Top 40 Levon Helm Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “If you pour some music on whatever’s wrong, it’ll sure help out.”

— Levon Helm

2. “Music is the language of heaven.”

— Levon Helm

3. “The power of music just kinda kills all those ills; it cures everything and you’ve got more energy just from the music. And, I’ve never seen it fail. It’s good for ya; real good for ya.”

— Levon Helm

4. “Those bad times are important. They give you a chance to practice, listen, take stock, have a life, get your feet back on the ground, and maybe you’ll live to tell the story.”

— Levon Helm

5. “If you give it good concentration, good energy, good heart and good performance, the song will play you.”

— Levon Helm

6. “If it doesn’t come from your heart, music just doesn’t work.”

— Levon Helm

7. “Drums usually seem to tune themselves.”

— Levon Helm

8. “Good times don’t last long sometimes.”

— Levon Helm

9. “I love horns, and the bigger the band, the better it sounds to my ear.”

— Levon Helm

10. “Drums just always sounded like the most fun part of that good music for me.”

— Levon Helm

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11. “New York, it was an adult portion. It was an adult dose. So it took a couple of trips to get into it. You just go in the first time and you get your ass kicked and you take off. As soon as it heals up, you come back and you try it again. Eventually, you fall right in love with it.”

— Levon Helm

12. “When the second record came out, they started calling it The Band. I voted to call it The Crackers. I’m no fool.”

— Levon Helm

13. “The Jungle Bush Beaters didn’t last too long as a group, but we had a pretty good time while we did.”

— Levon Helm

14. “I’m not in it for my health. I’m a musician and I wanna live the way I do.”

— Levon Helm

15. “I played some Yamaha drums that I like a lot. And I like the Yamaha people a lot too. They’ve been really nice to me and The Band.”

— Levon Helm

16. “Forever Young, by Dylan, is one of my favorite songs.”

— Levon Helm

17. “For me personally, though, the killer was published in Rolling Stone: “Levon Helm is the only drummer that can make you cry.”

— Levon Helm

18. “The rock star stuff never came up for us. The Band was never attacked by groupies before, during or after any show that we ever played.”

— Levon Helm

19. “The crowd is just as important as the group. It takes everything to make it work.”

— Levon Helm

20. “I like walking on the edge.”

— Levon Helm

21. “We’re all dealt with the same hand here, so to speak. I feel like I’ve had it a lot better than most people. I’ve had the opportunity to travel and play music all my life.”

— Levon Helm

22. “I don’t fool with a lot of things that I can’t have fun with. There’s not much reward in that.”

— Levon Helm

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23. “By the time The Band did The Last Waltz, the chemistry had changed, and it wasn’t a thrill anymore to live that studio kind of life.”

— Levon Helm

24. “My parents wanted me to be smart and be a scholar, and the best I could do was graduate high school.”

— Levon Helm

25. “The sound of the blues, rhythm and blues, country music, is what we lived for, black and white alike. It gave you strength to sit on one of those throbbing Allis-Chalmers tractors all day if you knew you were gonna hear something on the radio or maybe see a show that evening.”

— Levon Helm

26. “I don’t think I’m a millionaire, but I’m comfortable.”

— Levon Helm

27. “With horns and a full rhythm section, the drums always looked like the best seat in the house.”

— Levon Helm

28. “I like to get within handshaking distance of the crowd. If it happens, they know it, we know it, and that’s all we came here for.”

— Levon Helm

29. “Conway Twitty was always our local hero while I was growing up. He had a series of good bands. I wanted to sit in, if Conway would let me. And he did a couple of times.”

— Levon Helm

30. “Songs don’t wear out. Good songs are good now. If they were a comfort during those hard times in the past, they’ll be a comfort in today’s age.”

— Levon Helm

31. “Anytime I switch to another instrument, I immediately turn it into another kind of drum so that I can understand it better.”

— Levon Helm

32. “If things are going slow, I’m itchy.”

— Levon Helm

33. “You can either make it come around or you can’t. By the time we would be ready to record a song, we would know for sure that it was the best way we could do it.”

— Levon Helm

34. “I never subscribe to the stay-at-home policy. I’m not sick of the road or sick of eating in good restaurants around the country. I like to travel.”

— Levon Helm

35. “When I was younger, I used to drive up to a bunch of turkeys, roll down the window and say something. They’d all gobble back at once.”

— Levon Helm

36. “Dad and mom would have preferred that I be a doctor, a lawyer, a scientist, or a great humanitarian.”

— Levon Helm

37. “The Band never really played big concert tours. We never sold millions and millions of albums.”

— Levon Helm

38. “I don’t hear record companies coming up with any good ideas or suggestions. Historically, if it ain’t their idea, it ain’t no good, so you got that to contend with.”

— Levon Helm

39. “Most of our stuff was trial and error. You live with a tape recorder, you turn it on, you play the song and you listen to it.”

— Levon Helm

40. “My dad and I played music. He teaches me a song or two every time I’m home.”

— Levon Helm

41. “Lord, when the song wants to pick up and go a little faster towards the end, it’s hard for me to resist.”

— Levon Helm

42. “If you feel like you’re getting into a rut with a song, a night off usually fixes it.”

— Levon Helm

43. “I’ve had all the lessons I could get. I’ve learned from everybody I’ve ever met.”

— Levon Helm

44. “I was in high school, trying to get out of high school. The only thing slowing me up was grades.”

— Levon Helm