Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Obviously, it's designed by record company executives who want a cheap success, and they don't want to give money to anybody and they don't want to give contracts, so they've created this world of very bubbly teenagers who want to be "idols" and they think all they have to do is mime quite well and they've made it. ... But it's not the problem of the kids, it's the problem of the record companies, because it's just an inexpensive way for them to have so-called, I won't say "artists", but erm...You're nodding, you know what I mean.
My pacifism came after I joined the army and was shipped over to Korea. There was a little one-room orphanage there called Song-do. There were 180 babies in there, and they were GI babies. The U.S. government would not acknowledge this, and the Korean government had nothing to do with them. They were living on a 100-pound bag of rice a month. Some of those kids, when they were old enough, would go out and shine shoes. They would show up at the gate of our compound to shine shoes, and you'd swear they were looking for their fathers.
Even with the recent story about the nurse killing herself in King Edward Hospital, there's no blame placed on Kate Middleton, who was in the hospital as far as I could see for absolutely no reason. She feels no shame about the death of this woman, she's saying nothing about the death of this poor woman. The arrogance of the British royals is staggering, absolutely staggering. And why it's allowed to be I really don't know... It wasn't because of two DJs in Australia that this woman took her own life, it was the pressure around her.
False casting for practice is the best way to achieve the feel of the line in the air, but in actual fishing, false casts should be limited in number to absolute necessity. In the first place, the more false casts you make, the greater are the chances for the fish to see your arm waving, or the line in the air. And the greater are your chances to make a mistake in the cast and lose your timing. Most anglers, especially tyros, false cast too often. Three false casts should be sufficient for any throw and two is better. One is perfect.
In the early days of my carer as an actor, I shared what was then the prevailing attitude of Negro performers :;that the content and form of a play or a film scenario was of little importance to us. What mattered was was the opportunity, which came so seldom to our folks ... Later I came to understand that the Negro artist could not view the matter simply in terms of of his individual interests, and that he had a responsibility to his people who rightfully resented the traditional stereotyped portrayals of Negros on stage and screen.
Growing up, all I saw was my parents trying to be the best people they could be, and people coming to them for wisdom, coming to them for guidance, and them not putting themselves on a pedestal, but literally being face-to-face with these people and saying, "I'm no better than you, but the fact that you're coming to me to reach some sort of enlightenment or to shine a light on something, that makes me feel love and gratitude for you." They always give back what people give to them. And sometimes they keep giving and giving and giving.
That’s what real love amounts to - letting a person be what he really is....Most people love you for who you pretend to be....To keep their love, you keep pretending - performing. You get to love your pretense...It’s true, we’re locked in an image, an act - and the sad thing is, people get so used to their image - they grow attached to their masks. They love their chains. They forget all about who they really are. And if you try to remind them, they hate you for it - they feel like you’re trying to steal their most precious possession.
"Dollhouse" was really insane. We shot it at this top house studio in Brookyln. It was really cool. I designed a mini dollhouse that we used. I made it all by hand and decorated each room, and we based the actual set off of that. The Dollhouse was just plain wood and I put roofing on it and everything. I got real carpet for it. It was crazy. It was definitely an interesting experience. It was the first music video I've ever made. It was definitely stressful but awesome. Everybody was really amazing on set; we just had a blast doing it.
Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.
All my life I just wanted to be a beatnik. Meet all the heavies, get stoned, get laid, have a good time. That's all I ever wanted. Except I knew I had a good voice and I could always get a couple of beers off of it. All of a sudden someone threw me in this rock 'n' roll band. They threw these musicians at me, man, and the sound was coming from behind. The bass was charging me. And I decided then and there that that was it. I never wanted to do anything else. It was better than it had been with any man, you know. Maybe that's the trouble.
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.
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
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.
Whenever you try to work through the things that we're trying to work through, that we're addressing, it ends up looking negative. Our goal is nonjudgment, nonfiltered acceptance of everything. So much of our background collectively, especially in the United States, is denying and suppressing and disowning a lot of negativity and the darker areas. You can become swallowed up in it. It's cancerous. The goal should be to define acceptance for everything. To try and consider every aspect. To try to look into the shadows, as well as the light.
Well, I think the way you feel as a teenager stays with you, forever. I really believe that. And we try to change and we hope that we change, but we don't really in big ways, in serious ways. I think the personality is formed at that time, for the good and for the bad. ... We all want to grow up and move on and appear to be different to people. And we want people to see us in a different way. But, I don't know, I think the personality is very, very strongly cemented, and we just bear whatever shortcomings we have and learn to live with it.
One of my pleasantest memories as a kid growing up in New Orleans was how a bunch of us kids, playing, would suddenly hear sounds. It was like a phenomenon, like the Aurora Borealis -- maybe. The sounds of men playing would be so clear, but we wouldn't be sure where they were coming from. So we'd start trotting, start running-- 'It's this way! It's this way!' -- And sometimes, after running for a while, you'd find you'd be nowhere near that music. But that music could come on you any time like that. The city was full of the sounds of music.
