Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
As a singer, I've had many opportunities to travel, and one thing I've learned is that through my music, I can be accepted by people all over the world. I often wonder why so many of us can't accept people who are different here, in our country? It's just not fair to be prejudiced against those whose race, religion or colour aren't the same as ours.
Oh, Al, shut up! Stop criticizing me! First I'm criticized for being a prude and sounding like a social worker or something, then I'm criticized for looking like a cheap broad. How am I supposed to live? Under the water or something, coming up only to say 'I beg your pardon if I disturb you by coming up for air. I'll do my best to remain submerged.'
Once you start carrying your own suitcase, paying your own bills, running your own show, you've done something to yourself that makes you one of those women men like to call 'a pal' and 'a good sport,' the kind of woman they tell their troubles to. But you've cut yourself off from the orchids and the diamond bracelets, except those you buy yourself.
I have lived in many places over the years - sung in many languages too but hearing the Treorchy Male Choir made me realise how deep my feelings are, and always will be, for our beloved Land of Song. Glorious years of hard work and glorious music! Well done! I am only half Welsh - but these sincere good wishes and congratulations come from all of me!
We definitely classify things in order to get closer to what we believe in - so it serves a purpose to really think about one style of music, and to understand the shades of delineation between similar artists. But yeah, it's really nice to listen to something the way most people listen to music! Just to enjoy it, without having to put it in context.
It's about how whenever I fall in love, I have these expectations of the experience being a perfect dream, which, of course, ruins it. I imagine cradling my lover's head in my lap in a cab in the middle of the night, and drinking champagne in an elegant hotel suite. But life's rarely like that, and I usually end up walking home by myself in the rain.
Women of all looks, shapes, sizes, everything, if they recognize how beautiful they are-because they all are-then they carry it that way. And you can see that. Confidence is reflected in how they walk and how they dress and how they speak and how they carry themselves. It's just amazing. And that can turn anybody's head pretty quick, especially mine.
But planes land and so do I, and suns rise, melting away the grounds cool protection. I am finally free, if only for this moment. And should that be the case, then know that I am throwing a parade in first class as I speak. Art has again saved my life, my love and me. What next? Who really cares? Certainly a toast will be in order. Make mine a double.
When I was younger I would always listen to female artists that are my age now and I felt like I couldn't always connect with them because all these people would constantly sing these party songs and I couldn't always relate to them. When I was younger it felt very alienating and I try my best to be the person that I would've needed, for other people.
Writing the songs at the cabin, I couldn't help but be drawn to the boom-chicka rhythms as much as I tried to fight it. But when I fought it, the creative process was interrupted, so I ended up going with it. If I'm ever accused of being derivative of my heroes then I would take that as a compliment. I like staying close to the roots of my influences.
Every job in Hollywood is a risk. You don't know, when you sign a contract, if something is going to pop, you don't know whether this or that network is going to support your show. You just show up and do the best work you can do, gravitate towards the best material, you know, and try to make the right choices. And the rest of it is a roll of the dice.
I remember reading a book that was on songwriting at some point that I found in my dad's store, and just... I did not relate at all. I've always hated structure of all kinds, it just doesn't work for me. I can never fit into the schedules of other people. It's like putting a schedule on your song, and it doesn't allow you to be moved by your own music.
The touring thing is such a huge time commitment. I'm really feeling like I want to start writing and recording music again. But I have to leave for tour tomorrow. That's kind of frustrating; at the end of the day, you're plugging into this lifestyle. It's the "band lifestyle," and that's weird! I would like for touring to be creative in its own right.
Millions of small changes can be done, and through that, there can be a bigger impact because anybody can talk to another person. Anybody can educate somebody if they feel like their neighbor is stupid. It's more like "Educate thy neighbor, my friend." I think that enthusiasm, and not giving into lazy-minded cynicism, is where the potential and hope is.
I felt like I could get away with calling it Black Hours. That could easily be the most depressing record ever written, but because there is this sense of fun throughout the whole thing I felt like I could get away with it. Like "5 A.M."; that song's in a minor key and I'm just wailing away and it could have been just wallowing depression, but it's not.
It's a very scary time for a lot of people; they feel scared to speak up. There's so much controversy even speaking up about politics to begin with. People try to discredit you at every single corner, especially if you're a woman. So it's hard as an artist to really speak up about this kind of stuff when you're trying to be successful and have a career.
My formative years, until I was 12, was all shaped by Jamaican culture, by that economy, by the people in my family, who are agriculturalists, who were plantation workers, who harvested those crops and took them down to the boats run by the United Food Company, to load those ships at night, hence all the songs that I sing that come from that environment.
