Creativity Quote by Rick Wakeman

Name-dropping here isn’t bragging; it’s Wakeman drawing a map of legitimacy. As a prog-rock keyboardist often framed as the virtuoso in a cape, he’s quietly insisting that craft - writing, not just playing - is the real hierarchy. The repeated word “class” does heavy lifting: it’s admiration, but also a code for discipline, taste, and that almost British idea of excellence you can’t quite quantify but everyone’s supposed to recognize. He’s not praising Bowie’s fame. He’s praising Bowie as a “writer,” which nudges Bowie away from glam mythmaking and toward the hard, less romantic labor of lyric and structure.

The lineup is telling. Bowie is placed beside Lennon and McCartney not because their styles match, but because they’re pop authors who smuggled ambition into mass culture. Wakeman’s intent is to align himself with that tradition: progressive music that still respects the concise punch of songwriting. It’s also a small corrective to the stereotype that prog is all technique and no human center. By foregrounding lyricists, he’s arguing that emotion and narrative are the engine, virtuosity the vehicle.

Then comes the curveball: David Cousins. To a mainstream listener, that name doesn’t land like Bowie. That’s the point. Wakeman’s favorite lyricist isn’t the obvious canon pick; it’s a deeper-cut allegiance (Cousins’ Strawbs work is literate, pastoral, uneasy). Subtext: the true influences aren’t only the giants everyone cites, but the writers who taught you how to sound like yourself.