Song Quotes - Page 220

Grid View List View
Quote of the DayPicture QuotesTop 100 Inspirational QuotesTop 100 Love QuotesTop 100 Happiness Quotes
Johann Wolfgang Von GoetheSaint AugustineThomas JeffersonEpictetusJulius CaesarFrancis Of AssisiRodney DangerfieldSteve JobsMahatma GandhiSteven Wright
PoliticsGood MorningHappyCommunicationThank YouHopePositiveQueensDaughterBrainy

It is irrational to charge high prices for socially valuable innovations as this guarantees that they will be underutilized. It is much better to sell them at cost and then to reward the innovator in some other way. This is not always possible, because in some cases the value of an innovation is in the eye of the beholder; it's very difficult to value how much a new Madonna song is worth, for example. But in the case of medicines, green technologies and seeds in agriculture, such an alternative reward mechanism is fairly straightforward.

Singing 'Blowin' in the Wind' all the places we've been, it takes on a different meaning everywhere. When you sing the line, 'How many years can a people exist, before they're allowed to be free?' in a prison yard for political prisoners in El Salvador; if you have sung it to a group of union organizers, who have all been in jail, in South Korea; if you've sung to Jews in the Soviet Union who have been refused exit visas; if you've sung it with Bishop Tutu protesting apartheid, the song breathes, it lives, it has a contemporary currency.

Time is an enormous, long river, and I’m standing in it, just as you’re standing in it. My elders are the tributaries, and everything they thought and every struggle they went through and everything they gave their lives to, and every song they created, and every poem that they laid down flows down to me – and if I take the time to ask, and if I take the time to see, and if I take the time to reach out, I can build that bridge between my world and theirs. I can reach down into that river and take out what I need to get through this world

As he rounded the corner, he saw two dozen men, naked to the waist, digging a hole thirty yards square at the side of the path. For a moment he was baffled. It seemed to have no agricultural purpose; there was no more planting or ploughing to be done. Then he realized what it was. They were digging a mass grave. He thought of shouting an order to about turn or at least to avert their eyes, but they were almost on it, and some of them had already seen their burial place. The songs died on their lips and the air was reclaimed by the birds.

The heavenly bodies are nothing but a continuous song for several voices (perceived by the intellect, not by the ear); a music which... sets landmarks in the immeasurable flow of time. It is therefore, no longer surprising that man, in imitation of his creator, has at last discovered the art of figured song, which was unknown to the ancients. Man wanted to reproduce the continuity of cosmic time... to obtain a sample test of the delight of the Divine Creator in His works, and to partake of his joy by making music in the imitation of God.

My mother wanted me to learn how to read music. She'd given fiddles to my two older brothers, but they'd rebelled. I came along and my father said, "Oh, let Peter enjoy himself." What she did was leave musical instruments all around the house. Whistles, marimbas, squeeze boxes, a piano and organ. By age six or seven, I could bang out a simple tune on almost anything. I developed a good ear, so I didn't learn to read music until I taught myself at age eighteen, 'cause I was hearing so many good songs I couldn't possibly remember them all.

The word C.R.E.A.M. - which stands for "Cash Rules Everything Around Me" - is from Wu Tang Clan. This song is about a prostitute who falls in love with her client, who winds up being a drug girl in New York. It's an ode to the girl who works in the streets; it gives her a face and a name and a story. I used to go and admire those girls. I was inspired by their bravery and their femininity, and how they were just putting themselves out there. It was intense to see. It's strange, but they kind of inspired me in a way. I felt it was so bold.

I would only listen to certain things, like a lot of teenagers do. But the Tragically Hip is a ribbon that's been with me pretty much my entire musical life. Every mix tape I ever made had at least one Hip song on it. Right from the outset I feel like Gord Downie built so much room into his songs. There was so much space in them that he created. He made me think of songwriting as full of boundless possibilities in a way that - well, that a lot of songwriters do, but that was the first time I thought a song could really contain multitudes.

This is why I loved the support groups so much, if people thought you were dying, they gave you their full attention. If this might be the last time they saw you, they really saw you. Everything else about their checkbook balance and radio songs and messy hair went out the window. You had their full attention. People listened instead of just waiting for their turn to speak. And when they spoke, they weren't just telling you a story. When the two of you talked, you were building something, and afterward you were both different than before.