I have a great support system and I know how to prioritize everything. I strive to keep God in every aspect of my life so that's important, because some days, it requires you to have a great deal of strength. Then, my family is second and it's in that specific order. I look around and I see how everything falls into place once you know which comes first.
I think I would have had an easier time of it if I had had training much earlier. Because when I got to the training, it was in my late 30s and I already probably had every bad habit a singer could have. In fact, it still goes on. It's un-training those habits and retraining new ones - the breathing, the relaxation, the tongue, the lungs, the everything.
Yesterday I wrote the majority of a song called 'Burn the Nightclub Down' which was about kind of driving into Cleveland full of dread at the prospect of playing at this night club and actually just the night before I had called my girlfriend whose birthday it was. And it's her birthday and here I am on the road in some hellhole in Ann Arbor in Michigan.
I was in the beginning of junior high. When I was first offered the record deal, a lot of people were concerned, saying to me, "Stacie, you are so young, and you have a great talent but you don't have to do this right now." If you can do it now, you're only going to get better, you're only going to learn more, and you can do it at any point in your life.
Acknowledging that we lose is the overarching theme in everything in Stars. To me, that's what punk means. Stars is a punk band because we acknowledge loss. We're not trying to win. We're not trying to project victory. You win alone. I'm not interested in singing for the one winner in the room; I'm interested in singing for all of the losers in the room.
I’ve never watched an entire episode of "American Idol." It’s too mean. Why would anyone want to go on a show to be ripped apart? I don’t want to be tough with my singers, but I do want to tell them on "The Voice" that if you really want this, you’ll be kicked when you’re down. You have to be willing to roll with those punches. You have to really want it.
Some people surrender their freedom willingly but others are forced to surrender it. Imprisonment begins with birth. Society, parents they refuse to allow you to keep the freedom you were born with. There are subtle ways to punish a person for daring to feel. You see that everyone around you has destroyed his true feeling nature. You imitate what you see.
On the subway today, a man came up to me to start a conversation. He made small talk, a lonely man talking about the weather and other things. I tried to be pleasant and accommodating, but my head began to hurt from his banality. I almost didn't notice it had happened, but I suddenly threw up all over him. He was not pleased, and I couldn't stop laughing.
I don’t really know why I’m not thinner than I am. I don’t really drink soda, I don’t have a sweet tooth, and we eat healthfully at home. Sometimes I wish I were just magically a size 6 and I never had to give it a single thought. But I am weirdly healthy, so I don’t beat myself up about it — it wouldn’t help, and I don’t want to pass that on to my girls.
When I was sixteen, I began to think outside the box of my small town. Not that the people in my small town are in a box - they're not! There's a brilliant college there, and I had brilliant teachers from that college. But in terms of a conservative upbringing, which I did have within my own family, I just began to question things and to think for myself.
Generally, I start by observing the existing and popular narratives in my social spheres and media, and the pressures I face in my own life experiences. As someone who is "newly" trans, I am constantly thinking about what the dominant narratives are around transness, how my work can push against these narratives, and how it already falls into these traps.
I really like and singing, and songwriting and producing. It depends on the song and the mood and who I'm working with, what the song is about and where it came from, any number of things affect the levels of creativity. I try not to do too much delineating with my art. Really, it's art, so for me I don't have a most, I just really enjoy my entire process.
So crucify the ego, before its far too late To leave behind this place so negative and blind and cynical, And you will come to find that we are all one mind Capable of all thats imagined and all conceivable. Just let the light touch you And let the words spill through And let them pass right through Bringing out our hope and reason ... before we pine away.
There's two or three kids out there trying to make good music, and the rest of them sound like it's been strained through some kind of white toast or something. It all sounds just too neat and perfect, with no surprise to it at all. No story, no nothing. It's like building cars, like an assembly line. It doesn't sound like anything that came from a guitar.
I think Taylor Swift is a really good artist. I feel like her personality shines through everything she does, her music, her fashion, her style. She won Album of the Year, and she’s a really good writer. I’m a song writer so I respect artists who write their own songs. She won Album of the Year when she was 18 or something like that so, I think she’s dope.
The man who accepts Western values absolutely, finds his creative faculties becoming so warped and stunted that he is almost completely dependent on external satisfactions, and the moment he becomes frustrated in his search for these, he begins to develop neurotic symptoms, to feel that life is not worth living, and, in chronic cases, to take his own life.
It was during this [as a kid] time that I came out of my shell vocally and performance wise, I learned how to really and truly sing in a different way.... my way. It was an amazing experience because I also realized my lifelong dream - to sing my own songs...I have something to say and it was a great release for me to share that part of myself with others.
