74 Quotes by Chris Rea

My ambition, a long time ago, was to be a film music writer. A compromise then was to be the guy who wrote songs for a band and played slide guitar. Then the singer didn't turn up for an audition, and I was the only one who knew the words. That was it - bingo! Life took a different course.

'Course, 'Santini' bombed in England, y'know. It came out at the height of the New Wave, which couldn't have been a worse time for a solo singer trying to sell rock melodies.

Ferraris are lovely cars, but I just don't want to be seen in them.

I do have this big weakness: I over-cooperate with people. People say it's because I'm Irish-Italian from Middlesbrough, and me dad was always like that, y'know - 'Get the job done.'

That's why I've never made a live album - I can't bear listening to myself!

I've always felt that if people just came to one of my gigs, all would be revealed.

I was born in the overdub years. I wish there wasn't such a thing as a multitrack tape player, because what you heard would be the record.

I think I've lost that ability to slow things down - that ability drivers have to calculate what's coming by you at tremendous speed. I used to have it.

When I was young, I wanted, most of all, to be a writer of films and film music. But Middlesbrough in 1968 wasn't the place to be if you wanted to do movie scores.