Quotes about singing
page 6

“The Muslim invaders, no doubt, came to India singing a hymn of hate against the Hindus. But, they did not merely sing their hymn of hate and go back burning a few temples on the way. That would have been a blessing. They were not content with so negative a result. They did a positive act, namely, to plant the seed of Islam. The growth of this plant is remarkable. It is not a summer sapling. It is as great and as strong as an oak. Its growth is the thickest in Northern India. The successive invasions have deposited their ‘silt’ more there than anywhere else, and have served as watering exercises of devoted gardeners. Its growth is so thick in Northern India that the remnants of Hindu and Buddhist culture are just shrubs. Even the Sikh axe could not fell this oak.”

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) Father of republic India, champion of human rights, father of India's Constitution, polymath, revolutionary…

Source: Pakistan or The Partition of India (1946), pp. 65

Hate, Way, Exercises, Strong

“It was suddenly obvious to everybody in the studio that something quite special must be going on inside the man, because something quite special was coming out. He was singing now, cold or no cold, with power and warmth, he was letting himself go, the public arrogance was gone, the private side was in this song about the girl who, it is said, understands him better than anybody else, and is the only person in front of whom he can be unashamedly himself.”

Gay Talese (1932) American writer

"Frank Sinatra Has a Cold" (Esquire, April 1966)

Girl, Understanding, Personality

“Oh, my, my. Oh, hell, yes.
Honey, put on that party dress.
Buy me a drink, sing me a song.
Take me as I come 'cause I can't stay long.”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

Mary Jane's Last Dance
Lyrics, Greatest Hits (1993)

Hell, Drink

“Hear from the grave, great Taliessin, hear;
They breathe a soul to animate thy clay.
Bright Rapture calls, and soaring, as she sings,
Waves in the eye of Heav'n her many-colour'd wings.”

Thomas Gray The Bard

III. 2. lines 121-124
The Bard (1757)

Soul, Animals

“Her shoulders sagging, her back hunched, her eyelids tired, Rose-Anna sewed for the feast, not daring even to sing for fear of frightening off her joy.”

Gabrielle Roy book The Tin Flute

Source: The Tin Flute (1945), P. 177

Fear, Joy

“How beautiful life is! Music and dancing! The violins are sobbing. The first stopper of a bottle of champagne bangs. And now there's a mad singing and shouting. Everybody joins in and sings and shouts! Embracing, friendship, eternal friendship! How beautiful the women are! Dressed in black and red. But you are the prettiest, Hertha! … Hey, you grumblers, go to hell! Music and dancing. The violins are sobbing. Women dressed in black and red. But you are the prettiest, Hertha!”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Wie schön ist das Leben! Musik und Tanz! Die Geigen schluchzen. Der erste Sektpfropfen knallt. Und nun ein tolles Singen und Schreien. Man singt und schreit mit. Umarmung, Freundschaft, ewige Freundschaft! Welch' schöne Frauen! In schwarz und rot! Und doch bist Du die Schönste, Hertha Holk! … Heda, ihr Miesmacher, der Teufel soll euch holen! Musik und Tanz. Die Geigen schluchzen. Frauen in schwarz und rot. Und doch bist Du die Schönste, Hertha Holk!
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

Life, Women, Friendship, Beauty

“…I want the songs I sing to reflect that [I am a regular 16 year old]. Basically, I'm not Lizzie McGuire anymore.”

Hilary Duff (1987) American actress and singer

Duerden, Nick. "The Golden Girl" http://www.blender.com/guide/articles.aspx?id=1052. Blender. October 2004. Retrieved October 25 2006.

“It started out — my mom and dad took a little vacation to Mexico and they left $250 for food. But instead of food we went and bought some instruments. We got a bass, guitar and a set of drums. … I was 19. Dennis was 15. Carl was 17. Mike was 18. Al was 19. And so we wrote a song called "Surfin'" in my living room. We were all playing and singing and Mike and I wrote a song called "Surfin'" and that's how it all started.”

Brian Wilson (1942) American musician, singer, songwriter and record producer

CNN interview (2004)

Food, Moms

“They think how one life hums, revolves and toils,
One cog in a golden singing hive…”

Stephen Spender (1909–1995) English poet and man of letters

"The Funeral" (l. 13–14)

Life, Thinking

“Poetry will never win the war on terror
But neither will error abetted by error We girly men are not afraid
Of uncertainty or reason or interdependence
We think before we fight, then think some more
Proclaim our faith in listening, in art, in compromise So be a girly man
& sing this gurly song
Sissies & proud
That we would never lie our way to war”

Charles Bernstein (1950) American writer

"The Ballad of the Girlie Man" http://www.milkmag.org/CHBERNSTEIN6.html, Milk Magazine, no. 6, 2005. Anthologized in Girlie Man (2006), ISBN 0226044068.

Men, War, Lie, Faith

“I'm a musician at heart, I know I'm not really a singer. I couldn't compete with real singers. But I sing because the public buys it.”

