the whole life style, the humor, the camaraderie. You know, it was like I'm home.
Movie: Crossfire Hurricane
Mick Jagger, Himself: We were fancy sitting into a more of a kind of not so dangerous. The feeling was you were having a good time. It was more kind of fun. But, it was more colorful and produced and it wasn't supposed to totally seriously. And I think it was very much the Ronnie thing.
Movie: Crossfire Hurricane
Keith Richards, Himself: He's a great guitar player and also very sympathetic. And Ronnie was somebody I'd party with, as well. I mean, he was well versed in every manner. [laughs]
Movie: Crossfire Hurricane
Ronnie Woods, Himself: We lived and breathed the songs, Keith and I. Morning, noon and night and when we slept, which was very rare. Very rare! And we'd live and breathe other influences, whether it would be Mozart or Marley.
Movie: Crossfire Hurricane