You just do the best you can. It doesn't necessarily mean that you have to get worse the more you do it. It can get better, I think... aspects of it, anyway. I mean, I don't write as much as I used to. But I don't do a lot of things as much as I used to. So that's the natural order of things, too. You're more or less living in the present. You're just trying to get that next song, whatever it is. And not think too much about what happened on the last record, or the record you made 20 years ago, because those are over with. Those are done.

The potential beauty of human life is constantly made ugly by man's ever recurring song of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever rising tides of revenge. Man has never risen above the injunction of the lex talionis: "Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot." In spite of the fact that the law of revenge solves no social problems, men continue to follow its disastrous leading. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path.

If you can make a little painting for the ears with a few words, well, I like words; I like cutting them up and finding different ways of saying the same thing... I get into a spell, and it all comes easy. I don't labor over it. I go inside the song, I think you make yourself an antenna for songs, and songs want to be around you. And then they bring other songs along, and then they're all sitting around, and they're drinkin' your beer, and they're sleeping on the floor. And they are using the phone, they're rude, thankless little f---ers.

It reset and mended my freshly damaged and distorted view of life, and made me recognize that this thing we call music, this primal expression that we reshape and refine and define ourselves with, is the gift I was given. The ability to communicate what others feel but cannot fully express, the passing down and around of songs and stories, from Pete Townshend to Joey Ramone to me, to the audiences who take the time and effort to support our work and give us a way to support ourselves -- I'm thinking this is what I am supposed to be doing.

Actively we have woven ourselves with the very warp and woof of this nation, - we have fought their battles, shared their sorrow, mingled our blood with theirs, and generation after generation have pleaded with a headstrong, careless people to despise not Justice, Mercy and Truth, lest the nation be smitten with a curse. Our song, our toil, our cheer and warning have been given to this nation in blood-brotherhood. Are not these gifts worth the giving? Is not this worth the striving? Would America have been America without her Negro People?

The copy of an ad is merely a punning gag to distract the critical faculties while the image of the product goes to work on the hypnotized viewer. Those who have spent their lives protesting about 'false and misleading ad copy' are godsends to advertisers, as teetotalers are to brewers, and moral censors are to books and films. The protesters are the best acclaimers and accelerators. Since the advent of pictures, the job of the ad copy is as incidental and latent as the 'meaning' of a poem is to a poem, or the words of a song are to a song.

Silence is Golden; it has divine power and immense energy. Try to pay more attention to the silence than to the sounds. Paying attention to outer silence creates inner silence: the mind becomes still. Every sound is born out of silence, dies back into silence, and during its life span is surrounded by silence. Silence enables the sound to be. It is an intrinsic but unmanifested part of every sound, every musical note, every song, and every word. The unmanifested is present in this world as silence. All you have to do is pay attention to it.

If there is one thing I think I have accomplished, it's that I always thought of myself as a very literal songwriter, and as I look at some of those older records, I don't hear it now the way I did when I was 20. I think it is undeniable that the songs have become more instantaneously descriptive and literal. I'd like the songs to be more storytelling, but also have the turns of phrase within them that would hopefully distance my writing from the pack. I feel like on those older records there are a lot of attempts at clever turns of phrase.

I think I'm better at producing than I am at being a songwriter, but it doesn't change the fact that I still have a desire to play and write songs. I've never wanted to be a career musician. But I still love to play and write. It's a big part of who I am. Songwriting is not particularly easy for me. I think it would be easy for me if I didn't have such high restrictions and feelings about what I want my music to be. I'm not precious at all when it comes to producing music and I can bring that to an artist and let them expand their horizons.

Shut the door, they're coming through the window, shut the window, they're coming through the door," are the words to an old song. They fit my lifestyle with newly arriving butcher/censors every month. Only six weeks ago, I discovered that, over the years, some cubby-hole editors at Ballantine Books, fearful of contaminating the young, had, bit by bit, censored some 75 separate sections from the novel. Students, reading the novel which, after all, deals with censorship and book-burning in the future, write to tell me of this exquisite irony.

For they told you life is hard Misery from the start, It's dull, it's slow, it's painful But I tell you life is sweet In spite of the misery There's so much more, be grateful So, who will you believe Who will you listen to Who will it be 'Cause it's high time that you decide It's time to make up your own Your own state of mind Oh they told you life is long Be thankful when it's done Don't ask for more, be grateful But I tell you life is short Be thankful because Before you know it It will be over 'Cause life is sweet, life is also very short

I write a lot and I will have some originals on the record. I think it is a mistake for an artist like me to think I am a better writer than Cole Porter. I think it is important to realize what my strengths are. I do like to write and I'm not shabby but I don't think I'm the most brilliant writer. I think it would be a shame and sort so egotistical to say I don't need these wonderful writers. These men created works of art and wrote hundreds of beautiful songs. It would be a mistake for me to say at this point in my career that I am so good.