You shouldn't be pressured into trying to be thin by the fashion industry, because they only want models that are like human mannequins. They know that if we see an outfit on a mannequin in a shop window we will love it and want to buy it whatever size we are. That's why they have size zero models - they want to sell clothes. But you have to remember that it's not practical or possible for an everyday woman to look like that. Being size zero is a career in itself so we shouldn't try and be like them. It's not realistic and it's not healthy.
In any big spectacular, it's really difficult to have enough voices to cover all the vocal parts. To give the audience the complete experience they're expecting, there is some reinforcement, some playback that everybody's hearing. Sometimes it's background vocals, but sometimes it will be actually vocal tracks. It's so hard to ensure, with no safety net ... you're not gonna get another shot at it, you have to have stability. I think it's very naïve of a lot of people to think that when you see someone open their mouth, they're really singing.
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 really, really love to move. You know what I mean? I mean, it's not a workout, but I absolutely love to do it, and that's performing, which is very close to doing Zumba. When you're onstage and you're moving everything, every single part of your body, it's actually working and active to the tips of your fingers. You're burning a hell of a lot of calories. And I think that's what people always look forward to - they want to know how many calories they've burned, and it's really important to actually know that and know your nutrition even more.
Blind hope. Blind hope is all we have. There's a Greek tragedy called Prometheus Bound; Prometheus is the [titan] that gave humans fire. He's chained to a rock and bemoaning his fate and saying, "I gave you everything. By giving you fire, I gave you blind hope. By giving you a little light that kept you warm at night, I let you believe that this was all going to be okay." For me, that's what art has been. Music and books, it's an act of hope to make them, and it's an act of hope to listen to them. That hope will be dashed, you will say goodbye.
What we did is we went on those parabolic flights, which people like to call the vomit comet. Basically, the plane throws you up into the air and catches you. And for about 30 seconds, you feel like there's no gravity. So what we did was we did a series of eight of those in a row. And every time we landed, we stayed perfectly still for the five minutes in between while the plane is setting up so that we could just continue the routine where we had left off. So the final video you see is all one take. And we seem to be weightless the entire time.
I'm still the same person I've always been. I can't say exactly what I'll do; I'm an excessive person. Talk about violence-----I don't do anything violent. Talk about violence, what's going on in Nicaragua? What's going on in El Salvador? That's violent. What are they doing to the planet with chemicals and acid rain? That's violent. What are people doing to each other? Raping. That's violent. I'm striking out at ac icon that has no life. There's a big difference between what has life and what doesn't. I mean. I've been a vegetarian for 16 years.
I mean the number one reframe with different people is, there is no one right answer to your life. There are lots of great yous, there's no one single best you and by the way, you never actually know about the ones you didn't get a chance to try. We're all getting partial credit on easy questions, not right, wrong on true or false, on all the big issues of life. That's the same, once you accept that, that's the nature of being a human being, then how's it going to day, it's going reasonably well, which is fabulous because that's as good as it gets.
I do like Canadian poetry. Christian Bök, Anne Carson, Carmine Starnino, and Don McKay are a few of the Canadian poets whose work has been important to me. But I'm not sure that I do see poetry as a world apart. Some of my metaphors are based in the fantastic, but I try to be true to life as I understand it. That understanding is affected by my Canadianness, my Americanness, my whiteness, my gender, my age, my education, my experience...everything about me affects my view of reality. But I try to wrestle against those partialities, not embrace them.
I despise the fact that the youth today acts as if being youthful is the answer to everything. It's a very young minded perspective and if you're not smart enough to realize that in life evolution is real. What that means is, we all are evolving and getting older every second of the day. That means it's about what you know, what you do and how hard you press the button to make it go. If you're not willing to put it in the time, energy and work in, then it doesn't matter how young you are. You'll be here and gone tomorrow if you don't learn something.
Congress actually authorized the printing and payment for a Bible. That illustrates the high regard that the Bible was held in early American society. We see biblical ideas woven into the founding documents of our country like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The Declaration of Independence explicity states "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights..." This is a biblical idea stemming from the dignity of all people - Psalm 139:14 - we are fearfully and wonderfully made.
I'm learning how much I have to learn, how little I know, how fragile my understanding is. I'm learning to be thankful and patient; today is all that we will ever have in this life. If we spend our time obsessing with the future or regretting the past then we will never live. Tomorrow will always be tomorrow and yesterday cannot be changed. The wise man seeks God in the now and brings both his regrets and fears before Him. The freedom that we are offered is truly amazing: to live, today, free from even our own fallen desires. This is where I want to be.
