"And it sort of jogged a memory of something that I read at school and I read it, and I thought God this is it. So you never can tell. I could find something this afternoon"
About this Quote
Creative certainty gets demoted here from divine lightning bolt to a slightly sheepish rummage through the mental attic. Andrew Lloyd Webber is talking about inspiration the way working artists actually experience it: not as a mystical state, but as an interrupted errand. The charm is in the offhandness. "Sort of", "jogged", "something" - the language keeps refusing grandeur, even as he reaches for a big feeling ("God this is it"). That collision is the point. The moment of recognition arrives with the force of revelation, but it’s triggered by something as unglamorous as rereading a school text.
The subtext is quietly anti-romantic and, in its own way, pragmatic. Webber isn’t claiming originality as immaculate conception; he’s admitting that the past is a toolbox and that taste is a form of labor. School reading becomes cultural compost: it sits, it breaks down, and then one day it feeds a new melody or dramatic idea. There's also a gentle rebuke to the preciousness around creativity. If "I could find something this afternoon" is true, then the artist’s job is to stay porous and ready, not to wait for the muse to send a calendar invite.
Contextually, it fits a composer whose career depends on turning reference into spectacle - literature, myth, history, pop idioms - and doing it on deadline. The line sells a reassuring, slightly ruthless idea: inspiration is available to the attentive, and it can strike on an ordinary afternoon if you’ve stocked your inner shelves.
The subtext is quietly anti-romantic and, in its own way, pragmatic. Webber isn’t claiming originality as immaculate conception; he’s admitting that the past is a toolbox and that taste is a form of labor. School reading becomes cultural compost: it sits, it breaks down, and then one day it feeds a new melody or dramatic idea. There's also a gentle rebuke to the preciousness around creativity. If "I could find something this afternoon" is true, then the artist’s job is to stay porous and ready, not to wait for the muse to send a calendar invite.
Contextually, it fits a composer whose career depends on turning reference into spectacle - literature, myth, history, pop idioms - and doing it on deadline. The line sells a reassuring, slightly ruthless idea: inspiration is available to the attentive, and it can strike on an ordinary afternoon if you’ve stocked your inner shelves.
Quote Details
| Topic | Learning |
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