Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I don't know if One Direction will stand the test of time. I have a niece who goes crazy for them. But the only way to judge art is to wait and see if it becomes evergreen. This takes a bit of time. Adele is a very good musician and I'd like to sing with her. But, again, time will tell if her music will become evergreen.
One day I was at the park with my family, all my cousins and stuff, in Frankston... We were all just singing a song and my aunty was like 'oh guys, she can actually hold a note.' I think that's the earliest memory of someone actually pointing me out as someone that has an ability to sing. I was probably like 7 years old.
Did you know that the human voice is the only pure instrument? That it has notes no other instrument has? It's like being between the keys of a piano. The notes are there, you can sing them, but they can't be found on any instrument. That's like me. I live in between this. I live in both worlds, the black and white world.
It used to be said that when the Baal Shem Tov came into a town, his impact was so strong, he didn't have to speak. His disciples had to dance or to sing or to preach to have the same effect. I think a real messenger, myself or anyone, by the very fact that he is there as a person, as a symbol, could have the same impact.
I have a tape recorder, and I just sing into it. I like to write that way. Sometimes I'll just get melodic ideas, and then I'll go home and sit down and add the lyrics. Or sometimes I'll get a lyric idea that I love. Usually it's pretty combined. Usually I get some kind of a lyrical concept and a melody and work with that.
The first person that I ever heard sing a song I wrote was Jason Derulo. I was in the studio when he was doing it, and I mean, I've heard that guy's voice my whole life. When he was singing words I wrote, I started kind of choking up, but I tried to be all manly and puff my chest up and be all, 'Yeah, it's not a big deal.'
I was with my band at a karaoke bar in Japan when it was very big there, and they got up and made fools of themselves without practicing properly. I didn't understand why they were doing that. It was like they were making fun of the genre by performing badly. But I didn't get up and sing, so I don't know what it feels like.
You start singing by singing what you hear. So everyone, when they first start singing, they naturally are singing like whatever they're hearing, because that's the only way you learned how to sing. So when I was growing up on Lauryn Hill, when I started singing her songs, I literally trained my voice to be able to do runs.
Dad wouldn't let me fool with his guitar much, because I'm left-handed, and I'd pick it up upside down. But I remember learning to sing 'Paper Doll,' the Mills Brothers song - this was during the war - and I remember my dad taking me down to one of those little record booths where you could make spoken letters to send home.
I was honoured when they asked me to appear at the president's birthday rally in Madison Square Garden. There was like a hush over the whole place when I came on to sing 'Happy Birthday,' like if I had been wearing a slip, I would have thought it was showing or something. I thought, 'Oh, my gosh, what if no sound comes out!'
Starting in my teens, I was always standing on the corner near our apartment singing harmony with friends. We'd also go to the park and sing under the bridge near the lake for the echo. When it was cold out, we'd stand in the little heated lobby in the project's administration building, where my mom paid the rent each month.
It fascinated me, these kids who would sit in their living room or bedroom or kitchen and sing to the camera and act out the song fully as though they were onstage. Because a lot of musical theater kids... do that alone in your bedroom when you're a kid. But for someone to go and put that online? That's just so embarrassing!
I gathered that those two Big-shot Boys, Joe + Fletcher, just was afraid to let me sing, thinking maybe I'd sort of ruin their reputations with their musical public. They not knowing that I had been singing all of my life. In churches, etc. I had one of the finest All Boys Quartets that ever walked the streets of New Orleans.
In the late '70s I was asked to sing for the first time in Germany. I'll never forget it. It was at a festival in Bremen. The German audience went berserk and the reviews were a phenomenon. For some reason the German audience understood how technically challenging this music was; it wasn't just someone yelling their head off.
When I was a kid, I played basketball religiously. I begged my mom to get me voice lessons because I wanted to learn to sing the right way, but at the same time, I was playing Junior Olympic basketball, and I was playing point guard for my school. But I was wanting to get into entertainment, into music and film and television.
All Boston songs are fairly difficult to translate to the stage. None of them are especially easy to play or sing. A lot of them, of course, have very involved arrangements with lots of different sounds and sections that are difficult to play and sing. The prospect of doing any Boston song live is always an endeavor in itself.
'Botanicula' tells the story of a group of twigs, nuts, and leaves trying to escape with the life essence of a tree in tow before nasties from another world destroy them and everything else in their path. Yes, it's a point-and-click adventure game, but behind every click, there's a bit of joy to be found. Bugs sing. Bees dance.
I always knew I would sing. I just didn't know if I would be successful or not. But I sang at school, I sang at parties, I sang at church. Everyone always asked me to sing. I'd be playing football with my friends, and my parents would ask me to sing for their guests. I was never very happy about that because I wanted to play football.
I didn't even know I could sing or write songs. I didn't have that education. But people shouldn't think they can look down on someone like me, because I've had the same success as others, sold the same amount of records, if not more. They shouldn't think that because I'm just from 'The X Factor,' I'm not credible or respected as much.
