A Poem Is a Naked Person (1974)

Eric Andersen: Self

Quotes 

• Eric Andersen : How can you say to me when I walk in a room, you know, "Who are you, man?" You know, it's my session and there's a cameraman holding me back from walkin' in on my session and I'm wonderin' what's goin' on, you know. And they say - you say - "Oh, did I meet you, man?"

  Leon Russell : So, you're a historian, then? You think that there's anything happening right now that is more important than what was happening when somebody grabbed you by the collar and asked you who you were? Do you think that this might be more important than that? Or, do you want to dwell on that for awhile?

  Eric Andersen : Well, I - it wasn't more important. A conversation about filmmaking was not more important than what I was into. That's how I felt. Anyway, but, the introduction, I didn't feel was very - real, you know. That's what I'm saying.

  Leon Russell : Well, it was. You write - you write some very beautiful...

  Eric Andersen : You're jivin'.

  Leon Russell : God damn songs.

• Eric Andersen : You're 42 or, I don't know, 38? Whatever you are. You got famous, man.

  Leon Russell : Your - your daddy's a punk too. Shit, I ain't that old. You don't know me that well to say that shit. 48?

  Eric Andersen : 42, I don't know. How old are you?

  Leon Russell : I'm barely 30 years old. 48?

  Eric Andersen : I don't know how old you are, man.

  Leon Russell : What the fuck difference does it make how old I am? I'm very sensitive about that. I wish we can't talk about it any more.

• Eric Andersen : Being around - so long, you know, that people go through changes - and change, you know.

  Leon Russell : Don't you think its better to go through it at full throttle than rather to hold back?

• Eric Andersen : It's power, you know. It's power when you're a headliner, man, and you have a band.

  Leon Russell : That's right.

  Eric Andersen : But the precision, you know, power has certain precision. The precision that it was at, I couldn't tell whether it was - whether you were a revivalist, man, you know, tryin' to put somethin' over. Or, whether - where it was - where it was comin' from. I didn't know where it was comin' from.

  Leon Russell : Right.

  Eric Andersen : To this day, I don't know where it's comin' from.

  Leon Russell : That's my illusion, you see. Don't get throwed too far off by that.

• Eric Andersen : [singing]  Of those who never asked to die and were too afraid to kill, Time runs like a freight train, won't you take me down the line, There's so much much I can never say of the ruins left behind, Oh, my pockets they are empty, there's so much on my mind...