the great thing about rock & roll

[text as reproduced in High on Rebellion, from interview on Japanese television, 1978]

The great thing about rock & roll is, like, the whole technology of it is beyond politics...I like to get stoned as possible...I like to get as insane as possible...I continually want to communicate with God even though I know it's very dangerous territory -- which is one of the reasons why I had my accident. But I don't wanna die...I wanna communicate with God -- and when I say "God" I mean whatever...the Great Energy or the Great Light...The American Indians, they knew what drugs were fore. They didn't take drugs and have a party, they fasted, they thought about it and went out into the forest, they took their peyote and then they waited for a message from God. I mean, rock and roll being at its highest point, dealing with sound and trying to, like, touch the tongue of God, it's obvious that drugs would be related to rock and roll. I believe that we, that this planet, hasn't seen its Golden Age. Everybody says it's finished...art's finished, rock and roll is dead, God is dead. Fuck that! This is my chance on the world. I didn't live back there in Mesopotamia, I wasn't there in the Garden of Eden, I wasn't there with Emperor Han, I'm here right now and I want now to be the greatest time. This is my Golden Age...if only each generation would realize that the time for greatness is right now when they're alive...the time to flower is now...

Anything is possible...I was a little girl in New Jersey, I was a very sick little girl and skinny, they didn't even know if I would live. We had no money, we were very poor, and my brother and sister were in hospital with malnutrition, just the same story that could be in any county. But I never stopped believing. I heard Little Richard when I was a little girl, I heard all that rock and roll stuff...And I felt the desire to live, I rose up, I came to New York. I slept in subways, on the street...It's not a sad story, just the story of a person who believes that we were great in the sixties, and we fought then we got battered...people were assassinated, the rock stars died, we lost our president...But all over the world it happened, and we retreated...We have to get out there, because one of the things that these kids now are saying is that there isn't anything. They say "Look at them," it's like we were a bunch of old burnt- outs...well I'm not burnt out. I may be 31 years old but I've just begun. I feel like it's new and it's fresh...I'm just starting!



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