Creativity Quote by Ritchie Blackmore

Ten years on the road is supposed to be the dream: amps up, crowd roaring, the mythology of rock made real. Blackmore punctures that myth with the deadest word in the sentence: waiting. Not playing, not creating, not even suffering for art, just waiting for “somebody or something” like a passenger trapped in the world’s loudest airport lounge.

The intent isn’t self-pity so much as demystification. Touring, in his telling, isn’t a string of peak experiences; it’s an industrial schedule disguised as freedom. The passive phrasing matters. “You end up feeling” frames burnout as an accumulation, not a tantrum. And “always waiting” is broader than logistics; it’s existential. When your days are structured around other people’s cues - promoters, stage managers, crew, band politics, transportation delays - your agency shrinks. You become a high-paid worker with very little control over time, which is the one resource you can’t buy back.

“The whole day is a drag” lands like a snare hit: blunt, unadorned, almost adolescent in its simplicity. That’s the subtext doing the work. A virtuoso guitarist, famous for precision and intensity, chooses a plain complaint because the problem is plain: monotony. Contextually, it echoes the 70s rock-machine era, when relentless touring cycles turned bands into brands and musicians into components. Blackmore’s line reads like a refusal to romanticize the grind - and a warning that even at the top of the bill, the job can still feel like killing time.