Popular quotes about Singing! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 20
I love making people sing. I love group singing, sacred harp singing, choral singing, recordings of people singing sea shanties, work songs, prison songs - how people just sang to get through things.
Matana RobertsI grew up singing in Kansas. My dad had a band when I was growing up. So I sang in church and school and started singing with his band when I was seven. So I've been singing all my life.
Martina McBrideI think I got interested in singing without being too over-the-top. I was more calmly singing the words - which I thought had really come a long way. I thought they were worth singing clearly.
Hamilton LeithauserI'm an entertainer, period. But I'd probably have to say my passion is in singing. I'm willing to go broke singing.
Christina MilianEven 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 KeysWhen you're singing songs about love and sex, you want everyone to think you're singing to them. Whether you're a boy, a girl, a woman, a man - whatever you're into, I can be that.
Joan JettListen to what others tell you about your voice. If you're only singing to please yourself, you might as well just sing under the shower. But if you're singing for others, you are reliant on them to ask you to sing.
Andrea BocelliEvery day I remind myself of all that I have been given... With singing, you never know when you are going to lose the voice, and that makes you appreciate the time that you have when you are still singing well. I am always thanking God for another season, another month, another performance.
Anita O'DayI was more of a dancing kid than a singing kid. I mean, I sang in school choirs and I sang in school musicals, but I was much more interested in dancing than singing.
Madonna CicconeWe enjoyed the fact that we were called to the folk festivals and we got to know Joan Baez, Dylan. We were singing strictly gospel, but then after we started hearing songs that they would sing, we saw that those songs were very fitting for us because they were singing the truth, and truth is gospel.
Mavis StaplesIt is the voice of the Church that is heard in singing together. It is not you that sings, it is the Church that is singing, and you, as a member of the Church, may share in its song.
Dietrich BonhoefferJohn 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 OrnerFor me, there's a tremendous challenge of singing with Faith, who, in my opinion is one of the best singers in the world. She doesn't get enough credit for being as good as she is. She's so beautiful that people look past her singing. But for a journeyman like me to keep up with her is a real tough sprint.
Tim McGrawWhen I first organized the King Cole Trio back in 1937, we were strictly what you would call an instrumental group. To break the monotony, I would sing a few songs here and there between the playing. I sang things I had known over the years. I wasn't trying to give it any special treatment, just singing. I noticed thereafter people started requesting more singing, and it was just one of those things.
Nat King ColeI think that there's a strong crossover in that Janis, studying the visual arts, was learning how to break it down into details and see how to get the expression that we wanted. And her visual art is emotionally expressive as her singing was. And, I think, when she switched over to singing, she already knew that it was something serious that you broke into pieces so she developed the ability to break it down and learn little riffs that she could throw in here and there.
Laura JoplinAin't singing for Pepsi, ain't singing for Coke, I don't sing for nobody, makes me look like a joke.
Neil YoungSinging is the rawest thing. Having been naked in films or naked in photo shoots, it's nothing compared to singing. It's absolute nakedness. You are stripped bare!
Lou DoillonMy mother told me to keep on singing, and that kept me working through the cotton fields. She said God has his hand on you. You'll be singing for the world someday.
Johnny CashAs 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 McCulloughWe're all writing out of a wound, and that's where our song comes from. The wound is singing. We're singing back to those who've been wounded.
Dorianne LauxMy uncle was 16, in junior high, and he heard me singing and snatched me off the stage. I thought he was happy and was going to pat me on the head and say I was good. But he took me home and told my grandmother this youngin' was at school singing the blues.
Mavis StaplesI went through various phases of different accents - I get ridiculously obsessed with different accents, different regional ways of using the voice, different types of singing. It's all tied together. Speaking is a kind of singing, as are crying and laughing.
Jenny HvalI think playing a horn has had a great influence on my singing. I've tried to approach singing from an instrumental mindset. Space is just as important as sound.
Susan Tucker"Everything must change, everything must stay the same." Those are good words to have circling around in my head. I just wish that I was able to deal with them, not by singing, but by helping myself. But singing helps, too.
How to Dress WellI've been singing since I was two. Music was my first passion and I love writing, singing, creating and being creative.
Joanna Noelle LevesqueThere are so many people that do things better than I do: dancing, singing like a black girl, singing country. Or if, while they sing, they move their arms in and around their crotch; when I sing, I play the piano and look like a little choirgirl. I'd like to mix it up like that.
