Quotes about singing

„I'm the interpreter. I'm the one who takes your words and brings them to life. I was trained to sing and dance and laugh, and that's what I want to do.“

—  Aaliyah American singer, actress and model 1979 - 2001

Attributed

„Is your voice “silence”?
When you are not singing a song then I hear your song’s melody clearly!
Your voice is silence. Is your face “darkness”?
When I shut my eyes then I see your face clearly!
Your face is darkness.Is your shadow “light”?
Your shadow is cast on the dark window after the moon has gone down!
Your shadow is light.“

—  Han Yong-un Korean writer 1879 - 1944

"Inverse Proportion", translated by Sammy Solberg

„I want to paint the way a bird sings.“

—  Claude Monet French impressionist painter 1840 - 1926

Variant: I would like to paint the way a bird sings.
Source: Monet By Himself

„On my Youtube page there are so many haters. They just say crazy stuff. Like, I'm not mad. I'm 16 years old and I don't have chest hair and I'm not angry about it at the moment. That will come. People are like, "Look at him he puts helium in his voice before he sings."“

—  Justin Bieber Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor 1994

You just have to laugh at yourself. It's funny.
Interview on The Ellen Show, "Ellen Chats With Justin Bieber", 3 November, 2010

„I sing in the language of the Heart. It's an invented language that I've had for a very long time. I believe I started singing in it when I was about 12. Roughly that time. And I believed that I was speaking to God when I sang in that language.“

—  Lisa Gerrard Australian musician, singer and composer 1961

„Written words can also sing.“

—  Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o Kenyan writer 1938

Source: Dreams in a Time of War

„On the grave of this poor stranger, let there be neither lamp nor rose,
Let neither butterfly's wing burn nor nightingale sing.“

—  Nur Jahan Padshah Begum of the Mughal Empire 1577 - 1645

epitaph on Nur Jahan's tomb, translated by Wheeler Thackston, quoted in "Nur Jahan", p. 275

„I have a very young brother and sister, and if you can get a kid singing the words to a song after they heard it for the first time, it's a hit.“

—  Adam Levine singer, songwriter, actor, and record producer from the United States 1979

When asked how he can predict that a song will be a hit.
Scaggs, Austin (2007-05-31), "Adam Levine". Rolling Stone. (1027):36.

„Getting crazy on the Waltzers, but it's the life that I choose.
Sing about the sixblade, sing about the switchback and a torture tattoo.
And I been riding on a ghost train where the cars they scream and slam,
And I don't know where I'll be tonight but I'd always tell you where I am.“

—  Mark Knopfler English guitarist 1949

Tunnel of Love, written with Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II
Song lyrics, Making Movies (1980)

„He's the reason for the teardrops on my guitar,
The only thing that keeps me wishing on a wishing star.
He's the song in the car I keep singing, don't know why I do.“

—  Taylor Swift American singer-songwriter 1989

Teardrops on My Guitar, written by Taylor Swift and Liz Rose.
Song lyrics, Taylor Swift (2006)

„My child, let your life come into the world of darkness
like a spark of light, without flicker and pure,
and thank them in silence. You know,
my child, they are cruel in their greed and envy,
their words are disguised knives thirsting for blood.
But do not be afraid, my child, go and stand in their hearts,
and let your gentle eyes fall on them like the forgiving serenity of the night.
My child, let them see your face and so they know it
meaning of all things, let them love and love one another.
Go, at sunrise, open and lift up your heart like a blooming flower,
and at sunset, bend your head and silently complete the worship of the day.
Remember, my child, gods and demons, ghosts and elves are fragments of one,
built by the hand of the abyss.
So, move on, go to the shore of the vast darkness,
there, is the Great Meeting of Children,
there, the sea gives a smile to the beach,
there, sing the waves facing death.“

—  Alexis Karpouzos 1967

Source: https://dailywisdomwords.com/community-poetry/my-child/

„If I'm going to sing like someone else, then I don't need to sing at all.“

—  Billie Holiday American jazz singer and songwriter 1915 - 1959

„Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.“

—  Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

Source: Time Enough for Love

„I want no purely musical developments which are not called for inevitably by the text. In opera there is always too much singing. Music should be as swift and mobile as the words themselves.“

—  Claude Debussy French composer 1862 - 1918

As quoted in Debussy (1989) by Paul Holmes, p. 36
Context: Music would take over at the point at which words become powerless, with the one and only object of expressing that which nothing but music could express. For this, I need a text by a poet who, resorting to discreet suggestion rather than full statement, will enable me to graft my dream upon his dream — who will give me plain human beings in a setting belonging to no particular period or country. … Then I do not wish my music to drown the words, nor to delay the course of the action. I want no purely musical developments which are not called for inevitably by the text. In opera there is always too much singing. Music should be as swift and mobile as the words themselves.

„That which is not worth speaking they sing.“

—  Pierre Beaumarchais, The Barber of Seville

Ce qui ne vaut pas la peine d'être dit, on le chante.
Act I, scene i. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 712-13.
Le Barbier de Séville (1773)

„In those years, when I came to the States, people were always asking me why I didn’t sing anymore. I’d tell them, ‘I sing all around the world—Asia, Africa, Europe—but if you don’t sing in the US, then you haven’t really made it.’ That’s why I’ll always be grateful to Paul Simon. He allowed me to bring my music back to my friends in this country.“

—  Miriam Makeba South African singer and civil rights activist 1932 - 2008

As quoted in Poet, J. (11 February 2009)

„You can knock me down, but you better have a big rock to put me there… It's been tough, but that's alright. I am the oldest of ten kids and I am a survivor. I love this business so much, that there's no way I could think of retiring. When I'm 87, I'll still be walking on the Grand Ole Opry and singing "Here comes more tears to cry…". I still don't feel that I have the biggest record yet, or sang it the best. I think the best is yet to come, and that's the truth!“

—  Dottie West American country music singer 1932 - 1991

From an interview with "The Nashville Network" in 1991, putting rumors aside that she might be retiring.

„Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them?“

—  Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy American philanthropist and mother of John F. Kennedy 1890 - 1995

„p>There's nothing you can do that can't be done
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game
It's easy.All you need is love.</p“

—  John Lennon English singer and songwriter 1940 - 1980

"All You Need Is Love"
Lyrics