When I was a kid, and God was talking to me about music, I was like, 'Okay, I'll sing mainstream music,' because I was afraid to sing Christian music to alienate my friends. Honestly, it was going on 'Idol,' having that kind of exposure, that I realized there's something different about me. I just crave God being a part of every moment.
If someone said, 'You can go live in this little town in Costa Rica for a couple of weeks and all you've got to do is sing for us,' I would do that. That's more exciting to me than the prospect of going on some national tour, where you're going to play arenas or sheds every night, because of the crushing repetition of that kind of line.
What's cool about the beatboxing is I was so afraid to sing in front of my peers, my parents, anybody. I just wouldn't do it. So in sixth grade, I would turn to beatboxing because it made me feel better. Like, I can beatbox 'Drop It Like It's Hot.' Doing that a bunch of times eventually gave me the confidence to sing in front of people.
I lived in a small village outside the city and grew up in a large family, so my world was very much centred around that. I used to sing in the local church, and I would also occasionally sing in the local pubs for which I used to get a few bob. That, for me, was the start of my interest in music, which has obviously expanded since then.
I remember when 'Aladdin' had come to India, there were a bunch of people who auditioned. We had to record a video, which I did on my phone. I had worn this red outfit and had to read the dialogues for Jasmine. The scene went really well, but then they also asked us to sing and I can't sing to even save my life. So I really got rejected.
I have seen in many cases that the youngsters are told by their friends and family that they sing very well, but that might not be true. When they are told that they have to work hard on their singing, they get disheartened. One must know how to take feedback from different people and work hard on his or her singing to achieve something.
I love my lecture tours. I get up onstage. I have my stack of books and a glass of water and a microphone. No podium, no distance between me and the audience, and I just talk to people and get all excited and tell a lot of jokes, and sing some songs, and read from my work and remind people how powerful they are and how beautiful they are.
I'm not one of those artists that can go away for six months and tour America and have 20 producers back in London or L.A. doing everything for me and I just come home and sing on it. It would be really useful, in terms of speed, to work like that. I just wouldn't find it creatively satisfying. I have to have my hand on the remote control.
When Whitney Houston died, I felt great sadness. My sadness, of course, was about our collective loss - when you listened to this nightingale sing, your body would drop into a chair, your head would tilt up, a small smile would creep across your face, and inside you knew that there was a higher power somewhere: gifted, beautiful, spiritual.
Without our faith, we wouldn't have been able to succeed. On many occasions, before we'd go out on a sit-in, before we went on the freedom ride, before we marched from Selma to Montgomery, we would sing a song or say a prayer. Without our faith, without the spirit and spiritual bearings and underpinning, we would not have been so successful.
When I was young, I had an 'aha' moment in church. There was a thing called testimony service, and somebody would sing a song, and everyone else would join in, finding a note where they fit. During one of those, a light went on in my head. In that moment, I heard everything - Parliament, the Staple Singers, Curtis Mayfield, Prince - in there.
So when it came to role models, I looked at presidents' wives. Of course, you're talking about a farm girl who stood in the fields, dreaming, years ago, wishing she was that kind of person. But if I had been that kind of person, do you think I could sing with the emotions I do? You sing with those emotions because you've had pain in your heart.
I suppose I've always done my share of crying, especially when there's no other way to contain my feelings. I know that men ain't supposed to cry, but I think that's wrong. Crying's always been a way for me to get things out which are buried deep, deep down. When I sing, I often cry. Crying is feeling, and feeling is being human. Oh yes, I cry.
We never deal with propaganda. We never deal with politics. We never deal with newspaper headlines. We deal with the harsh realities of our lives. We will only comment when there is more bread to eat, more space in which to move, time in which to open your mouth and sing. As long as these things have not happened, we do not talk about politics.
I always tell the story of 'Irreplaceable.' I initially wrote 'Irreplaceable' with myself in mind, with plans of it being my record. I love that record; however, what I realised about that record was that though given the circumstances of that situation - men and women are not that different - when you sing about it, it changes things, you know?
If you ever see young artists, and they're not sounding good, they sound good. They're good singers. They wouldn't be where they are if they didn't sound good. It's their nerves. Any time you see your favorite artist, and he's or she's screwing up or not hitting those notes, it's not because she can't hit it or she can't sing; he or she is scared.
At Tennessee, I said I can't wait to beat Florida in the Swamp and sing 'Rocky Top' all night long. The thing at Tennessee I felt was that there needed to be energy in the program immediately. Two of the last three years there, they were 5-7. Urban Meyer and Nick Saban were at all-time highs. I felt like the fan base and players needed confidence.
I have to control my mouth - and that's hard enough - and then I have to manipulate the puppet and make it look real - like, make its interactions look real. And then I have to sing at the same time, and I have to have my facial expressions reacting to the puppet... So it's a lot going on, and I have to focus on every single thing at the same time.
