Bill Callahan Quotes
I will concentrate on playing guitar, on lyrics and on singing. I am a part of things; I am not the encompassing 'Smog.'
Quotes to Explore
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What comprises good performance? The ability through singing or playing to make the ear conscious of the true content and affect of a composition.
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My singing is part of me, like my stoutness, or my light hair, or my poor eyesight.
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90%, 100% are going there to hear the singing. The story is another thing. Nobody's interested in the story. Happiness is happiness.
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I was singing in a mall, and I picked a girl to come up onstage with me. As I was grabbing her hand, I fell off the stage. It felt like I was in the air forever, flying like Superman.
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I think I don't sing as hard as I used to sing. I used to kind of hit the accelerator a lot back in my youth, but now it's just being able to control it, and not work it so hard and use more of an emotional or sub textual kind of approach to singing.
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There are a lot of great artists with great voices who aren't singing what they should be singing.
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I'm very honest in my music and I'm often asked to explain the lyrics; as an introvert, I find that quite hard. And I always wear high heels on stage, which can be painful.
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I wasn't really the most charming person, socially – it took me a long time to develop my people skills – but the one place I was always comfortable was onstage, acting or singing.
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I like collaboration because, first of all, I'm good at writing lyrics. I don't know how to make beats. I don't play instruments. I'm not a good singer. So even when you see a solo album of mine, it's still a collaboration.
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Usually, the music inspires the lyrics. The lyrics just sort of fall off like a bunch of crumbs from the melody. That's all I want them to be - crumbs. I don't want to work any kind of fabricated message.
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My music has a high irritation factor. I've always tried to say something. Eccentric lyrics about eccentric people. Often it was a joke. But I would plead guilty on the grounds that I prefer eccentricity to the bland.
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I pay attention to lyrics and I know what rap fans care about. I try to write for the average listener and I'm conscious of the mainstream without selling out.
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The buzz you get when you're playing a song and everyone is screaming and dancing and what have you and singing along is incredible.
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I've always been singing all my life, but I started playing guitar when I was 19, and that was my final year in university, in law school. I think that happened when I started making a lot of friends who were in the independent music scene.
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My heart is closer to acting than singing. It's always been that way.
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My only way of getting my uncles' attention or aunts' attention or whoever's attention was by dancing and singing around the house.
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Bob Dylan has a way with words that simply blows me away. When he forgets his lyrics he just makes up new ones on the spot, that is what I called talented!
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Singing is my profession - there is no plan B.
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In church, the music is for everyone. People are singing off tune, loud; they're not ashamed - it's for their healing. That's kind of just what I strive for, that feeling.
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Listen to the late Isaac Hayes covering 'Walk on By' by Burt Bacharach or Mayfield singing The Carpenters' vanilla-seeming 'We've Only Just Begun,' and you realize soul's insistence on transformation: Mayfield in particular makes the song not just about love but the start of revolution.
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I've had all types of beautiful girls tell me that they ugly when they look in the mirror, as if it's someone else's reflection they see.
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I never had a father, really. My great-grandmother raised me. But I was in this country where I got help from people that were not of my same color. So when I come out of the box, I don't come out of the box as racial. I look for good people, and people that will be like-minded and help me try to do good for other human beings.
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I always swore I would never write a book. But I read Clare Balding's and it was really interesting and so prettily written and lovely and not too revealing. I went to her book launch and met her editor who said 'why don't you think about it? You can do it however you want, based on your characters or you.'
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I will concentrate on playing guitar, on lyrics and on singing. I am a part of things; I am not the encompassing 'Smog.'
