Popular quotes about Singing! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 15
I think I kind of came out of the womb singing. I think I was, like, born at the hospital, and, you know, popped out, and was singing. ... I'm not sure really how it happened. I can't remember a time when I wasn't singing, or banging a beat on the dinner table...
Emmy RossumHowever, it [singing] wasn't until halfway through high school that it dawned on me that singing wasn't just a hobby, it was something I had a growing need for in my life, and that was about when I adopted the neglected guitar I found under our piano and started singing about all the things I could never say.
Kina GrannisA lot of people think the blues is depressing but that's not the blues I'm singing. When I'm singing blues, I singing life. People can't stand to listen to the blues, they've got to be phonies.
Etta JamesEven when I'm singing on record there's a lot of times when I'll fight for a bit of imperfection. I might not have quite hit the note to the perfect pitch, but there was a soul in there and feeling that,to me, delivers the emotion of that moment. For me, doing a show, the excitement of singing live, and the possibility that you're not going to be perfect - that's the thrill of it.
Alicia KeysMy singing silenced the bullies, but better than that, it silenced the demons inside me. When you're jeered at, told to shut up, sit still, stop being silly, there's a cacophony of noise rolling around in your head. When I was singing, it was peaceful.
Susan BoyleI came home one day from school after being chased by kids singing โYellow Submarineโ, and I didn't understand why. It just seemed surreal: why are they singing that song to me? I came home and I freaked out on my dad: 'Why didn't you tell me you were in The Beatles?' And he said, 'Oh, sorry. Probably should have told you that.'
Dhani HarrisonSinging with others is an unmediated, shared experience as each person feels the same music reverberating in their individual bodies. Singing is part of our humanity; it is embodied empathy.
Jay GriffithsWhen I'm sitting in the church alone, I can hear singing of the old people. I can hear their singing and I can hear their praying, and sometimes I hum one of their songs.
Ernest GainesI was always musical - yelling when I was a baby, singing into a brush and singing in the shower.
Susan BoyleJohn Colman Wood's The Names of Things is a thoughtful, patient, and ultimately rewarding book. It's about, among many other things, the connections human beings make, that in spite of everything, we will always make. To quote from the book, 'What he saw in the people was what the old anthropologists called communitas. It wasn't that the people sang and moved. It was their singing and moving together' Singing and moving together, Wood has found a way to express this profound and beautiful idea through fiction.
Peter OrnerI'm singing in the rain, just singing in the rain; What a wonderful feeling, I'm happy again.
Arthur FreedOne night as I girl I spied my grandma and one of her sisters outside, holding hands and singing, "Sprites of the night are we, are we. Singing and dancing joyfully." It was witchy and wonderful because it meant there was power in joy. They were not afraid of the night because they were giggling. I am very interested in finding the surprising boundaries, for instance, where do joy and fear meet?
Samantha HuntNinety-nine percent of singing is listening and hearing, and so then 1 percent of it is singing.
Linda RonstadtAs a kid, in the Runaways, I would see the interviewers start to ask about our personal lives and what we did โ and I could see the look in their eyes. They were practically frothing at the mouth. So if I answered these questions, I knew they were never gonna talk about the music. It was like that instinct โ donโt go there, man. Have boundaries. Have mystery. You donโt have to let everybody in! I want to be singing to everybody, and I want everybody to think that Iโm singing to them. Guys, girls and everyone in between.
Joan JettWhen we sing praises to our Lord, we join in the chorus that creation has been singing from the beginning of time. And it is the same anthem that we as believers will be singing for all eternity.
Laura StoryAs someone who listens almost exclusively to contemporary hip-hop and R&B, I definitely like "No Bullshit" by Chris Brown, and melodically I'm really into what he's doing - that song is kind of singular because it's got this piano intro and outro. But obviously I'm not singing about what he's singing about. What we want out of our songs is not the same thing.
How to Dress WellEach of us has something within us which won't be denied, even if it makes us scream aloud to die. We are what we are, that's all. Like the old Celtic legend of the bird with the thorn in its breast, singing its heart out and dying. Because it has to, its self-knowledge can't affect or change the outcome, can it? Everyone singing his own little song, convinced it's the most wonderful song the world has ever heard. Don't you see? We create our own thorns, and never stop to count the cost. All we can do is suffer the pain, and tell ourselves it was well worth it.
Colleen McCulloughI'm singing the way that I love to sing, which is like old soul, like old Al Green. I grew up about an hour from Memphis. So all that music that I grew up with - the Stax music and early rhythm n' blues - I'm doing that. I'm actually getting out from behind my guitar and I'm singing.
Sheryl CrowThe blues? Why, the blues are a part of me. They're like a chant. The blues are like spirituals, almost sacred. When we sing blues, we're singing out our hearts, we're singing out our feelings. Maybe we're hurt and just can't answer back, then we sing or maybe even hum the blues. When I sing, 'I walk the floor, wring my hands and cry -- Yes, I walk the floor, wring my hands and cry,'... what I'm doing is letting my soul out.
