Quotes about singing

„When I sing, trouble can sit right on my shoulder and I don't even notice.“

—  Sarah Vaughan American jazz singer 1924 - 1990

Interview, The New York Times, 1988

„I don't sing my mother tongue
No, this is not a love song“

—  Till Lindemann German industrial metal musician 1963

"Amerika"
Reise, Reise (2004)

„Democracy is a con game. It’s a word invented to placate people to make them accept a given institution. All institutions sing, ‘We are free.’ The minute you hear ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’, watch out… because in a truly free nation, no one has to tell you you’re free.“

—  Jacque Fresco American futurist and self-described social engineer 1916 - 2017

„Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.“

—  Emily Dickinson American poet 1830 - 1886

„it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you“

—  E.E. Cummings American poet 1894 - 1962

92
95 poems (1958)
Variant: it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

„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

„Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us.“

—  Harper Lee, book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt. 1, ch. 10
Atticus Finch & Maudie Atkinson
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Context: "I'd rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you'll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it.
“Your father's right," she said. "Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

„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.“

—  Адам Левин 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.

„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

„He's the one
Who likes all our pretty songs
And he likes to sing along
And he likes to shoot his gun
But he knows not what it means.“

—  Kurt Cobain American musician and artist 1967 - 1994

Song lyrics, Nevermind (1991)

„Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince;
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.“

—  William Shakespeare, Hamlet

Source: Hamlet

„What you're really supposed to be doing is whatever makes your heart sing.“

—  Barbara Sher, I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was: How to Discover What You Really Want and How to Get It

Source: I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was: How to Discover What You Really Want and How to Get It

„All music is folk music. I ain't never heard a horse sing a song.“

—  Louis Armstrong American jazz trumpeter, composer and singer 1901 - 1971

Variant: All music is folk music. I ain't never heard a horse sing a song.

„Others shall sing the song,
Others shall right the wrong,—
Finish what I begin,
And all I fail of win.“

—  John Greenleaf Whittier American Quaker poet and advocate of the abolition of slavery 1807 - 1892

My Triumph, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Context: Sweeter than any sung
My songs that found no tongue;
Nobler than any fact
My wish that failed of act.

Others shall sing the song,
Others shall right the wrong,—
Finish what I begin,
And all I fail of win.

„Her mouth is a honey-blossom,
No doubt, as the poet sings;
But within her lips, the petals,
Lurks a cruel bee that stings.“

—  William Dean Howells author, critic and playwright from the United States 1837 - 1920

The Sarcastic Fair

„He is a great person, as well as a great musician. And this guy sings like he was born down below Mississippi!“

—  Eric Clapton English musician, singer, songwriter, and guitarist 1945

B.B. King http://www1.gitarrebass.de/magazine/0008/top10.htm
About

„I'm never going to sing another song I don't believe in. I'm never going to make another picture I don't believe in.“

—  Elvis Presley American singer and actor 1935 - 1977

After hearing Walter Earl Brown's If I Can Dream, the song inspired on Martin Luther King Jr. that would close Elvis' comeback show in 1968, and the phrase was remarked to its producer, Steve Binder. http://elvis-tkc.com/forum2/lofiversion/index.php/t15948.html

„Some guy said to me: Don't you think you're too old to sing rock n' roll?

I said: You'd better check with Mick Jagger.“

—  Cher American singer and actress 1946

„The murderer smiles palely in wine,
Death's horror grips the sick.
Excoriated and naked, the nun prays
Before the Savior's agony on the cross.

The mother sings quietly in sleep.
Peacefully the child looks into the night
With eyes that are completely truthful.
In the whorehouse laughter rings.

By candlelight down in the cellar hole
The dead one paints with white hand
A grinning silence on the wall.
The sleeper whispers still.“

—  Georg Trakl austrian poet 1887 - 1914

"Romance in the Night"