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
-
What comprises good performance? The ability through singing or playing to make the ear conscious of the true content and affect of a composition.
-
My singing is part of me, like my stoutness, or my light hair, or my poor eyesight.
-
90%, 100% are going there to hear the singing. The story is another thing. Nobody's interested in the story. Happiness is happiness.
-
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.
-
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.
-
There are a lot of great artists with great voices who aren't singing what they should be singing.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
My heart is closer to acting than singing. It's always been that way.
-
My only way of getting my uncles' attention or aunts' attention or whoever's attention was by dancing and singing around the house.
-
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!
-
Singing is my profession - there is no plan B.
-
I pretty much started going more towards the singing route when I came out with the song 'Selfish.'
-
Fundamentally, whether directing in the theatre or a film, you have to be a good storyteller, regardless of the form. The thing I had to work hardest at was thinking in shots.
-
There are lots of people I admire and respect, but I don't necessarily want to be like them. I'm too happy being myself.
-
You will ask how I felt about spending so much time with people who supported the Hitler regime. I will tell you that, since I had absolutely no choice in the matter, I no longer dared to think about it. To be in Germany at that time, pretending to be an Aryan, meant that you automatically socialized with Nazis. To me, they were all Nazis, whether they belonged to the party or not. For me to have made distinctions at that time—to say Hilde was a “good” Nazi and the registrar was a “bad” Nazi—would have been silly and dangerous, because the good ones could turn you in as easily and capriciously as the bad ones could save your life.
-
I will concentrate on playing guitar, on lyrics and on singing. I am a part of things; I am not the encompassing 'Smog.'
