"And I would like to marry and have more children. I would like to try and do it right"
About this Quote
It lands with the bluntness of a drum hit: not a rock star bragging about conquest, but a middle-aged man admitting he wants a do-over. Coming from Phil Collins, the line carries the extra charge of public biography. By the time he’s saying this, he’s already famous for songs that turned romantic fallout into stadium-scale confessionals. So when he talks about marriage and “more children,” it’s not a Hallmark future; it’s a plea to outrun the story people think they already know about him.
The key phrase is “do it right.” It’s deliberately unspecific, which is why it works. Collins doesn’t name the failures - divorce, distance, the collateral damage of touring and fame - but the vagueness invites the listener to fill in the blanks with their own mess. That softens self-indictment into something more widely legible: the longing to be better on the second attempt, to treat commitment like a craft you can finally learn rather than a promise you either keep or break.
There’s also a quiet rebuttal to the rock-myth script. Pop stardom tends to frame family as either a prop (cute kids, glossy redemption arc) or a casualty (the price of greatness). Collins is reaching for a third option: domesticity as unfinished work, not a brand reset. The sentence is almost painfully plain - no metaphors, no swagger - and that plainness reads as sincerity. It’s the sound of someone trying to replace drama with responsibility, even while knowing the audience remembers the drama.
The key phrase is “do it right.” It’s deliberately unspecific, which is why it works. Collins doesn’t name the failures - divorce, distance, the collateral damage of touring and fame - but the vagueness invites the listener to fill in the blanks with their own mess. That softens self-indictment into something more widely legible: the longing to be better on the second attempt, to treat commitment like a craft you can finally learn rather than a promise you either keep or break.
There’s also a quiet rebuttal to the rock-myth script. Pop stardom tends to frame family as either a prop (cute kids, glossy redemption arc) or a casualty (the price of greatness). Collins is reaching for a third option: domesticity as unfinished work, not a brand reset. The sentence is almost painfully plain - no metaphors, no swagger - and that plainness reads as sincerity. It’s the sound of someone trying to replace drama with responsibility, even while knowing the audience remembers the drama.
Quote Details
| Topic | Marriage |
|---|
More Quotes by Phil
Add to List