Nellie McKayOur shows have always been sort of an all-generations thing, people from 6 to 60. The other night, we played a show and we had a woman who was probably 70 to 75 years old, and she was there alone and she was singing every song. On the other end of the spectrum, there was a 7-year-old on his dad's shoulders and the dad is singing along.
Andy BiersackI probably wouldn't be singing if not for Michael Jackson. When I started singing, I didn't like my tone until my mom put me on to Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder, so listening to the way they used their instrument helped me get more comfortable with my own.
Ne-YoI knew I could sing but I always thought everyone could sing, that everyone was born with a singing voice. Even when I was getting interest from singing, I just thought 'what about all these guys?' Yes, I can sing, I have a good voice but there's so many people that can and do.
Amy WinehouseIn the dark times Will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing. About the dark times.
Bertolt BrechtEVERYONE suddenly burst out singing; And I was filled with such delight As prisoned birds must find in freedom, Winging wildly across the white Orchards and dark-green fields; onโonโand out of sight. Everyoneโs voice was suddenly lifted; And beauty came like the setting sun: My heart was shaken with tears; and horror Drifted away ... O, but Everyone Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.
Siegfried SassoonThat's my goal, is to stay in a truthful place. And sometimes that means writing a silly song, or singing about sex or singing about environmental destruction or heartbreak, or my grandmother. The subject isn't what the core is about, it's about truthfulness and authenticity and that just comes from my heart and soul.
MirahWhen you're on stage singing, you're naked. Your voice is something very intimate, and that's why I'm scared every time before I perform. It doesn't matter if I'm singing for a king or a queen or the Pope, it's enough to be in front of anybody. I suffer, but I can't do anything about it.
Andrea BocelliOne of my sisters wanted to be an opera singer. So, we spent a few dollars to try to train her, because Italian people would like to have an opera singer in the family. But she's got trouble coughing, let alone singing. One day, she was in the shower singing 'Madame Butterfly,' three days later the Japs attacked Pearl Harbor.
Pat CooperI 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 GrannisWhen you're really bummed out, the last thing you want to hear is up-tempo and positive. And it lets you know that you're not alone, that somebody has hurt before. It works the same way with chick songs as it does with political songs. When you hear somebody singing about these things, you know that you're not alone, that somebody else is suspicious of what's going on around us in the world. So you don't feel like you're crazy, and you feel like you might be able to make a difference.
Steve EarleIt's been a while. I haven't seen the actual gag reel they put on the DVD. I just saw the DVD myself, so I know that it's going to be some version of what we saw at our wrap party. Some of the funniest things probably wouldn't make it to the DVD and that involved Ryan O'Neal singing and they intercut that with the American Idol judges judging him, which was pretty funny.
Emily DeschanelI remember when I first rocked in it was a great big dance hall and Tommy Young was blowing trombone and Louis [Armstrong] was singing a tune and it was just Satchmo and you could hear it resounding through the dance hall and people were dancing. It was a highlight.
Gordon LightfootGod bless him, I mean a lot of times you get non-actors on a set and they get really self-conscious, especially when doing something crazy like singing along with Phil Collins. They get sort of reserved and self-conscious. Mike [Tyson] completely trusted Todd [Phillips] and totally put everything into it.
Ed HelmsAnd nevertheless I have loved certain of my masters, and those strangely intimate though elusive relations existing between student and teacher, and the Sirens singing somewhere within the cracked voice of him who is first to reveal a new idea. The greatest seducer was not Alcibiades, afterall, it was Socrates.
Marguerite YourcenarHere, like everywhere else, laughing and singing, dancing and dreaming are not exactly the whole of reality; and for one ray of sun shining on the hut, the rest of the village remains in the dark.
Simone Schwarz-BartThe thing about Bob Dylan's performative essence is that he keeps singing these old songs as well as the new songs, and the old songs become new with new arrangements and new contexts as time goes by.
Richard F. ThomasBoth sex and death are eternal themes. You could make thousands of movies on this theme, and whether you have a human being who is painting, singing, making a film, writing, these are the themes that you will come back to and return to. If you don't have any of these artistic expressions, sex is one of the only gifts that nature gave you for free, so it is very important to celebrate it. And then, with death, we are condemned to that. This is absolutely present in our lives.
Pedro Almodovar