Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I think being born in Panama was a blessing because Panama is a port city. It's a really - the mentality is that - I remember that of admitting things in. You know, ports, ideas come in and out all the time.
There is a conception about me that I am a playback singer and I sing for albums or for films only, but my roots are in bhajans. Even when I was in school, I used to win competitions for ghazals and bhajans.
I didn't take a break from making music, but I took some time away from the "need to sell it" thing, and moved to my hometown, Umeå. I took my time there, exploring music on my own, on a very personal level.
People ridicule you for the silliest thing, like what you wore to an event. At the end of the day, I'm just being me - if that's not good enough for you, tell me what is. Usually people don't have an answer.
I think humans in general, make associations and feel the need to group things together to have a better understanding of them. Though I would say my music is more country in a lot of ways, than it is surfy.
I love the romance of 'let's get married,' but then, when you have it so perfect... I mean, I'm more married than anybody can be - we have two kids. Maybe one day, but it's something I can really do without.
We get these really deep and emotional fan letters sometimes that are so heartbreaking or shocking or haunting sometimes that I can kind of relate to them in my own way and connect with our fans in that way.
I am always hesitant to call myself an activist, mostly out of respect for the activists who are using their bodies and voices to protest or activists online who are constantly engaging and educating others.
I was just trying out and having some fun. I don't think I'd want to pursue singing as a career; it's an on-the-side thing. It would be great if I could make a career out of it but if I can't, that's OK too.
I don't talk about my past; people ask me about it. I've done things I'm ashamed of, but one thing I can honestly say is that things I've done that I regret, I've never done twice. I work really hard at that.
My song 'Play It Again' is a perfect example of my music because the verses go so hard, and they're so urban; and then this pop hook comes out of nowhere and socks you in the face and makes you want to dance.
If you just concentrate on what you're doing and allow yourself to actually enjoy and let your feelings come out, whatever the tempos, whatever the rhythms, whatever the songs, 9 out of 10 times it will work.
When we took on the name The Drifters, we became the new Drifters, and signed a contract to be put on salary, which I think was like a hundred dollars a week, a piece, five hundred dollars for all five of us.
I've just learned that love is a very fleeting thing, so we - then we have it; we need to hold on to it but hold on to it in a gracious fashion. Not in the smothering but more so just a covering kind of love.
Session musicians kind of respected me because what I was talking about made sense. That all came from an education. Believe me, education does you more good. Maybe that's the reason I've been around so long.
When I think about the real pioneers of the psychedelic movement in a musical sense, not just the culture, everything had a handmade sort of vibe to it. We're inventing our culture as we move along into this.
I have a very big conflict with the individualization of love. I feel like it's egotistical to just love one person when you can love so many of them. I feel so much love that I declare myself a lover of all.
Asking a girl if she's alright is like jaywalking across a black ice-covered 4 lane street: you think you can make it safely to the other side, but you're more likely to slip and fall to a most certain death.
My father worked hard, but we were still very poor; and I didn't want anybody arguing about money, so I became the entertainer, the one who wanted everyone to be happy. I didn't want there to be any problems.
Years ago, I was performing, and people kept calling out for 'Puppy Love' and I just didn't want to. Then I thought I'd have some fun, so we did this insane heavy metal version of it. The applause was polite.
Music is a uniter, so anything that has to do with VIP and ropes and barriers is not my way. Sometimes I have to deal with it, and sometimes I'm put behind those barriers, but I do all I can to bring it down.
I've spent a lot of time in the United States and I'm not under any illusions that it's a crime-free nirvana. I'm well aware it has plenty of problems, though they seem to be associated with particular areas.
I like to mix and match things so I'm infusing a little bit of jazz, a little bit of classical, a little bit of soul, into the whole blues idiom and I'm coming up with something that I'm really interested in.
The first ones I played were in New York at Joe's Pub; I played four shows, but I did something like 30 interviews and a couple radio shows in the mornings and completely blew out my voice. It kind of sucked.
From the point of view of the poor, the hungry, the disenfranchised, the wretched of the Earth... there will never be peace until their condition has been alleviated and until their humanity is in full bloom.