Every artist, every scientist, must decide now where he stands. He has no alternative. There is no standing above the conflict on Olympian heights. There are no impartial observers. Through the destruction, in certain countries, of the greatest of man's literary heritage, through the propagation of false ideas of racial and national superiority, the artist, the scientist, the writer is challenged. The struggle invades the formerly cloistered halls of our universities and other seats of learning. The battlefront is everywhere. There is no sheltered rear.
This is basically the last resort. I've been painted into a corner, and now I've sort of got to lay it all out in order for things to be straightened up. I've tried to move on with my life and my career for the last two years and do my own thing, and 'American Idol' and FOX, they've just been making it really tough for me to do that. So in order for me to get through all the red tape and just allow people to just get at my talent, I've got to set the record straight. And you can't set half the record straight; when you tell it, you've got to tell it all.
When we recorded the song I Just Can't Stop Loving You, my vocal range is a little higher than Michael's range. He had me re-sing the demo in the new key. Then doing that he filmed me singing this demo in the new key. I actually said, "What are you doing? Why are you filming this?" He said to me, "Because I want to sing it like you. You sound so great and I want to sing it just like you." I said, "Oh, great, Mike, my friends are really going to believe me when I tell them that Michael Jackson wanted to sing this song just like me." We laughed about that.
I think if you listen to our records, they come at different points in your life. When people say to me that Stars records have themes, I think what they mean is we write songs - or try to write songs - that are timeless. We try to write songs that catch you at the right time in your life, and that you can hold on to. We write kitchen sink songs. If you're doing the dishes or you're driving to your mom's funeral, or if you're getting over having done MDMA and you feel sad, you can listen to Stars because we're not going to demand of you that you be cool.
The only advice that I know to give is to pray for your leaders. Whether you like it or not, we have a new president. As a church body, we need to remember these leaders, whether they are in office or not. Leaders in the workplace or the church, we need to remember them because they face some really hard decisions. So we need to pray for wisdom and peace and understanding and for patience, and for any and everything really because they're going to need it. So let's just gather around them and pray that God's will be done on earth, versus someone's agenda.
Electronic music was just discovery about sound, all our sound options. The core percussions and melodies, they forget about it, they didn't think about those those for a good four, five years, because they were just discovering the new tools and what they could do with them, you know? The big folk revival, I think is a backlash against that. And now, I think they'll probably try to find somewhere in the middle. It's interesting. It's like push-and-pull. It's always like that, you know? Music history is always like that, this repeating evolution of music.
For me, the most gratifying part in touring is singing the songs that I know tmy fans love, it's those moments when they put their hands up and their heads down that you know that you have hit a nerve. It's those moments when the people in the audience say "sang". It's those moments that I'd listen to growing up, even on Donny Hathaway live, where the people were speaking to my Dad at the Troubadour and I used to wonder, 'wow, what are they talking about?' There's an electricity that cannot be rivaled when you are creating for people live and in real time.
Now, everybody knows the basic erogenous zones. You got one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven. ... OK, now most guys will hit one, two, three and then go to seven and set up camp. ... You want to hit 'em all and you wanna mix 'em up. You gotta keep 'em on their toes. ... You could start out with a little one. A two. A one, two, three. A three. A five. A four. A three, two. Two. A two, four, six. Two, four, six. Four. Two. Two. Four, seven! Five, seven! Six, seven! Seven! Seven! Seven! Seven! Seven! Seven! Seven! Seven! Seven! [holds up seven fingers]
I don't know why people call me a jazz singer, though I guess people associate me with jazz because I was raised in it, from way back. I'm not putting jazz down, but I'm not a jazz singer...I've recorded all kinds of music, but (to them) I'm either a jazz singer or a blues singer. I can't sing a blues – just a right-out blues – but I can put the blues in whatever I sing. I might sing 'Send In the Clowns' and I might stick a little bluesy part in it, or any song. What I want to do, music-wise, is all kinds of music that I like, and I like all kinds of music.
I've been in New York for 14 years. I would never leave for good. The city is so much more alive than so many other places, and I think it is fodder for performers. You see so much; research is thrown at you everywhere you go. There was a rat on the subway train recently - you saw the video online - that's fantastic! That's something that is so specific to this city, the way you are pushed up against humanity, and the animal kingdom, whether you want to be or not. It's a stimulating city - physically, intellectually, culturally. It never ceases to thrill me.
I ask you and all the leaders of the world: Would you act differently, would you keep silent and do nothing if you were in our place? Would you not resist if you were allowed no rights in your own country because the color of your skin is different to that of the rulers, and if you were punished for even asking for equality? I appeal to you, and through you to all the countries of the world, to do everything you can to stop the coming tragedy. I appeal to you to save the lives of our leaders, to empty the prisons of all those who should never have been there.
