Quotes about singing

„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 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

„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

„The Bible is such an interesting book to me, because it says so many things that you can't really follow it all, I don't think, can you? So I guess that's why God invented highlighters, so we could find the parts we especially like and mark them up and just follow that, cause I think if you follow any of it, you're doing pretty good, except for the part - my favorite part - did you know the most reiterated command in the whole Bible is the command to sing? Now there must be a reason for that. And uh, that's why I sing. I don't really enjoy it, I think it's hard work. I like writing, but I sing because I figure if you find a command that easy to follow you should do it a whole lot. Cause the rest of them are kinda rough, except the first command, the one to be fruitful and multiply. Most people I know have trouble not keeping that command. That's the thing that cracks me up about you know, proof-texting too. Everyone's proof-texting this book about Christ and Christ Himself said, you know, you search the Scriptures to find life, and you're not gonna find it there. But no one underlined that part, not even my folks, because we live in a time when we have come to believe that there are answers… and I don't know why we believe that. And even more worrisome is I'm not even sure why we ever came to believe that questions are all that important.“

—  Rich Mullins American christian musician 1955 - 1997

Wheaton, Illinois http://www.kidbrothers.net/words/concert-transcripts/wheaton-illinois-sep1590-backup-copy.html (April 11, 1997)
In Concert

„On voice and music: "The voice, for me, is probably the best instrument, but, on the other hand, when a person sings words they immediately limit themselves to a certain category of people, to a particular dialect.“

—  Vangelis Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, pop rock, and orchestral music 1943

Music without lyrics travels more easily and may be biologically conceived and received".
1979

„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

„And the flowers sing in D minor
And the birds fly happily.“

—  Kurt Cobain American musician and artist 1967 - 1994

Spank Thru.
Song lyrics, B-sides and compilation tracks (1989-1993)

„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)

„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

„There were signs in England that the only way for me was down. The media turned against me. I was given a hard time because my outlook wasn't one of pure debauchery. I was a sensitive male and I was singing about spirituality; I didn't choose the loutish Oasis approach to my profession. Britpop was just building up at the time and my attitude somehow counted against me.“

—  Seal (musician) British singer-songwriter 1963

On moving to the Unitied States, as quoted in "Seal: Still Crazy After All These Years" by Fiona Sturges in The Independent (11 October 2003)

„That means a lot, it goes from generation to generation, and you can't wonder why, and I think it's because it's such a good energy in it, and I think the girls and boys, they want to dress like us, and they want to sing along.“

—  Agnetha Fältskog Swedish recording artist and entertainer 1950

On other musicians who has 'grown up' listening to ABBA, who wants to work with Agnetha; Interview on 'Loose Women', Interviewer: Carol Vorderman, ITV 16 May 2013 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7USzqiSflss

„If you go to the protests now, you will see something you never saw before: hundreds of women. They shout and sing, they even sleep there in tents. This is not just a political revolution, it's a social revolution“

—  Tawakkol Karman Yemeni journalist, politician, human rights activist, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient 1979

2010s

„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