Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I always felt different because I didn't pick one specific clique or group to be a part of, and I didn't choose one thing to be. I cheered, sang in chorus, was in student government, played in rock bands, went to dirt races in western PA... My interests have always been diverse.
The pre-chorus always flows and the chorus is always a little bit harder for me because I put pressure on myself. I didn't know that there was a proper way to do these things, so I just write what sounds good to me in my ears and then I hope to God that someone else likes it too.
The journalistic 'I' is an overreliable narrator, a functionary to whom crucial tasks of narration and argument and tone have been entrusted, an ad hoc creation, like the chorus of Greek tragedy. He is an emblematic figure, an embodiment of the idea of the dispassionate observer of life.
The sax solo as we know it today would not exist without Gerry Rafferty. His 1978 soft-rock classic 'Baker Street' has to be the 'Ulysses' of rock & roll saxophone, giving the entire chorus over to Raphael Ravenscroft's sax solo, creating one of the Seventies' most enduringly creepy sounds.
I did everything in high school - I played tennis, I played basketball, I was in chorus, I was in the band, I even did the mascot senior year... I went to the football games, and at half-time I went across the field, met all the cheerleaders and got their numbers! The same year, I won prom king!
When I moved to New York to act I was no good at working restaurants - hosting, waiting, bussing, dishwashing - I wasn't good at any aspect. But I did have a guitar. So I would sing 'Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard,' but you would only hear the chorus because the train comes by every 30 seconds.
There are parts in albums where I wrote a lot of the lyrics. There are parts on albums where Steve wrote a lot of the lyrics, even albums where Steve did the majority of the lyric writing. Then there were albums like 'Coming Home' where I did most of the chorus lyric writing. But it was always split.
No, I chose the name Jane Seymour because I was doing my first film, 'Oh! What a Lovely War,' and one of the top agents in England spotted me dancing in the chorus. I was a singer and dancer in that movie with Maggie Smith, um, and he told me he couldn't sell me as Joyce Penelope Willomena Frankenburger.
In the summer of 2009, in the wake of a crisis in her life, my mother moved from San Diego to San Francisco to live with my 16-year-old daughter and me. My mother was 77. I was 51. Despite a chorus of skepticism from friends - who knew about my upbringing - I was determined to do what I could to help my mother.
I would give anything if it went back to analog age. I mean, music was so real, and you had to sing everything on a record; you had to play everything on a record. There was no cut-and-paste - you couldn't get the chorus right one time and then paste it every other time; you really had to be good at what you did.
'Gorilla Man' is a composite of a few individuals, but the song itself was actually inspired by James Taylor. I spied his 'Gorilla' album laying on my floor and in some altered state, instantly started singing the chorus. It was fun to write. There's an old notebook with at least three more verses in it somewhere.
One of my main problems with music is that the basic formula is always the same: verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus, chorus, chorus, end. One of the bands that changed that was The Beatles. If you listen to 'Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey.' It's three verses, bridge, end.
I would wake up really early and go into the hotel bathroom, put a towel over the toilet, and put my laptop there. I'd put my headphones on and just write. And so now when I do writing sessions, and I am stuck on a part, or I can't figure out a chorus, I'm just like, 'Give me a second,' and I'll go to that bathroom.
For years, I meant to read 'Arabian Sands', Wilfred Thesiger's account of two punishing camel journeys during the late 1940s across Southern Arabia's Empty Quarter. Now that I have, I can sheepishly join the chorus of those who revere the book as one of the half dozen greatest works of modern English travel writing.
With 'Love Shack,' once we put that chorus in, it did have more of a song structure. Even though the verses are all kind of different, the chorus was there along with 'The Love Shack' - I think that really made it a hit. Once we heard it in the studio, we played it for R.E.M., and they were like, 'Yes this is a hit.'
It's an experience I'd like to add to the chorus, that these blue-collar, macho men, like my older brother, had the capacity to say: 'I don't care, I love you anyway.' There are young kids thinking: 'I'll never come out because it's too hard in our communities.' But I'm saying maybe your story can be similar to mine.
There is nothing cooler than to have them singing your words back to you. The last show I did, I was kind of nervous about putting the mic out there, because you're not sure how it's going to go. But I did, and they sang the whole chorus. I thought, 'Holy crap! That is the coolest feeling.' It's the biggest rush ever.
I was up for parts in 'Charlie's Angels' and 'Three's Company,' but other people got them. At the time I was very disappointed because I knew the shows would be tremendous hits. But if I had done either I would not have done the following: 'Chorus Line,' 'Dancin',' 'Chicago,' 'Movie Movie,' 'All That Jazz' and 'Annie.'
When the Beatles wrote 'Paperback Writer,' it couldn't have been the same old thing. You can hear so many influences in it, from the blues to Bach, and it's not just verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge chorus. They start off singing a cappella, almost like a Bach chorale, and the song goes into this bluesy guitar riff.
I was at a school in England, a prep school, from the ages of 8 and 13. And every play they did was a musical. Parents love musicals. And I don't sing. It was driving me crazy. 'We're doing 'Macbeth.' 'Yes!' 'The musical!' And I was always in the chorus, because of course, in all the main parts, you had to be able to sing.
My interest in acting came from seeing Broadway shows on summer trips to New York as a child. It was the original production of 'A Chorus Line' in an easy tie with the first 10 -15 minutes of Dustin Hoffman in 'Tootsie' that hooked me on the romantic idea that the impossible, difficult life of a struggling actor was for me.
The fantasy world of Movement Conservatives is no longer fringe talk. The leading candidates for the Republican presidential nomination embrace it. They are playing to a chorus of true believers, and they are preaching what that choir wants to hear. They are following the same pattern Eric Hoffer identified as the path to authoritarianism.
The 'victim to victory' theory is that, if you listen to the radio, a large percentage of the hits are... about victim to victory, like, 'I'm having a terrible time.' And then the pre-chorus is, 'I don't know what's gonna happen next.' And the chorus is, 'Now I'm brilliant, and everything is great, because something happened to make it great.'
I was thrown into a community production of 'Bye Bye Birdie' or something when I was a kid. I wanted to just build the sets, but I wasn't allowed to just build the sets unless I auditioned for the play. So I auditioned for the play and was thrown into the chorus. During the course of that I fell in love with it, and I never really turned back.
There were only 75 people in my graduating class at the school I attended in Hannah, S.C. It was a small school and that translated into not a lot of opportunities when it came to music. We had academic and sports programs but we never had a consistent music program. We would have a band one year, and a chorus one year, but nothing ever lasted.
You grow as a writer when you learn how to make songs flow from start to finish. That's the best song, when it's such a seamless process to get to this release at the chorus, this euphoric feeling. That's why the Beatles were so good - they did such a good job building so much tension in the beginning to this immaculate release, and then it ends.
