Etta James Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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It's always a live experience - anything that happens around you. It's so easy to just put it to a song.
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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.
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When you're collaborating with somebody, there has to be a spirit of cooperation. There are a lot of times when you just can't persuade someone to write a certain type of song, either musically or lyrically.
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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.
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Madonna can still produce a catchy pop song, but she hasn't expanded her artistic vocabulary since the 1990s. Her concerts are glitzy extravaganzas of special effects overkill. She leaves little space in them for emotional depth or unscripted rapport with the audience.
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To me, there is nothing more soothing than the song of a mosquito that can't get through the mesh to bite you.
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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.
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I don't like giving names to generations. It's like trying to read the song title on a record that's spinning.
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It might crush a lot of people, but I've never been in the room with an artist that I've written a song for.
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It's kind of exhilarating, walking through a crazy, insane mob. The most miraculous process is watching a song go from a tiny idea in the middle of the night to something that 55,000 people are singing back to you.
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Sometimes the song title comes with the songs, other times you just sorta make something up afterwards.
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My music is mostly for the music. And it gives the liberty to do anything which I want. And nobody limits me to one genre of music. But I learn from life and I try to give back to life, in a way, whether it's the thought of the song or whether it's the approach to the arrangement or anything.
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Before the camera, you only had secondhand takes - someone had to tell you what they saw or draw a picture of it or sing a song. Because of the camera, sometimes to our horror, we now know everything that happens in the world - things that before we were sheltered from.
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The line 'because you're mine, I walk the line.' It kept coming to me, you know? But I was - I was … young and not been married too long. Yes, it kept coming to me. Because you're mine, I walk the line. And then the words just naturally flowed. It was an easy song to write.
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But now if I can wrap myself up in that song, and when that song gets to be a part of me, and affects me emotionally, then the emotions that I go through, chances are I’ll be able to communicate to you. Make the people out there become a part of the life of this song that you’re singing about. That’s soul when you can do that.1
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I tend to be an all-in-type of guy, so I get in a zone to write, and then that's all I do. I'll spend eight hours doing nothing but chasing that one song. That's what works for me.
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Just the other day I pulled out this old cassette of Ragged Glory and I popped it into my cassette player and I was digging it. They were just a great rock and roll band, one that presents the song ahead of everything else - there's no grand idea or concept behind it.
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I just love pretty things, whether it is art, a song or a pair of shoes.
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When you raise your voice in song to express what's going on deep inside of you, I think people just react to that because it's so truthful. It's so raw.
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I wish myself to be a prop, if anything, for my songs. I want to be the vehicle for my songs. I would like to colour the material with as much visual expression as is necessary for that song.
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As someone who started a small business from scratch, I know how important it is for families and for communities to have strong job creation.
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I started acting almost on a whim to help my music career.
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I didn't study science beyond high school level, but I'd been reading a lot of science books by people like Richard Dawkins, Matt Ridley and Daniel Dennett. I also spent a year working on a fellowship in a research centre - the Allan Wilson Centre - where I got a hands-on look at their work sequencing DNA.
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At last my love has come along. My lonely days are over and life is like a song.
