Quotes

[on Bo Diddley] Bo's one of the guys who invented rock 'n' roll. He took two cultures that existed in separate forms--country and western and the kind of blues that used to be known as "race music"--and put them together. His beat was a jungle beat. That's what he called it.

Why would I want to celebrate a band that has driven me so much pain and anguish? And the fact that in Britain it's been ruled by a high court judge that I cannot enter Britain as an Animal anymore. I'm getting sued by my fellow members of the early band to the point of where I can't . . . I'm not supposed to call myself Eric Burdon and The Animals anymore in Britain . . . so that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

[Bruce Springsteen] wanted to produce me. For some reason I said no, I didn't think it was the right time for me. I can't even come up with a reason why I should say no to Springsteen because I love the guy's work and the more I know about him and the people around him, he's a really stand-up guy. For a long time I would have a thought now and again, "Man, why did I turn Bruce down? What did I do that for?" But I do a lot of things on the spur of the moment and afterwards I think, "What did I do that for?" Maybe my dyslexia has something to do with that, I don't know. If you put me in a room with two buttons, a green button and a red button, and it says "Red button, do not press" . . . I will. I'll press it. And I'm supposed to press the green one.

Yeah, I love jazz. But most of the jazz that I love is of the past. If I listen to jazz, I'm listening to Duke Ellington. If I'm listening to jazz voicings, I'm listening to Big Joe Turner, Joe Williams, people like that. The concept of the voice within the structure of the music world is a very special thing for me because that's what I do, so I have to make it a special thing. But it is a special thing and the fact that the first, real, original instrument was the human voice when centuries ago the inhabitants of the planet would copy the sound of birds in the trees and all that. That's where singing came from and then it became a way of passing on messages and spreading the news when there was no newspapers, when there was no Internet. There was strolling minstrels who sang the news, they would sing the weather forecast, they would sing the cricket results in their bars. So y'know, the voice is a very special thing and that's why I still make the challenge of getting up in front of an audience and hoping that they'll like what I have to say and the way that I have to say it.

I didn't like punk music but I agreed with what they were saying.

[2020, after Donald Trump used "House of the Rising Sun" at a rally] A tale of sin and misery set in a brothel suits him so perfectly!