Song Quotes
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I try to get out of a lot of things by just kind of morphing and and shifting - and that's the way I got into music in general, by being really into free music and improvised jazz music, and stuff like that.To me, the most abstract thing that you could possibly do in music is make a song that's under four minutes long. It doesn't make any sense to me.
Chad VanGaalen
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'The Taxi Ride,' from my second album, is one people want to hear a lot. I'm consciously trying to walk on the sunny side of the street, to really lift myself into a place of greater positivity, and that's a sad song.
Jane Siberry
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The brook would lose its song if we removed the rocks.
Wallace Stegner
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When the Beatles wrote 'Paperback Writer,' it couldn't have been the same old thing. You can hear so many influences in it, from the blues to Bach, and it's not just verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge chorus. They start off singing a cappella, almost like a Bach chorale, and the song goes into this bluesy guitar riff.
Jon Batiste
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My favorite cut is probably "Drink of Choice," and it was done by Bryan Michael Cox, it's a metaphorical type song, about a woman being a drink. I'll let your mind wander with that one.
Elgin Baylor Lumpkin
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My grandfather lived across the garden from us, and in his attic he had a lot of radios, appliances and inventions that he had made over 50 years, such as a keyboard called a clavioline, which can be heard on some Beatles songs - it was popular in the 60s. So we had all that at home.
Michel Gondry
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Forgetfulness heals everything and song is the most beautiful manner of forgetting, for in song man feels only what he loves.
Ivo Andric
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It's a mystical quality of music, that music isn't really concrete, and it's communicating abstractions about imaginary worlds. At least, my music's like that. It's not real. It's unreal, it's all fabrication. To write a song about Obama would suddenly break the spell.
Sufjan Stevens
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I was starting to play the ukulele at the same time I was having all these conversations with [the late Ramones guitarist] Johnny Ramone, these intense tutorials staying up late and listening to the music he grew up on, and picking up what's a great song and what makes a great song. He was all about lists and dissecting songs, like what's a better song by Cheap Trick: "No Surrender" or "Dream Police"? Sometimes you'd be surprised by the answer. It was an interesting dichotomy between hanging out with the godfather of punk rock and starting to play the ukulele. They came together.
Eddie Vedder
Pearl Jam
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On a musical level, I do find it rewarding. It's not like I want to blow my brains out while I'm playing these songs from so long ago. I am still surprised by the way the songs are constructed - note choices, the way the arrangements are made, the way these songs are assembled. I'm still amazed at times.
David Pajo
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What's that Regina Spektor song? Museums are like mausoleums. Having your work in a museum is something we as artists aspire to, but I don't think that's something we need to worry about while we're alive. Typically your work will end up in a museum after you're dead. And maybe that's the function of a museum. It's an archive of your work after you're dead. But while we're alive, I like to see it in places where it's connected to day-to-day life and making a difference.
Eric Drooker
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That's pretty much how every song of mine works - I start with gibberish and melody and phrasing. I speak it naturally first. And then I think about lyrics that fit into that.
Kelela Mizanekristos
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I heard the Abbey Lincoln song 'The World is Falling Down,' and it just resonated with me so deeply.
James Edward Olliges Jr.
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What do you want me to do,
To watch for you,
To see you through?
A box of rain will ease the pain,
and love, will see you through.
Robert Hunter
Grateful Dead
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A song isn't finished until it's played live, and then it moves on.
Paul Rodgers
Bad Company
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I think if you listen to our records, they come at different points in your life. When people say to me that Stars records have themes, I think what they mean is we write songs - or try to write songs - that are timeless. We try to write songs that catch you at the right time in your life, and that you can hold on to. We write kitchen sink songs. If you're doing the dishes or you're driving to your mom's funeral, or if you're getting over having done MDMA and you feel sad, you can listen to Stars because we're not going to demand of you that you be cool.
Torquil Campbell
Broken Social Scene
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The abstract music is just more interesting because it doesn't really have anything to say, but if it is good, it creates thoughts and feelings, and I enjoy that. For me, once the music creates those thoughts and feelings, I begin to write a song about it.
Paul Simon
Simon & Garfunkel
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It In My Life was the first song that I wrote that was really, consciously about my life.... up until then, it had been all glib and throwaway.
John Lennon
The Beatles