In Jamaica we had the English way of schooling from the age of four, so when I got to America I was already a few years advanced because I started school at the age of three-and-a-half rather than six and my grades moved up accordingly. In America, they start you at school at six because the grades are different. I had to take a test and they didn't know what to do with me. It wasn't that I was any smarter; I had just started younger. All of a sudden I was jumped from eighth to tenth grade. They said I was very smart, but I was only smart in languages, really.
My attitude is if somebody blunders into the level of popularity; at least remember the human factor. These guys are still human beings and hopefully still have hearts and if you keep in touch with them rather than vilify them you may be able to encourage them to go in the right direction. What I'm hoping will eventually happen is that they will grasp the amount of power and financial clout that is now at their fingertips and use those as tools to help real people with real things the way punk politics was always designed to do before, but nobody had any money.
I used to listen to music from the frosting down. As a word nerd, lyrics are really important to me, and then the melody. Playing in the Rock*A*Teens was the first time I ever heard music from the bottom up. I was hearing songs I'd heard a million times on oldies radio, and I'd be like, "Wow, listen to what the bass is doing!" When I was first singing in bands, I'd just get out there with my machete, wildly whacking away at the foliage. But you learn how to listen. When I feel I'm doing it right, it's 90% listening and 10% output. It's not "look what I can do!"
Where you go to these really good schools, and it's all about preparing for the next step of success. That was never even on my radar. My job is to explore the world, because this is my one life, you know? That's totally how I see it. But I came to Yale just being like, Yeah, now I get to explore this place and meet all these people who are really smart. And I was just excited to be surrounded by people who were as smart as me or were probably smarter. And I just did not expect the level of competition and bitterness and anger, and, the tearing each other down.
I like playing at public schools. I like when there's more of a diverse audience. I'll play wherever people want to hear my music, and I'll be glad and grateful for the opportunity, but I'd rather not play for a bunch of white privileged kids. I'm not meaning that in a disrespectful way; you go where people want to hear your music. So if that's where people want to hear me play, I'm glad to play for them. But I'd rather play for an audience where half of them were not into it than one where all of them were pretending to be into it, for fear of being uncultured.
Chance in music doesn't have to involve the I Ching or rolling dice or throwing yarrow stalks. It can involve an out-of-tune guitar, or other impossible-to-replicate moments of awkwardness - even more so than an awkward, out-of-tune live performance, because there's something incredible about the way that an out-of-tune guitar becomes part of the song on a record. I won't be precious and say it's part of the composition - that's nonsensica l - but chance occurrences are so crucial to what's distinctive. It's the fingerprints all over so many of these recordings.
Someone once asked me why people sing. I answered that they sing for many of the same reasons the birds sing. They sing for a mate, to claim their territory, or simply to give voice to the delight of being alive in the midst of a beautiful day. Perhaps more than the birds do, humans hold a grudge. They sing to complain of how grievously they have been wronged, and how to avoid it in the future. They sing to help themselves execute a job of work. They sing so the subsequent generations won’t forget what the current generation endured, or dreamed, or delighted in.
O' beautiful for spacious skies But now those skies are threatening They're beating plowshares into swords For this tired old man that we elected king Armchair warriors often fail And we've been poisoned by these fairy tales The lawyers clean up all details Since daddy had to lie But I know a place where we can go And wash away this sin We'll sit and watch the clouds roll by And the tall grass wave in the wind Just lay your head back on the ground And let your hair spill all around me Offer up your best defence But this is the end This is the end of the innocence
There's nothing like getting feedback that's positive and supportive. That's what I'm all about. I'm really just genuinely doing good music. I'm not looking to be on the cover of magazines and I'm not in it for the fame. I'm not in it for selling or the biggest Pop song in the world. I have to go for critically acclaimed. I'd rather go for my peers that I look up to say "I listen to her record." I'd rather do a small little touring venue that has two people who support me as opposed to thousands of people. I mean if it happens, it happens but I'm doing it for me.
You, sleeping on your bed of nails. Weeping an ocean beyond the pale. Strange, sorrow is your greatest skill. You're suffering from overkill... Choose whether to laugh or to cry. Menace and promise mingle in your eye. Wait, it's only a matter of time. You know everything will be fine... Rain falls down and the seas run high. When you're by my side we can rise above it. Let me dry all the tears inside. On your way you cannot hide from the howling wind and the roaring tide. You might get hurt but your fears will subside when you at last escape from the tears inside.
It's not hard for me to be honest with my fans because that's what I set out to do from the beginning - I've based my entire career off of just trying to do that for them - but I always kind of forget that my real life friends can hear my music and they can watch my interviews if they want and that's when I get kind of like- "oh..." - I don't necessarily sit down and talk to my friends about all the things that I write my music about, because it's easier for me to write music than to sit and talk to my friends about it sometimes- it's almost like writing in a diary.