Cheap music, childish images, the vulgate in language, in its crassest sense, can penetrate to the deeps of our necessities and dreams. It can assert irrevocable tenure there. The opening bars, the hammer-beat accelerando of Edith Piaf's Je ne regrette rien - the text is infantile, the tune stentorian, and the politics which enlisted the song unattractive - tempt every nerve in me, touch the bone with a cold burn and draw me into God knows what infidelities to reason, each time I hear the song, and hear it, uncalled for, recurrent inside me.

When the Dark comes rising six shall turn it back; Three from the circle, three from the track; Wood, bronze, iron; Water, fire, stone; Five will return and one go alone. Iron for the birthday; bronze carried long; Wood from the burning; stone out of song; Fire in the candle ring; water from the thaw; Six signs the circle and the grail gone before. Fire on the mountain shall find the harp of gold Played to wake the sleepers, oldest of old. Power from the Green Witch, lost beneath the sea. All shall find the Light at last, silver on the tree.

"St. Lucia We Love" is actually a song produced by Stratosphere music (also St. Lucian). The CEO of Stratosphere music approached me and wanted me to produce a music video for this song which was already a hit in my country. I felt privileged to have been chosen to do such a video. So every time I went out to shoot a scene from the video, I would get a still shot from the scene to tease the public. The photo of the amazona versicolor is is an actual scene from the video which was released on St. Lucia's Independence day (22nd February, 2013).

Despite the fact that Starbucks has grown to be a large company. We've always played music in our stores and has always acted as an opportunity to create a mood in our stores. And customers started asking, "What song are you playing and can I buy that?" . And we said "No." And that was kind of the catalyst for beginning to look at music. We started out with our own compilations and after the success of that. We had the courage to say, "Let's produce our own record." and the first record was with Ray Charles before he unfortunately passed away.

Jazz presumes that it would be nice if the four of us-simpatico dudes that we are-while playing this complicated song together, might somehow be free and autonomous as well. Tragically, this never quite works out. At best, we can only be free one or two at a time-while the other dudes hold onto the wire. Which is not to say that no one has tried to dispense with wires. Many have, and sometimes it works-but it doesn't feel like jazz when it does. The music simply drifts away into the stratosphere of formal dialectic, beyond our social concerns.

-“Say no more,” Leif interrupted. “I understand. I will simply have to kill them all myself.” -"There he goes again. I’m telling you, Danny Elfman would love to get hold of those lines." -"Not John Williams?" -"If you’ve got some hopelessly overmatched heroes fighting evil and some Imperial types marching, John Williams is your guy. You need a song to make people reach for a box of Kleenex, talk to Randy Newman. But if you want creepy atmospherics and spine-shivering chords to back up your casual death threats, you gotta bring in Danny Elfman.

Gimme the tune. Do I like this tune? Does it sound like another tune that I like? The more familiar it is, the better I like it. Hear those three notes there? Those are the three notes I can sing along with. I like those notes very, very much. Give me a beat. Not a fancy one. Give me a GOOD BEAT -- something I can dance to. It has to go boom-bap, boom-boom-BAP. If it doesn't, I will hate it very, very much. Also, I want it right away -- and then, write me some more songs like that -- over and over and over again, because I'm really into music.

That story about the two women in my life is - a lot of people get upset, a lot of people question it. Steven Soderbergh said to me, "The story of your life is incredible. The real story of your life that's interesting, more interesting than all the other stuff - the franchises, the movies, the songs, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra - the real thing that's interesting and unbelievable is the relationship with these two women. And if you're willing to put that out there, you know then, you're going to have a great movie. Because that's the movie."

The government did a lot of things to us in terms of sending pictures to my house. If I had to go to a school to give a speech and the sorority wanted to sign a song, they would send [a person] to my house and tell my wife that I had sex with this woman or that woman.It got to the point where my wife didn't know what to believe anymore, and the fact that I didn't have a job, I couldn't support my bills, the fact that I was getting ready to go through maybe a mental setback in terms of depression, we just had a tremendous amount of things on us.