There’s no “correct path” to becoming a real artist. You might think you’ll gain legitimacy by going to university, getting published, getting signed to a record label. But it’s all bullshit, and it’s all in your head. You’re an artist when you say you are. And you’re a good artist when you make somebody else experience or feel something deep or unexpected.
Pain nourishes courage. You can't be brave if you've only had wonderful things happen to you. Pain is inevitable. Misery is optional. Physical pain is a fact that comes with living, just as illness or financial woes or broken relationships are facts. But misery is a state of mind, a reaction to the facts, that can be controlled or altered by an act of will.
Essentially, I'm a very real person; good and bad. And the public image is one of being very good, I suppose. But one of the reasons I'm attracted to people like Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, Christ, to pacifism, is because naturally, I'm the guy that would not turn the other cheek - but, when people see you're attracted to that, they think you are that.
You learn new song until you're comfortable with it to where you can record it blindfolded, but then when it comes out on the record, you forget about those little nuances and those little things that you changed during the recording process. It's those spur-of-the-moment things you do that makes it an entirely new beast that you then again have to relearn.
For some reason, my main movie, Lady Sings the Blues, to me really isn't me. I really can let go of Diana Ross when I see the movie. I'm really objective when I'm watching it. I liked that movie so much. That movie was like magic so that when I'm looking at it I'm really not seeing myself, I'm seeing the actress. I'm seeing another person, not the me of me.
At that time there was, but they didn't have the guitar I wanted. There are only about 2000 people there and the next town was Dodge City 40 or 50 miles away and I didn't have a car. So it was easier to order it through the mail - which you shouldn't do. But it turned out okay. It was one of those Ovations - there's not much danger in ordering one of those.
In the morning I'd write these essays, anything that I'd feel like writing, and in the afternoon, I'd spend time with my guitar. I had decided after listening to my last four or five albums that my biggest weakness musically was melody. the reason I had been singing in a monotone over the chord patterns in my songs was that I never practiced doing melodies.
I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus. Underneath the mistletoe last night. She didn't see me creep down the stairs to have a peep; She thought that I was tucked up in my bedroom fast asleep. Then, I saw mommy tickle Santa Claus Underneath his beard so snowy white; Oh, what a laugh it would have been. If daddy had only seen. mommy kissing Santa Claus, last night.
It [my vocal] didn't sound like what I wanted to hear; the vibrato isn't what I liked anymore. So I got myself to an ear, nose and throat guy who does a lot of work with singers, and I was hoping there was a big wart on my vocal cords or something and they could scrape it off and I could have the voice I wanted. But he said, "No, for 71, that's your voice."
I remember performing with the Choir as an instrumentalist when I was still in school and it was wonderful to share the stage with them again more recently in Rhyl and at the opening of the Wales vs New Zealand rugby international at the Millennium Stadium. Here's wishing everyone involved in the Choir every success - I can't wait to perform with you again.
I do get labeled as a guitar band, but the only reason is that's the instrument I know how to play. The guitar is serving the song I'm writing. But I'm learning how to play keyboard better now so that'll start serving the song as well; it'll be another flavor. I'm not going to switch it up with big, fat drum machine beats and real swoopy synths, but yeah...
I think I started to come into my own when I started doing more original material, and that, I think, culminated in 1998's Modern Cool. I insisted on going my own way. I think until you're more prolific, people don't trust that. So at first I think it was harder. They didn't know what to think, but as I continued along that path, they generally came my way.
For people to even be interested and to reach out and say "I can't wait for you to come out with something", it's just so inspiring and motivating. It just keeps me going and it reminds me of why I love to make music because there's nothing greater than to use the gifts you have and share it with people who have that same affinity for the art that you give.
Every time a cool rock chick or actress seems to respect themselves as a strong woman, I'm like, 'Yeah!' And I love them, and they're my girls. And then they start to go downhill and people aren't paying attention anymore. So they start stripping their clothes off, because that's all they have left. I swear to everything I've ever known, I will never do that
I think 'Elbow' were considered successful even before [2008's] Seldom Seen Kid because we were living off the band. We have a great manager who keeps our coffers topped off, and we give ourselves a sensible wage with a view to having three fallow years between records. We always make sure we have enough money to make a record and not be pressured time-wise.
I can write, boy, I can write. That's what I do. The trouble is that it's too bloody easy for people, that's why music is in the sorry state that it is. Any idiot, actors mainly, can go in there, sing a chord, bang on a machine... I'm not objecting to that but when people get at me for trying to say something in a rock 'n' roll mode it's as if I'm the freak.