John Lee Hooker Quotes

I just get an idea and then all of a sudden I've got a song.

John Lee Hooker

• Song

• Previous
• Next

Quotes to Explore

• You can't try and make something you think someone else will like. You can only make what you like. How can you make a song that Yo-Landi Visser likes? You don't know me. You'll never understand me.

  

  Yolandi Visser
  • Think
  • Song
  • Know

• I used to watch 'Top of the Pops' when I was a kid and say 'Yeah!' or 'Boo!' at every single song. So there was nothing in the middle. You brutally put it on one side or another.

  

  Damien Hirst
  • Song
  • Single
  • Kid

• I think the line is where you're in the studio, you're creating. That belongs to you as an artist. Nothing should taint that. I shouldn't be thinking about what the fans want, I shouldn't be thinking about what the radio wants, what the label wants, what your manager wants, a song for the chicks, a song for the street.

  

  Talib Kweli Black Star
  • Thinking
  • Song
  • Artist

• As a songwriter I hate this whole, 'If it's a sad song, it has to sound like a sad song thing.' And that goes all the way back to my days with the Format. I'm an insane narcissist, so if I have to get something off my chest, I'll get something off my chest.

  

  Nate Ruess Fun.
  • Song
  • Hate
  • Sad

• If at noon you sit down and there's just silence or blank tape, in an hour if you have a song, that didn't exist an hour ago. Now it exists and it might exist for a long time. There's something empowering about that.

  

  Eddie Vedder Pearl Jam
  • Time
  • Long
  • Song

• We never thought 'Say Something' would be a holiday song. I'm still surprised that it's resonating at this time of year. Maybe that's why it's working so well - it balances out all the joy.

  

  Ian Axel
  • Time
  • Why
  • Song

• I wrote my first song when I was six or seven, a silly little song. But I used to write poems in high school - not songs.

  

  Rachel Platten
  • School
  • High
  • Song

• People say, 'How does having kids change your writing? Do you see the world through their eyes?' No - you just become a faster songwriter... In the old days, you'd be like, 'Oh I'm gonna work on this song for a few days.'

  

  Eddie Vedder Pearl Jam
  • People
  • World
  • Work

• The first album I ever bought with my own money was 'Ten.' Every single song reminds me of my childhood.

  

  Aaron Paul
  • Money
  • Song
  • Single

• Personal relationships are usually my biggest inspirations for writing my songs. The best way for me to write a song is to visualise the story in my head, and I start humming a melody, and before you know it, a song is born.

  

  Nadia Ali
  • Writing
  • Song
  • Best

• I like finding that common point between another song and my music. It's like between people; you can be of religion or another, from this country or from another country, but we're all basically the same. It's just the same with songs.

  

  Yael Naim
  • People
  • Music
  • Country

• If I waited for inspiration every time I sat down to write a song I probably would be a plumber today.

  

  Barry Mann
  • Song
  • Inspiration
  • Plumber

• 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.

  

  Aaron Johnson
  • Song
  • Singing
  • Everyone

• It usually takes me 20 to 90 minutes to write a song because once I start, I don't stop. If I start writing a song, and you try to have a conversation with me, you're a bad person.

  

  Halsey
  • Writing
  • Bad
  • Song

• Sometimes videos make a bad song very tight.

  

  Thebe Neruda Kgositsile
  • Bad
  • Song
  • Sometimes

• One of my favorite albums in the world is Bruce Springsteen's 'Nebraska.' Each song has this very distinct character who has something profound to say.

  

  Abigail Washburn
  • World
  • Character
  • Song

• To write a love song that might be able to make it on the radio, that is something that is terrifying to me. But I can definitely write a song about that chair over there. That I can do, but to sit and write a pop song out of the clear blue sky, that is very difficult and I admire the people that can do it.

  

  Barry Manilow
  • People
  • Song
  • Write

• Religions have always stressed that compassion is not only central to religious life, it is the key to enlightenment and it the true test of spirituality. But there have always have been those who'd rather put easier goals, like doctrine conformity, in place.

  

  Karen Armstrong
  • Life
  • True
  • Religious

• I really tried to push every genre that I could into this record. I wanted every song to have this feel, where as soon as the listener tunes in, they say "That's CoJo, that's Cody right there." That being said, it is a little different. There's Americana, there's Bluegrass, there's some rock, there's some really George Jones-style stuff on it, slow-style Ray Price country elements, there's some modern country, a little of this and a little of that. We tried to push a lot for show versatility, because I grew up with a lot of versatility in my music.

  

  Cody Johnson
  • Different
  • Country
  • Song

• I was lucky in that I didn't have to do too many outside-of-acting side jobs.

  

  Briga Heelan

• In the United States, female fisticuffs were marginalized, first as erotic vaudeville in the 19th century and later as serious competition developed in the first half of the 20th. Legal wars waged by boxers in the 1960s and '70s won women the right to compete professionally nationwide.

  

  Katherine Dunn
  • Women
  • Serious
  • Competition

• My brother and I, we were both relatively good-looking guys growing up, but we had our awkward stages, where we were just hard to look at.

  

  Dan Fogler
  • Up
  • Good
  • Growing

• There is a profound hypocrisy - and deep historical ignorance - when Europeans complain about the problems posed by the ethnic and religious minorities in their midst, for that is exactly what European colonial rule meant for peoples around the world.

  

  Martin Jacques
  • World
  • Religious
  • Deep

• I just get an idea and then all of a sudden I've got a song.

  

  John Lee Hooker
  • Song