I usually start with a guitar riff or some little pattern of chords, and then I kind of go from there. Usually my lyrics are the last thing to go onto a song. For years and years I only ever did instrumental, so I'm still trying to get confidant with my lyrics and find the right balance. I'll generally get inspired from the music. I'll have a guitar line, and then I'll have a melody line, and I hook the lyrics up to fit that rhythm. So, my lyrics to tend be very rhythmic as well. They work with the music rather than the music works around them.

I want to be taken playfully, not seriously - not with a long British face, but with beautiful laughter. Your laughter, your playfulness is the recognition that you have understood me. Your seriousness shows that you have misunderstood me, you have missed it - because seriousness is nothing but sickness. It is another name of sadness; it is a shadow of death. And I am all for life. If it is needed for your laughter, your dance, even to reject me, then reject me - but don't reject the dance and the song and the life, because that is my teaching.

Between the years of ninety-two and a hundred and two, however, we shall be the ribald, useless, drunken, outcast person we have always wished to be. We shall have a long white beard and long white hair; we shall not walk at all, but recline in a wheel chair and bellow for alcoholic beverages; in the winter we shall sit before the fire with our feet in a bucket of hot water, a decanter of corn whiskey near at hand, and write ribald songs against organized society... We look forward to a disreputable, vigorous, unhonoured, and disorderly old age.

You think fairy tales are only for girls? Here's a hint - ask yourself who wrote them. I assure you, it wasn't just the women. It's the great male fantasy - all it takes is one dance to know that she's the one. All it takes is the sound of her song from the tower, or a look at her sleeping face. And right away you know - this is the girl in your head, sleeping or dancing or singing in front of you. Yes, girls want their princes, but boys want their princesses just as much. And they don't want a very long courtships. They want to know immediately.

I'd always thought that my awkwardness was a thin veil disguising the real me. The me that was funny and could write songs that touched people. The me that would one day find some beautiful, intelligent boy who'd recognize me as his soul mate. The me who was secretly pretty and stylish if only someone would lift the veil and see. But I was beginning to suspect that underneath the awkwardness there was just more awkwardness and not much else. And that would explain why I stood in a room full of people and felt like the loneliest girl in the world.

Will sat where he was, gazing at the silver bowl in front of him; a white rose was floating in it, and he seemed prepared to stare at it until it went under. In the Kitchen Bridget was still singing one of her awful sad songs; the lyrics drifted in through the door: "Twas on an evening fair I went to take the air, I heard a maid making her moan; Said, 'Saw ye my father? Or ye my mother? Or saw ye my brother John? Or saw ye the lad that I love best, And his name it is Sweet William?" I may murder her, Tessa thought. Let her make a song about that.

There's an interesting story around that ["Heaven Without a Gun"], because the girl I was dating at the time got into a bike accident and couldn't make it into the studio, and the gentleman Dave Hamlin who worked on this record along with Ohad sort of took it, rearranged it. Dave went and sonically changed it and changed the keys so that Andy could sing it better. All these pieces came together that suddenly displayed that the song was meant for Andy [Kim] to sing. And he always said, "I'll never understand it, but I'll sing it with all my heart."

I wrote 'Turn Your Radio On' in 1937, and it was published in 1938. At this time radio was relatively new to the rural people, especially gospel music programs. I had become alert to the necessity of creating song titles, themes, and plots, and frequently people would call me and say, 'Turn your radio on, Albert, they're singing one of your songs on such-and-such a station.' It finally dawned on me to use their quote, 'Turn your radio on,' as a theme for a religious originated song, and this was the beginning of 'Turn Your Radio On' as we know it.

I don't have one thing I go back to, but we listen to a lot of music in the bus, and we always get a few songs or a few records that end up being themes for the tour. On tour I read all of George Saunders' short stories and all of Alice Munro's short stories. George Saunders is who has taught me about this question about whether or not love is possible in the contemporary world, with all of its simulations and all of its pop and divergences and all of the confusion and distraction. Whether or not contemporary reality is actually hospitable to love.

When I was a young girl salmon fishing with my father in the Straits of Juan de Fuca in Washington State I used to lean out over the water and try to look past my own face, past the reflection of the boat, past the sun and darkness, down to where the fish were surely swimming. I made up charm songs and word-hopes to tempt the fish, to cause them to mean biting my hook. I believed they would do it if I asked them well and patiently and with the right hope. I am writing my poems like this. I have used the fabric and the people of my life as the bait.

