Art & Creativity Quote by Tony Levin

The line does the quiet work grief often demands: it praises without mythmaking, then lets regret seep in through a single, disarming “of course.” Tony Levin isn’t selling a legend; he’s documenting a working relationship that mattered, and the restraint is the point. “Great to work with” is shop-floor language from a career musician, a compliment that values reliability, taste, and the unglamorous competence that makes sessions click. “A lot of fun” adds the human oxygen: not just professional respect, but ease.

Then the sentence turns. “I wish I’d had the chance” frames loss as logistics, not poetry, which makes it hit harder. The subtext is time stolen by schedules, distance, bands in orbit, the way collaborations in rock (especially among in-demand players like Levin) can be intense and brief even when they’re meaningful. The repeated “more” does heavy lifting: more music, more time, more person. It’s an artist admitting that the creative bond outpaced the personal one.

Levin’s phrasing also sidesteps the easy, posthumous elevation that turns colleagues into saints. “To get to know him better” is an unusually candid note in a culture that often pretends intimacy after the fact. It suggests a respect for the boundary between what happened and what people wish had happened. The intent feels less like tribute as performance and more like a musician leaving the record clean: the work was good, the man was enjoyable, and the ending arrived before the relationship could become fully lived-in.