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“I don’t consider that you create or write anything. The best way to think about it, for me anyway, is that you’re an antenna. I sit down at an instrument—guitar, piano, bass, or whatever—and play somebody else’s songs. And usually within twenty minutes, more or less, suddenly something’s coming. And that’s when the antenna goes up. [wets his finger and raises it in the air] Incoming! … You work it up a bit and then transmit it."

“The idea that ‘I wrote that,’ or ‘I created that,’ is an overblown artistic sort of thing that people love to put on writing songs. It can screw you up. If you think that it’s all down to you, you’ve got another thing coming. ’’

“I’ll get my guitar out … play some Elvis, Buddy Holly, anything that I can remember. And after that I’ll start to branch out and come up with something of my own."

“You have to let it out somewhere. There’s two sides to everybody, and the shit I like to sing about is always very bittersweet. I like vulnerability but only as long as it’s expressed right. ’Cause there’s a thin line between vulnerable and asshole. Vulnerability has to have an edge on it … I don’t mind getting up there and saying, Ouch, it hurts … If things don’t hurt at all, you’re numb, and that’s the worst. My songs are about where to touch and when to touch … You have to say a few things you wouldn’t want to put in anybody else’s mouth, and not just write something because it fits the image. Then you’re just writing ads for yourself."

—on writing “Angie” and “Wild Horses”

“I receive and transmit—it’s that simple. If I actually believe I created something, I’d be in big fucking trouble. There’s no godhead ego, I don’t believe in the grand, bold-type, WRITTEN BY KEITH RICHARDS. I just pick up the songs and pass them on. They aren’t mine, they’re everybody’s. To me, the best songs are the ones that come to you in dreams."

“I have no idea what the audience makes of me … Writing songs is a peculiar practice anyway. I never feel I write them, I’m just an antenna and the songs are already zooming through the room, and I hope to pick up something. I sit with a guitar or at the piano and play my favorite Buddy Holly or Otis Redding … and, with a bit of luck, something suddenly happens and you’re off on your own track."

“Sometimes we write songs in installments—just get the melody and music, and we’ll cut the tracks and write the words later. That way the actual tracks have matured just like wine—you just leave it in the cellar for a bit, and it comes out a little better a few years later."

“I never wanted to do a solo record until I started doing it."

“I hate things that have only one meaning. I want words to pull triggers."

“First I find a riff and a chord sequence. And if that’s any good, then I start to play it with some other guys and pump it up … There’s no point in writing songs on a sheet of paper … I can’t divorce lyrics from the music. Songwriting is a marrying of the both … The odd brilliant and rare occasions where a song actually presents itself to you in totality from the beginning to the end … is very rare."

“It’s humbling, because you realize, Hey, I didn’t write this. I just happened to be around when it came by."

“People today run themselves into a corner thinking they actually created these things. I’d rather look upon myself as an antenna or some go-between. I’m just around. Songs are running around— they’re all there, ready to grab. You play an instrument and pick it up."

“I’ll go through the Buddy Holly songbook … start playing ’em for half an hour. Let’s try Eddie Cochran or the Everly Brothers … After about an hour, I get fed up with other people’s songs … theirs suggests something else to me, and I’ll start to follow that. It’ll either end up as a song or it’ll end up as a disaster."

“I never sit down and say, ‘Time to write a song. Now I’m going to write.’ To me, that would be fatal … I always like to sit down and play the guitar a couple of hours a day, and something will come … ‘Hey, there it is,’ and then I hang on to the end and follow the motherfucker. The important