I really tried to push every genre that I could into this record. I wanted every song to have this feel, where as soon as the listener tunes in, they say "That's CoJo, that's Cody right there." That being said, it is a little different. There's Americana, there's Bluegrass, there's some rock, there's some really George Jones-style stuff on it, slow-style Ray Price country elements, there's some modern country, a little of this and a little of that. We tried to push a lot for show versatility, because I grew up with a lot of versatility in my music.

Now I'm not going to go, "Oh my God, what are people saying about me?" I had a choice to be a student and not become a model, and becoming a doctor was another one of my dreams. I had a choice between not becoming a singer or becoming a songwriter and writing behind the scenes; nobody would have seen me writing songs for other people. I had the choice of not marrying my man; we could have just been hidden lovers, but I couldn't cope with it. I had these choices to do all these things, so I'm not going to cry over a life which has been really lucky.

I started doing comedy just as myself, because I thought, "This is what's expected, you're meant to tell stories and do observations." And then I started to realize that I wanted to mix it up a bit, so I started to doing songs, and I had a little keyboard onstage and would bring in little props. Then I thought about the idea of talking about a character and becoming the character onstage. So, it sort of morphed into being stand-up that was more character based, and I found that's the stuff I got the better reaction from and was more exciting for me.

Because of an off-hand funny comment I made backstage at a concert years ago, a story circulated that the song has been a burden and even that I didn’t sing it for a while. That’s completely false. I am very proud of ‘American Pie’ and the many satellites that grow from it and revolve around it. For many years I carried my songs around and now they carry me around. I have always sung ‘American Pie’ for my audience and would never think of disappointing them since it is they who have given me a wonderful life and untold affection for almost 30 years.

I have a song deep in my heart, And only I can hear it. If I close my eyes and sit very still ...It is so easy to listen to my song. When my eyes are open and I am so Busy and moving and busy, If I take time and listen very hard, I can still hear my Heartsong. It makes me feel happy. Happier than ever. Happier than everywhere And everything and everyone In the whole wide world. Happy like thinking about Going to Heaven when I die. My Heartsong sounds like this: I love you! I love you! How happy you can be! How happy you can make this whole World be.

The fun part, I will admit this much, there is a period when listening to my music is fun, and that's when I'm making it. There's a tiny little window before something gets old, but after it's come to fruition. There's a little window there where I can listen to a song probably about five times, and I'll really think it's awesome. That's kind of the period that lets me know when I - 99 percent of the time, that period is right about whether a song is going to be a keeper for an album or just a throwaway track that never gets - in that little window.

A few years ago, when I was writing songs for my first album, I was staying with Michael Feinstein as I often did. I was working on a pilot. My grandma was very sick at the time. She died of complications from alcoholism. She always used to say [in his grandma's voice], "Red wine is good for my heart. That's what my doctor said." And we'd say, "Yeah, but not for breakfast." Unfortunately, it was the thing that killed her. I felt inspired to write a song about her and what that meant for her life and for all of us. I was writing it in Michael's house.

I touched my lips to hers again, and this time, it was a very different sort of kiss. It was six years’ worth of kissing, her lips coming to life under mine, tasting of orange and of desire. Her fingers ran through my sideburns and into my hair before linking around my neck, alive and cool on my warm skin. I was wild and tame and pulled into shreds and crushed into being all at once. For once in my human life, my mind didn’t wander to compose a song lyric or store the moment for later reflection. For once in my life, I was here and nowhere else. -Sam

All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff...Basically what people want to hear is: I love you, you love me, the leaves turn brown, they fell off the trees, the wind is blowing, it got cold, you went away, my heart broke, you came back, and my heart was okay...Modern music is people who can't think signing artists who can't write songs to make records for people who can't hear. Most people wouldn't know good music if it came up and bit them on the ass...If lyrics make people do things, how come we don't love each other?

All those experiences were a chance to learn more about music. Playing with the Valley band is like such a "live" band. I mean, really, in many ways Bright Eyes is really a studio project. We form bands to tour, but it really is - you know, we take the songs and we figure out how to decorate them and it's all in the studio, we build the songs that way. Whereas Mystic Valley Band was the exact opposite, where everybody knows what they are gonna be playing on the song and there's sort of a general stylistic approach, and then it's just plug in and play.

Share This Page