Alberta HunterI really enjoy singing and I really enjoy acting, but singing I've been doing since I was really young.
Lindsay LohanWriting was something I always did but that turned into singing and rapping. That something that came out of my writing.
DreezyI get to travel around the world and meet all of these amazing people, and they're singing my songs! And to me, that's crazy.
Kina GrannisSince Jimmy Carter, religious fundamentalists play a major role in elections. He was the first president who made a point of exhibiting himself as a born again Christian. That sparked a little light in the minds of political campaign managers: Pretend to be a religious fanatic and you can pick up a third of the vote right away. Nobody asked whether Lyndon Johnson went to church every day. Bill Clinton is probably about as religious as I am, meaning zero, but his managers made a point of making sure that every Sunday morning he was in the Baptist church singing hymns.
Noam ChomskyMy dad, being a jingle writer, and my mom, being a jingle singer, they hooked me up with some people when I was a kid that worked with children's jingle singing groups. I used to sing jingles as a kid.
Reeve CarneyHumor keeps the elderly rolling along, singing a song. When you laugh, its an involuntary explosion of the lungs. The lungs need to replenish themselves with oxygen. So you laugh, you breathe, the blood runs, and everything is circulating. If you dont laugh, youll die.
Mel BrooksThe only recording studio was in Motown - it was called Tamla/Motown at that time and we used to audition there because Smokey Robinson was at that studio and Berry Gordy was the president. I remember asking Smokey to listen to my group and he did. For the first couple of years we were just singing background. We used to back up Marvin Gaye; Mary Wells was there then, Marv Johnson, the Marvelettes, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Junior Walker and the All-Stars.
Diana RossWhen I sing, I pick out people in the audience and pinpoint on them. So if you feel that I am singing just for you, you may be right!
Glenn HughesWell, you know, people don't know me as a country artist and I am new to the genre. But that's how I grew up singing.
Kristin ChenowethThere are certain recordings where my voice sounds good to me. Singing live I really enjoy, but I don't know how good it sounds.
Doug MartschMy neighbor Alice Pierce is fond of singing folk music to her garden plants. Thinks it makes them grow or something. The Major had often wondered how a wailing rendition of 'Greensleeves' would encourage greater raspberry production but Alice insisted that it worked far better than chemical fertilizers, and she did produce several kinds of fruit in pie-worthy quantitites. No sense of pitch, but plenty of enthusiasm, he added.
Helen SimonsonIt was like I couldn't even begin to tell my mom I was singing. I didn't want anyone to think that she was trying to get me to sing. I wanted to prove to myself I could do it on my own. I really wanted to do a completely different thing.
Jillian HerveyAll our life is like a day of celebration for us; we are convinced, in fact, that God is always everywhere. We work while singing, we sail while reciting hymns, we accomplish all other occupations of life while praying.
Clement of AlexandriaOverall, the library held a hushed exultation, as though the cherished volumes were all singing soundlessly within their covers.
Diana GabaldonI was the worst bricklayer in the world. I can show you buildings I worked on - they're a hazard. I closed a window one time. I forgot to set back a brick and I just kept going - there I was singing 'There's no business like show business'.
Pat CooperAn athlete learns how to hold her breath, but that doesn't work in singing. You have to learn to relax.
Cathy RigbyWhen I finally stopped [singing], he had been saying, like, the last day or so, he'd been saying, now, I think we should put this one in the album. So without him saying I want to record you and release an album, he kept - he started saying, let's put this one in the album. So the album, this big question, you know, began to take form, take shape. And Rick [Rubin] and I would weed out the songs.
Johnny CashI remember when the candle shop burned down. Everyone stood around singing 'Happy Birthday.'
Steven WrightYou are not an encapsulated bag of skin dragging around a dreary little ego. You are an evolutionary wonder, a trillion cells singing together in a vast chorale, an organism โ environment, a symbiosis of cell and soul.
Jean HoustonSinging in Yiddish was a great thrill for me and came about through Joe Papp, the founder of The Public Theater.
Mandy PatinkinI get tired of playing a guy who gets into a fight, then starts singing to the guy he's just beat up.
Elvis PresleyI learned to play guitar on my lying back while I was bed-ridden. I only thought to record the songs because sometimes I would I couldn't remember what I had just done. Eventually I started singing, because I thought if I sang it that would help to remember even more. But I wasn't trying to sing. And then one day-this is really weird -I just wrote a song. It came out at a rapid rate and I recorded it and I listened back to it and was like "Wow, it's a tune."
Melody GardotBeing preoccupied with our self-image is like being deaf and blind. It's like standing in the middle of a vast field of wildflowers with a black hood over our heads. It's like coming upon a tree of singing birds while wearing earplugs.
Pema ChodronI 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.
K. D. Lang