Colin Hay's Quotes

Well, my thoughts about California are kind of mythological. To me, as well as being a real place, it's a place where people go to find something - to find happiness or to realize their dreams. So it has that kind of quality of heroism and heartache, and Australia has that, as well.

In certain ways I still feel like I'm finding my way. I feel pretty comfortable playing acoustic guitar and singing, but then I feel pretty good sitting on a reggae groove as well.

There's a fine line between character building and soul destroying.

I can't remember too much about the '80s, to be honest with you... I wish that weren't true, but it is.

I don't think I'm going to change jobs at this point.

I don't walk off and come back for encores. I figure I can add four weeks to my life that way.

I feel pretty comfortable in a lot of different musical styles. I like rhythm, and I like melody and so forth.

I had a very erratic career. I got very famous for a minute and then it just all went away, you know?

I just found over the years that it's very hard to change people's perception of what it is that you do.

I just want to be a better guitar player, really.

I play in a lot of empty rooms.

I used to drink a lot. I had to stop drinking because it was getting the better of me, and I replaced that with really doing shows.

I'd love to have a hit record. I don't believe anyone that says they wouldn't like that.

I've got a long-term plan.

In Scotland, beautiful as it is, it was always raining. Even when it wasn't raining, it was about to rain, or had just rained. It's a very angry sky.

It's frustrating to do albums that you think are worth listening to, but it's just so difficult to cut through.

Most people remember me for a couple of tunes.

My mother features quite heavily in a lot of my songs.

I got very famous for a minute and then it just all went away, you know? And for the last 20 years - you've got to pick yourself up and dust yourself off and then go on your merry way and start again, in a sense, and that's what I've been doing.

I had a very strange career. I mean I went from playing to 150,000 people in 1983/84. Three or four years later I was playing to four people, you know, in Melbourne. I thought - bit strange, you know bit odd, bit erratic.