Alan Lomax Quotes
The British ballads became a new kind of form in their hand. And out of them came the blues, a new kind of song of commentary and satire, a song form which, after all, has become the main musical form of the whole human species.
Quotes to Explore
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I was 17 when I was forced into marriage. I had no hand in it, and I didn't even enjoy being with the man. Also, I wanted to study, but no one listened to me. I wanted to move forward in life, it wasn't a happy situation. Because of some family problems, I had to stick around.
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When you're in a songwriting class, and you write a song, and you hand it in to a teacher to grade, I'm still going to say that it's a really awesome song whether I got an A or a D. I learned to stick to my guns and take the tools as tools and not as rules.
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I think I was dealt a good hand. I have happy genes.
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I wouldn't want to cover a Hank Williams song in a country-western way. It doesn't occur to me instinctually to re-create productions. I'm interested in re-creating songs. Putting different clothes on them.
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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.
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For all of my fortune, there are many with misfortune that need a hand.
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L.A. is a very strange place. On the surface, it has an innocent appearance, like the stranger with the pleasant face that smiles and shakes your hand. But then you learn it is actually a lot less nice than you think, and there's a whole deeper, darker level.
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Rather than support workers at home or investments in public schools, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan support the Bush-era tax cuts for the very wealthy. They want to hand over our schools to private corporations.
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If I waited for inspiration every time I sat down to write a song I probably would be a plumber today.
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Hip-hop is really standoffish. It's really competitive and it's really about who's number one all the time. Sometimes it gets out of hand.
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Our minds have a tendency to wander. To duck and feint and keep us at a slight remove from the moment at hand.
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Capsizes kind of go hand in hand with 49er racing. I've had four to five capsizes in races and still won the event. It's just the nature of this type of sailing.
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I did a song in eight minutes. I thought everybody could write songs that fast. But working with a lot of them, they don't.
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There's a lot of craft that goes into achieving a hit song - at the beginning of your career, you're usually more inspiration than craft, and you get great when those intersect. A skilled songwriter can get you to that intersection.
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One of the things that's, I think, hard in television is that there's a certain sameness to a lot of television because you're working in a very constricted box, and the box is defined by the amount of money you have to spend and the amount of time you have to get ready.
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I didn't used to do shows, because I used to be so shy. We'd perform, and I'd be at the back, thinking of another song. I was so shy, I ain't never getting in front of the camera; I would never get on stage.
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I've had a lot of voices tell me what I should be making. Personally, I would much rather live and die by my own hand. If my stuff sucks, then at least I made it suck. I didn't allow some person, some old dude in a suit, to make it suck for me.
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I made a decision when I started writing 'All is Song' to take the compliments I had for 'The Wilderness' and try to be confident and not overwhelmed by it.
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With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow, And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow; And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd - 'I came like Water, and like Wind I go'.
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If there were a song from 'West Side Story' that I would do, it would be 'Something's Coming,' but in a sense that put it in the right key for me and then do that one.
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You can do a lot with diplomacy, but with diplomacy backed up by force you can get a lot more done.
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The laws of God, the laws of man he may keep that will and can; not I: let God and man decree laws for themselves and not for me.
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The British ballads became a new kind of form in their hand. And out of them came the blues, a new kind of song of commentary and satire, a song form which, after all, has become the main musical form of the whole human species.
