"We loved everything. We wanted to be able to do anything"
About this Quote
The second sentence tightens the screw. “We wanted to be able to do anything” shifts from feeling to power. The phrasing is tellingly clumsy - “wanted to be able” - because the desire isn’t for one act, but for capacity itself: the fantasy of unlimited range. That’s the musician’s dream (play any style, write any song, live any life) and the counterculture’s promise (expand your mind, rewrite the rules), compressed into a simple admission. It’s aspirational, but it also reads like a preemptive defense: if you wanted everything, of course you overreached.
Capaldi’s context matters. As Traffic’s co-founder and a key songwriter, he lived in a moment when rock tried to graduate from entertainment into art, politics, and spirituality all at once. That ambition produced masterpieces and messes. The subtext is the cost: loving everything can be a refusal to choose; wanting to do anything can be fear of limits, commitment, or adulthood. The line lands because it’s both celebration and confession - the high of boundless possibility, and the quiet recognition that “anything” is never actually sustainable.
Quote Details
| Topic | Romantic |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Capaldi, Jim. (2026, January 18). We loved everything. We wanted to be able to do anything. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/we-loved-everything-we-wanted-to-be-able-to-do-12706/
Chicago Style
Capaldi, Jim. "We loved everything. We wanted to be able to do anything." FixQuotes. January 18, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/we-loved-everything-we-wanted-to-be-able-to-do-12706/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"We loved everything. We wanted to be able to do anything." FixQuotes, 18 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/we-loved-everything-we-wanted-to-be-able-to-do-12706/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.




