Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Mozart would play a counterpart with his left hand while using his right to mock it. It was blue, dark, shadowy - and it made me feel something. That's when I realized music was inside me.
I started playing instruments. Writing didn't come until later. I didn't know how to play a keyboard but I'd listen to hits off the radio, learn them, then my hands would be ready to play.
How we absorb music is unique. I know what I do. When I'm listening to music, I tend to find myself in a song. That's what really makes you connect is if you feel what that song is saying.
Majoring in religion, listening to TV evangelists interpret the scriptures and dictate my offerings-I found my God inside myself-in every moment and piece of matter. Everything is animate.
Festivals are unique. They can be the best of times or the worst. You're not playing to the converted. But those are the best shows - to see if you can make new friends and entertain them.
It's so easy for me to do a boy-bashing pop song, but to sit down and write honestly about something that's really close to me, something I've been through, it's a totally different thing.
We never sit down before we start making a record and talk about this new sonic palette that we are going to try to explore. We always let the record kind of reveal itself to us over time.
People say, "How do you write songs?" I say, "Patience." I may have a track that's hot, but no words. I'll just let it sit for years, because I know they're going to meet. They'll find it.
I was given baby doll toys myself, and they proved a stark reminder that my life was expected to revolve around childbearing - just as my mom's had before me, and her mom's had before her.
For my group of friends is Lady Gaga eye-opening? No. She's a less dangerous version of what was so cool about pop culture in the '80s. Back then it was so gay and so punk in so many ways.
I used to think of George Michael as being mechanical, like a scientist in a white coat, working in a laboratory, creating perfect harmonies, and all the while I was secretly admiring him.
I didn't think anyone was going to buy 'Do You Really Wanna Hurt Me?' It was really personal, not a hit record, I thought. I wanted us to sound completely different. Shows how much I knew.
I don't have the answers. But I am asking the questions, and that's the fun part. I'm like the kid in class with his hand up, going, 'Um...' I think that's a powerful place to create from.
I think it would be cool to maybe do something with Ed Sheeran. That would be awesome and interesting. He writes amazing songs, and I could easily hear Backstreet Boys sing 'Shape Of You.'
The hardest thing to do in this business is to still be around. When music changes, when labels' resources have dried up, it becomes harder and harder to continue to make a living at this.
I came to California and got signed at a young age. And it's not like you see in the movies, where you start rubbing shoulders with Timbaland and Pharrell, and you become a giant pop star.
If I'm interrupted, it's just a minor inconvenience, but not a disaster, because it's easy to get back where I was: that is, the paint has not changed consistency; the light has not moved.
It's so easy to get caught up in this weird life. This isn't normal and I'm not singing for people that live my life. I'm singing to the life I used to have. The life I want to have again.
I love chocolate, and I love to shop - just give me a good boutique. I like mall scenarios, too, because there's more right there at hand. I think Nashville could use some better shopping!
When you do have songs where you're going to say something, some kind of statement about cultural or social stuff, that in general people love it. People love to be challenged in that way.
I'm not good at being a picture-perfect pop star, happy all the time. If I'm having a bad day, I can't pretend. I'm always a bit unhappy, but that's just me. I like dwelling in my sadness.
I have God, Jesus Christ: I'm Christian. I try to stay as grounded as I possibly can. And I have my parents that help me and my friends that are really great accountability partners to me.
The swimsuit and jeans look is my favorite. It was a big part of my introduction to the world as an artist. It was so cool to see girls wearing swimsuits with their jeans during that time.
A lot of the mythology that sprung up around Haile Selassie, it's not like something he asked for, having people deify him. That's pretty heavy. I don't know what you do in that situation.
The best, most solid place to stand as you look at our present situation is on a foundation of history. The Roman Empire, the British Empire, and the Nazi empire all have things in common.
We've never performed the song live outside of recording it in the studio. That was a dream come true because Whitney, she's an icon and she's been one of my main mentors in this business.
Songwriting is my way of channeling my feelings and my thoughts. Not just mine, but the things I see, the people I care about. My head would explode if I didn't get some of that stuff out.
If there's something you know and there's something you feel, but you can't quite express it, you will hear it somewhere. And you don't have to worry, because someone will get it sung out.
Every pulse of your heartbeat is one liquid moment that flows through the veins of your being. Like a river of life flowing on since creation, approaching the sea with each new generation.
Nobody wants you to stop, obviously because you're a moneymaking machine. But you have to make the decision and you have to move forward. So I took time off to have babies and do all that.
For the plain people of Ireland... If your car's got a puncture, and you know its got a puncture and its still got a puncture after two weeks, then you don't know how how to change a tyre.
I think we work well when there are absolutely no distractions whatsoever, because we tend to come up with the best ideas around one or two in the morning, so you have to be plugging away.
Not much shocked me. You know, I worked in a home for Alzheimer's patients and my dad used to be really into murders and stuff, so I saw dead bodies. It desensitised me to a lot of things.
I want to be safe in the knowledge that I can tour and play festivals for a long time. The main thing is that I want a good reputation as a live performer. If I have that, I'd be so happy.
I could always sing, from a really young age, but my voice was really weird. I used to make my mum turn up the radio every day in our house. She was well into music so I got that from her.
It's a petty thing, but I wouldn't join the Scouts when I was a kid, 'cause you had to swear allegiance to the queen. I'm just not a royalist. I think it's idiotic, a hereditary principle.
There are some songs that don't belong to The Animals that I refuse to give in to and not do. I enjoy singing other people's songs, you know. That's why they're written in the first place.
Sometimes I wake up in the morning and feel like going straight back to bed. But I still have to get up and work, and I still have to take advantage of the chances I've been given in life.
I'm so, so full of joy that America elected Obama. He didn't win because he was black - people voted for him because he had a plan and because he talked sense and because you believed him.
I think we live in a culture where it is really difficult to get privacy because everything is so accessible. It's very difficult to maintain your comfortable life with a sort of mystique.
I've stammered all my life, and it's fair to say that my stammer has shaped my life. It's made me make some decisions that I'm sure I wouldn't have if I didn't suffer with this affliction.
I'm gonna stay an album guy. In fact, concept albums are really blowing my mind right now, because if you want to promote an album, think about it - a concept album might be the way to go.
The key to looking good in a cape is the way you take it off. You should look like those sword-fighting people, the Three Musketeers. Taking it off, swinging it, that's what makes it cool.
My image is dark and sombre. It fits my personality. The problem I always had with the people in the Misfits was that it was a put-on. You wouldn't see those guys walking around like that.
I've never been good at giving advice. The only advice I ever gave people was to find something that you are passionate about. But I hate giving advice, because, who am I? I'm just a girl.
She sings the songs without words Songs that sailors, and blind men, and beggars have heard She knows more of love than the poets can say And her eyes are for something that won't go away.
Basically, I'm just a guitar player that figured out I wasn't ever gonna be able to buy dinner with my guitar playing so I got into songwriting, which is a little more profitable business.
I do look at songwriting as a lot of work. I don't over-intellectualize music as a special medium that only some people deserve to do. I think it's something you do if you put the work in.
The good thing about songwriting is you don't have to delineate between what's true and what's fiction; records aren't put on the shelf that way. Books are, movies are, but records aren't.
Out of all of the stuff I have done in my whole 12 years, the Mistress series I and II are the most enjoyable processes I've ever been through and definitely, I'm most proud of that music.