Strive to be different and better than what is already out there if you are creating - Benjamin Clementine does that.

Viv Albertine

Categorized in : You Better Be Different Different

We grew up during the 'peace and love' of the 1960s, only to discover that there are wars everywhere, and love and romance is a con.

discover only love peace

Finding another person to love is finding another person to lose.

lose person love-is love

It is soul-destroying to have your work and physical appearance picked to pieces.

physical your appearance work

You've got one life: find your voice within it.

your you voice life

I've had two great loves: my mother and my daughter.

great daughter mother two

I read a lot when I was young. All the obvious, all the greats, from 'Le Grand Meaulnes,' 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' 'Fear and Loathing,' 'Catcher in the Rye,' 'The Bell Jar,' 'The Female Eunuch,' 'Valley of the Dolls,' 'The Feminine Mystique,' Tom Wolfe. Then, film took over for me. Film was so exciting in the '70s.

over me young fear

I'm very true to the old punk ethics of honesty and truthfulness and integrity... and still be authentic.

true ethics honesty integrity

I think I function well in most parts of my life but possibly not in that emotional side of my life.

my-life think emotional life

People think you're vulnerable when you tell the truth, but it's never hurt me.

me you truth people

People say you mellow as you get older, and I really haven't.

people-say say you people

There was an angry wave in the '70s, a strong feminist angry wave. I remember thinking - oh my God - I thought it was the beginning of something, and it all went quiet.

angry god remember thinking

I hate to say it, but one of the worst things you could be called when I was younger was unfeminine.

say things you hate

We used to have massively long discussions about how we should stand on stage. Should we stand with our legs apart? No, all the guys with guitars in skinny jeans stand with their legs apart, and you'd think, 'We can't stand like that.' We'd spend hours and hours, days and days, discussing how to stand.

stand think you long

Look at Kate Bush, Patti Smith, Yoko Ono - three really private people, but when they're on stage or when they're singing, they let go like no one else.

go look singing people

I think sometimes men find it easier to be a carer than an accessory. I mean, most women I know in bands are pretty lonely. Guys don't want to travel around with you. I know loads of women who do it, but guys don't do it. They're not brought up for it.

you women men travel

The more blows you have in life, the better, because it means you're challenging yourself.

yourself better you life

Doctors didn't know if I would survive. The cancer was too big to operate on, so they blitzed it with chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

survive big know cancer

I've had to fight for everything.

had fight everything

I'm still angry at so much - class, gender, society, the way we are constantly mentally coerced into behaving a certain way without us even knowing it. I feel so oppressed by the weight of it all that I just want to blow a hole in it all.

feel gender angry society

When you've fought and fought to keep positive and to keep creative even though there was not a space to be creative, well, you show me any human who is not angry after 60 years of that.

me you angry positive