Song Quotes - Page 37

• I don't want to do children's music. I write kids songs, but the kids songs I write are for my kids - like when I'm putting them to bed. We sing some song that we made up but I don't want to make a record like that.

  Black Francis

  Children, Writing, Kids

  4 Copy quote

• I think if you're writing from the heart, very often, the subject matter will adjust as you age... but you try to write the best song you can possibly write. For us, we have the same basic elements that make up the America sound.

  Gerry Beckley

  Writing, Heart, Thinking

  6 Copy quote

• You rock so, you rock so, you dip so, you dip so, you skank so, you skank so, and don't be no drag! You come so, you come so, for reggae is another bag!

  Blake Lively

  Rocks, Bags, Skanks

  6 Copy quote

• I try to imagine how we would live if we didn't know we were going to die. Would we live our lives differently? Less careful, maybe? Less scared? These are beautiful things to think about and build a song around.

  Beth Gibbons

  Beautiful, Thinking, Trying

  8 Copy quote

• I cannot sing the old songs Though well I know the tune, Familiar as a cradle-song With sleep-compelling croon; Yet though I'm filled with music, As choirs of summer birds, I cannot sing the old songs-- I do not know the words.

  Robert Jones Burdette

  Summer, Sleep, Bird

  52 Copy quote

• If I'm focusing on playing and enjoying the song, then it always goes well. I get lost in the song, and the performance is so much better. If the focus becomes not making a mistake, then it just feels rigid to me.

  Marketa Irglova

  Mistake, Focus, Lost

  4 Copy quote

• The songs, if I write alone in a room, end up being a little more quiet, a little more subdued. If I play with other musicians or percussive instruments, it might end up being a little more upbeat.

  Marketa Irglova

  Writing, Play, Musician

  4 Copy quote

• If you look at the content of songs people write, it's usually about the things they know best.

  Nick Rhodes

  Writing, People, Looks

  "Nick Rhodes on Duran Duran's staying power". Interview with Aidin Vaziri, www.sfgate.com. September 25, 2011.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think pop culture is the greatest subject matter out there - 'Other People's Lives,' as we wrote about on the last Duran Duran album. Most ideas for great songs come from real situations, something your friend said to you the night before, the girl that just left, or something traumatic in your life.

  Nick Rhodes

  Girl, Real, Night

  52 Copy quote

• The song I like to do is 'Dead.' I'm constantly playing that one.

  Joey Santiago

  4 Copy quote

• I try to find little things that you can do to move the song along and things that serve the song.

  Benmont Tench

  Moving, Trying, Littles

  4 Copy quote

• What Whitney Houston has accomplished will never be accomplished. She's the most famous person on the planet as far as vocaling and her songs. So I'm very happy that I can sit here and say I had a chance to know her. And I'm still dazed that she's gone. But she lives because her music is so powerful.

  Narada Michael Walden

  Powerful, Gone, Houston

  4 Copy quote

• To me, 'Blackberry Way' stands up as a song that could be sung in any era, really. We do it with the new doing all sort of fanfare things in it and it works really well. It goes down great with audiences.

  Roy Wood

  Way, Eras, Wells

  24 Copy quote

• There is always, in the fine arts, a physical interface between the artist's esthetic vision and the material result he seeks. The interface may be the application of brush to canvas, chisel to marble, bow to string... It may be the control of voice in song or the control of body in dance. It is the mastery of the interface that comprises the artistry; it is what constitutes the 'art' in fine art.

  Robert Breault

  Art, Voice, Vision

  7 Copy quote

• Song forbids victorious deeds to die.

  Friedrich Schiller

  Deeds, Dies

  Friedrich Schiller (1852). “Poems and Ballads ... translated by Sir E. B. Lytton ... With a brief sketch of Schiller's life”, p.291

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Whither away, Bluebird, Whither away? The blast is chill, yet in the upper sky Thou still canst find the color of thy wing, The hue of May. Warbler, why speed, thy southern flight? ah, why, Thou, too, whose song first told us of the Spring? Whither away?

  Edmund Clarence Stedman

  Spring, Sky, Wings

  Edmund Clarence Stedman (1891). “Poetical Works”

  31 Copy quote

  Show source

• I can remember back as far as age 8, performing with the Boston Folk Song Society. It was a Woody Guthrie song.

  Black Francis

  Boston, Age, Remember

  "Black Francis can't tell Rock Chickens from EGGS" by Scott Thill, www.wired.com. July 30, 2009.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• You've been so long in the rain, you feel like a dirty dish rag. But despite the misery of your water soaked body, you look around to see verdant leaves dripping with water. The air entering your lungs smells vibrantly clean. To experience adventure, you must be willing to be uncomfortable at times and enjoy the loneliness by being happy with your own singing. A song pops out of your mouth... "It rained all night the day I left, the weather it was fine..."

  Frosty Wooldridge

  Loneliness, Rain, Dirty

  6 Copy quote

• It is setting goals and trying to be a business person, but at the same time not losing sight of who you are writing songs for and what your goals are as a songwriter. So believe me, if you think I've got it down I don't it is a constant struggle.

  Christine Lavin

  Believe, Struggle, Writing

  4 Copy quote

• And now the herald lark Left his ground-nest, high tow'ring to descry The morn's approach, and greet her with his song.

  John Milton

  Larks, Nests, Approach

  John Milton (1752). “Paradise Regain'd. A Poem, in Four Books. To which is Added Samson Agonistes: and Poems Upon Several Occasions. The Author John Milton”, p.72

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• O God, enlarge within us the sense of fellowship with all living things, even our brothers, the animals, to whom Thou gavest the earth as their home in common with us. We must remember with shame that in the past we have exercised the high dominion of man with ruthless cruelty so that the voice of the earth, which should have gone up to thee in song, has been a groan of pain. May we realize that they live, not for us alone, but for themselves and for Thee and that they love the sweetness of life.

  Saint Basil

  Brother, Pain, Home

  12 Copy quote

• All the earth is at rest and is quiet: they are bursting into song. Even the trees of the wood are glad over you, the trees of Lebanon, saying, From the time of your fall no wood-cutter has come up against us with an axe.

  Isaiah

  Fall, Tree, Over You

  4 Copy quote

• Then when Gladys Knight came in to do my songs that was the straw that broke the camel's back.

  Brenda Holloway

  Knights, Camels, Broke

  8 Copy quote

• It's nice if people ask to use your song. You have to make a decision as an artist how you feel about that.

  Jared Leto

  Nice, Artist, People

  7 Copy quote

• The fact of picking up an instrument and writing a song and expressing yourself publicly has a powerful political dimension.

  J. Robbins

  Powerful, Writing, Political

  "Burning Airlines". Interview with Camilo Arturo Leslie, pitchfork.com. February 1, 2001.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source