Clarence Clemons: Who Do I Think I Am? (2019)

Clarence Clemons: Self

Photos 

Quotes 

• Clarence Clemons : Boy, being down here, sometimes you get lost. It's good to be alone. It's good to find yourself. It's good not to share thoughts with anybody but yourself, sometimes. A place to find myself. This is it.

• Clarence Clemons : My purpose in life is to bring joy and light into the world. I got the right job.

• Clarence Clemons : To find yourself, you have to know yourself. Deep inside me, I knew there was more and I wanted to find it.

• Clarence Clemons : Forgot where I was. I forgot how old I was for a second there. Rock-n-Roll will do that to you.

• Clarence Clemons : Being the Big Man means: great spirit, great understanding, greatness in love, greatness in peace, and greatness in the boat - right behind me.

  [laughs] 

  Clarence Clemons : And fishing on that boat.

• Clarence Clemons : Something in this place is different. Calmness. The calmness in the midst of thousands of people was allowing me to see inside myself. And I was alone. But, I found a peace in the loneliness. I found joy in people not knowing who I was. What would be next?

• Clarence Clemons : Fushun. Northeast China. A mining town. An industrial city. A blue collar town. Like the one I grew up in. Hmm. It feels different. - - I feel different. I'm pretty accustomed to people stopping me on the street, asking me for autographs or pictures. Its because of the band I'm in. This place is different. One billion people and not one of them knew my name... Not only had they never heard of me, or Bruce; but, they had never seen a black man before.

• Clarence Clemons : Can't stop now. Got to keep on rockin'.

• Clarence Clemons : I wanted to see what would happen, to see what *could* happen.

• Clarence Clemons : This is where many of the Chinese emperors are entombed. The emperors are like father figures. Another father. You write them a letter. You ask them questions. You burn it. The smoke delivers it to the universe and the answer will come back to you. I call it: Chinese Express Mail. It wasn't about religion. It was about spirituality.

• Clarence Clemons : No one knowing my name gave me solitude in the midst of all that was going on.

• Clarence Clemons : Find your own true destiny. Who am I?

• Clarence Clemons : I'd never been here before, but, I knew my way around. I felt very comfortable, as if I had lived this life before.

• Clarence Clemons : "Who do you think you are?" And he's right. Who do I think I am? Sometimes what you're looking for has been there all the time. Who do you think you are? Who the hell am I? We just don't see it. We just can't see it. We just couldn't see it.

• Clarence Clemons : It was a familiar feeling. It was like grandfather's church when I was growing up. It was being baptized when I was 13. It was the same feeling as when I first picked up the saxophone.

• Clarence Clemons : I'm still alone. No one understands my language. I don't understand their language. But, I am finding such peace.

• Clarence Clemons : Spirituality to me is the recognition of a spirit within me - that is greater than me.

• Clarence Clemons : Spirituality is power. Spirituality is our shields.

• Clarence Clemons : I took it all onboard. It all became one. I knew then the search that had taken me to the other side of the world, was swiftly coming to an end.

• Clarence Clemons : On this journey, I had let myself become an open book. Open to everything. Absorbing everything. I wanted it all.

• Clarence Clemons : What is going on in the rest of the world is not important. The brotherhood of music and the unspoken word, I was in my own temple, dancing to the rhythm of my own soul.

• Clarence Clemons : You get a little upset because you think that something bad has happened. Sometimes, you have to stop and look and say: wait a minute. Sometimes its time to move on and you don't want to move on and God makes you move for some other reason. Like I was playing football and what I should have been doing was playing music. And I had this car accident and it stopped me from playing football. You know, this is how I met Bruce, you know. It was one of those things that God would stop me from doing one thing and threw me into something else.

• Clarence Clemons : I started to verbalize things that she had said to me. Deep and meaningful lessons that I will never forget. She's say: Son, always tell the truth. If you lie, you got to keep on lying. Never quit. Never give up on something you really believe. Always stand straight. Look people in the eye when you talk to them. How you see yourself is how other people see you.

• Clarence Clemons : The heart of it, the spirit of it, is that one note, that same note, night after night, that's the promised land. That's where I belong. That's who I think I am.

• Clarence Clemons : A flame has burned away all I've known. Making way for something new. A new life. A new thought. A new consciousness. Find your own true destiny and purpose in this life, while the book is still open.

• Clarence Clemons : Life is about the journey.

• Clarence Clemons : Can you find yourself? Who am I in the real world?