Nat King Cole (1919–1965) American singer and jazz pianist

As quoted in Nat King Cole (1990) by James Haskings

Heart

“"The water in music the oar forsakes." The air in music the wing forsakes. All things move in music and write it. The mouse, lizard, and grasshopper sing together on the Turlock sands, sing with the morning stars.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

letter to Mrs. Ezra S. Carr, from Yosemite Valley (September 1874); published in William Federic Badè, The Life and Letters of John Muir http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/life/life_and_letters/default.aspx (1924), chapter 11: On Widening Currents  (Presumably paraphrasing from the poem Woodnotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Come learn with me the fatal song / Which knits the world in music strong / … / and the ripples in rhymes the oar forsake / The wood is wiser far than thou".) (Turlock: Town where Muir changed from railroad to foot travel in this particular journey from Oakland, California, to Yosemite Valley.) 1870s

Music, Star, Water

“Dicko: Yeah, you're a fantastic lesson in persistence, actually. You came and were rejected, and then came again and have got this far. That was an absolutely fantastic song for you and I think we're beginning to see which songs are your comfort zone. I guess the question is, how are you gonna do with more up-tempo stuff? I don't recall hearing you sing too many up-tempo songs so far and if you get to the next round, that's something which you will be tested on. But that was, I thought, one of the performances of the night. I think you're doing exactly what a contestant should do in this competition and that's to rise to the occasion, rise to the challenge and grow. And that's what you're doing. You're growing on me too. I thought that was tremendous, I really do. Well done.”

Hayley Jensen (1983) Australian singer

Australian Idol, First Round

Question, Thinking, Night

“Compared to the first album, when I wasn't confident enough to make suggestions, this time around, I was very involved. I worked with the songwriters, telling them what was happening in my life, and what I wanted to sing about. If I thought it needed to be more heavy, more rock, I said so. I feel that this record is so much more me. I can't wait for people to hear it.”

Hilary Duff (1987) American actress and singer

Life, People, Feeling, Confidence

“Poetry, perhaps the finest of fine arts, certainly the shynest and most elusive?, poetry which must have listeners, which cannot sing into a void.”

Harriet Monroe (1860–1936) American poet and editor

'A Poets life, Seventy Years in changing world' Macmillan, New York 1938
A Poet 's Life (1938)

Art

“In songbirds, it is generally the male of the species that sings, and for some species, the larger the repertoire, the more likely it is to attract a mate.”

Daniel Levitin (1957) American psychologist

This is Your Brain on Music (2006)

“That sound in tune to you? … Sounds sharp to me. Sounds like I'm playing sharp all the time. My singing teacher told us you should do that. Maybe I got it from her. She said singers when they grow old have a tendency to go flat. So if you sing sharp as a young person, as you get older and go flat, you'll be in tune. In other words, it's never thought good to be flat. It means you can't get to the tone.”

Charles Mingus (1922–1979) American jazz double bassist, composer and bandleader

Listening to a long solo on Mingus at Montery, as quoted in Mingus/Mingus : Two Memoirs (1989) by Janet Coleman and Al Young, p. 10

Teachers, Time, Personality

“Cool, calm, and unemotional. Protestant, for short. It's a fantastic religion, it makes absolutely no demands upon you at all, which is why it's not a great religion. All great religions are built on shame. You don't have any of that if you're Protestant. You go to the church, sing a few hymns, have a cup of tea, everybody goes home and has a wank.”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

On Protestants.
Like, Totally (2006)

Religion, Home, Tea

“Green wind from the green-gold branches, what is the song you bring?
What are all songs for me, now, who no more care to sing?
Deep in the heart of Summer, sweet is life to me still,
But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill.”

William Sharp (writer) (1855–1905) Scottish writer

Poem The Lonely Hunter.

Life, Heart, Summer

“Sing again, with your dear voice revealing
A tone
Of some world far from ours,
Where music and moonlight and feeling
Are one.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

To Jane. The keen Stars were twinkling; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

World, Music, Feeling

“After singing stop the war in Croatia for a couple of months we realized nobody was going to give us a hand and we had to do this on our own.”

Goran Višnjić (1972) Croatian actor

War

“The telephone is singing
Ringing it's too early
Don't pick it up
We don't need to we got everything
We need right here
And everything we need is enough
Just so easy
When the whole world fits inside of your arms
Don't really need to pay attention to the alarm.”

Jack Johnson (musician) (1975) American musician

Banana Pancakes.
Song lyrics, In Between Dreams (2005)

World

“That man’s best works should be such bungling imitations of Nature’s infinite perfection, matters not much; but that he should make himself an imitation, this is the fact which Nature moans over, and deprecates beseechingly. Be spontaneous, be truthful, be free, and thus be individuals! is the song she sings through warbling birds, and whispering pines, and roaring waves, and screeching winds.”