I think sometimes my humor is extremely dry, and a lot of times I would say things that I thought were very funny but... I have a reputation of - people think of me as a very fundamentalist, humorless fellow.
There's no doubt in my mind or anyone else's mind that people like Ed Sheeran, Ellie Goulding, and Sam Smith are where they are because they're supremely talented people, and I have a lot of respect for them.
Playing a stadium is a big adrenaline boost for me and I dig it. It keeps me on my toes and makes me revamp everything I'm doing and not get stagnant with how I approach every show, which is something I like.
When I found out that I was going to be singing with Jennifer Holliday, I literally freaked out! I grew up listening to her, and I was going to cry because I sang with someone who is a huge inspiration to me.
I kind of live my life as an example, and I just never felt like I had to be on the cover of a magazine announcing that I was gay; it's just who I am. I just live my life, and I never really thought about it.
If I give myself a chore, for instance, when I was writing the songs for Shameless, I said to myself, Now, every day for 90 days you have to write a song; good, bad or indifferent. So that was really helpful.
I'd retired for about six or seven years. Coming back to the business, I found that I was sort of not quite a has-been, and it wasn't a new career, it was just kind of difficult to crack the nut, so to speak.
The one appearance that I made for President Kennedy, he, as I understand, had his choice or was asked to make a list of the people he would like to have perform, and I was fortunate enough to be one of them.
Like all these women in Hollywood, people don't realize that they work out like six hours a day with a personal trainer and have a chef. They can pay for all of that stuff, and that's why they look like that.
Glasses are not only functional but can be a great way to express yourself and to change your look. As frames around your eyes, glasses are perhaps one of the most important aspects of how you style yourself.
It's funny, we all really, really got along. I don't know how it was in years past but this year, I was really with a good group of people. No one tried to sabotage each other or steal the other ones moments.
We have an energy about us that's so unique and so intense, and it's because of how much power we have in us as individuals, being confident, harnessing that power, and wanting to share that with other women.
If I could tell every Trump supporter two things, it would be to travel and read a history book. Look beyond yourselves; look at how petty the morals you uphold seem when you realize we are not the only ones.
I have no ancestral link to the mountains. But I really do feel close to mountain culture. Their ways of food, of thinking. The way they hang out with no recording devices and just sing songs with each other.
To have your first No. 1 as an artist was everything I could have ever dreamed for. Now we're keeping our fingers crossed, and hopefully we'll have many more, but there's certainly nothing like the first one.
When we were in Beijing, they were all "it's an honor, you're playing at the oldest rock club in Beijing". And I was all "oh crazy how old is it?" And then were all: "5 years old."Asia is just very different.
When I write, I tend toward melancholy, and the few times that I've tried pure joy in music, it doesn't really work that well. The joy can be through catharsis. I think that's what I do well, and observation.
I grew up making music in my mum's basement, and I used to tell her I was going down there to work, and she'd say, 'That's not work. Go get a real job!' It took me signing a record deal to change her opinion!
The stage is like an addiction. Since singing and dancing had been my dreams all this time, I fall even more into those charms every time I’m on stage. These days I get the urge to make the audience go crazy.
Get your mind right, get your spirit right, and get your body right. And keep it there. That requires working out; that requires fasting, eating well, prayer, and getting to know who you are. And not bending.
There's a story behind every old ballad or work song or nonsense song that I ever knew. Sometimes it's a fascinating story. A story of people struggling for freedom, struggling to get along in this old world.
At the audition, your assignment is to find something new in the song. Something you've never noticed before. A breath carried over, a thought that ties the whole thing together. Then take the risk and do it.
We Americans are world leaders and we must lead by example - particularly in times that require careful deliberation before any precipitous action - lest we fail to walk in the shoes of those we might injure.
After 'Mosaic,' I think a lot of people didn't know what my next record was going to be. And that's what I love. I just love doing music because I'm not going to follow the patterns and formulas of Music Row.
There won't ever be a mass-market record industry again, and that's fine with me because that industry didn't operate for the benefit of the musicians or the audience, the only classes of people I care about.