Lydia Maria Child (1802–1880) American abolitionist, author and women's rights activist

1840s, Letters from New York (1843) Source: Letters from New York http://www.bartleby.com/66/67/12267.html,vol. 1, letter 38

Truth, Nature, Bird, Perfection

“But there was a strong bond between us artistes in the old days. I remember when Siddheshwari Devi was laid in bed with paralysis, we went to meet her and asked her if she needed help. She asked me to sing Bhairavi for her. She listened with tears in her eyes.”

Gangubai Hangal (1913–2009) Indian singer

In "On Gangubai Hangal by Sabina Sehgal Computer Science & Engineering - University of Washington".

Tear, Strong, Help

“Love is the song of the soul, singing to God.”

Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952) Yogi, a guru of Kriya Yoga and founder of Self-Realization Fellowship

Songs of the Soul by Paramahansa Yogananda, Quotes drawn from the poem "What is Love?"

Love, God, Soul

“That abject, squalid, shameless avowal…It is a very disquieting and disgusting symptom…My mind turns across the narrow waters of Channel and the North Sea, where great nations stand determined to defend their national glories or national existence with their lives. I think of Germany, with its splendid clear-eyed youths marching forward on all the roads of the Reich singing their ancient songs, demanding to be conscripted into an army; eagerly seeking the most terrible weapons of war; burning to suffer and die for their fatherland. I think of Italy, with her ardent Fascisti, her renowned Chief, and stern sense of national duty. I think of France, anxious, peace-loving, pacifist to the core, but armed to the teeth and determined to survive as a great nation in the world. One can almost feel the curl of contempt upon the lips of the manhood of all these people when they read this message sent out by Oxford University in the name of young England.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Anti-Socialist and Anti-Communist Union (17 February 1933) after the Oxford Union passed the motion "that this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country", quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 456
The 1930s

Love, War, People, Youth

“During a 2006 broadcast, a conversation with a guest morphed from George Brett to singing in the shower. Blyleven mentioned that he had showered with Brett, and the guest expressed surprise. Blyleven exclaimed "Well, there were other guys there! … Although they did say not to bend over."”

Bert Blyleven (1951) Major League Baseball player and broadcaster

Source: http://www.deadspin.com/sports/baseball/question-seems-perfectly-logical-to-us-177650.php (12:19 PM comment)

Guy

“Let's all sing the barmaid's song,
Time gentlemen, please.
Every night we hear this refrain,
Every night at 11 o'clock
We hear it once again!”

Jimmy Kennedy (1902–1984) Irish songwriter

Song The Barmaid's Song
Song lyrics

Time, Night

“[About Mozart] In relation to God he is like a child who brings everything to his father: the stones from the street and peculiar sticks and little plants and even once a ladybug; and with him all of these things are melodies, melodies that he brings to God, melodies that he suddenly knows when he is inside of prayer. And when he has finished praying, and he is no longer on his knees and no longer has his hands folded, then he sits there at the piano, or he sings with an incredible childlikeness, and in doing so he no longer has any idea whether he is playing something for God or whether it is God who is using him to play something at once for himself and for Mozart. There is a great conversation between Mozart and God that is the purest prayer, and this entire conversation is nothing but music.”

Adrienne von Speyr (1902–1967) Swiss doctor and mystic

Book of All Saints (1966)

God, Music, Idea

“Bach is, for me, the touchstone that keeps my playing honest. Keeping the intonation pure in double stops, bringing out the various voices where the phrasing requires it, crossing the strings so that there are not inadvertent accents, presenting the structure in such a way that it's clear to the listener without being pedantic - one can't fake things in Bach, and if one gets all of them to work, the music sings in the most wonderful way.”

Hilary Hahn (1979) American violinist

Hilary Hahn on Saint Paul Sunday http://saintpaulsunday.publicradio.org/featured_artists/hahn.html

Music, Way

“To sing the same tune, as the saying is, is in everything cloying and offensive; but men are generally pleased with variety.”

Plutarch book Moralia

Moralia, Of the Training of Children

Men

“Grand pappy told my pappy back in my day son
A man had to answer for the wicked that he'd done
Take all the rope in Texas, find a tall oak tree
Round up all of them bad boys, hang them high in the street
For all the people to seeThat justice is the one thing you should always find
You got to saddle up your boys, you got to draw a hard line
When the gun smoke settles, we'll sing a victory tune
And we'll all meet back at the local saloon.
We'll raise up our glasses against Evil forces singing
Whiskey for my men, beer for my horses.”

Toby Keith (1961) American country music singer and actor

Beer for My Horses, written with Scotty Emerick.
Song lyrics, Unleashed (2002)

Men, People, Justice, Boy

“For, in fact, I say the degree of vision that dwells in a man is a correct measure of the man. If called to define Shakspeare's faculty, I should say superiority of Intellect, and think I had included all under that. What indeed are faculties? We talk of faculties as if they were distinct, things separable; as if a man had intellect, imagination, fancy, &c., as he has hands, feet and arms. That is a capital error. Then again, we hear of a man's "intellectual nature," and of his "moral nature," as if these again were divisible, and existed apart. Necessities of language do perhaps prescribe such forms of utterance; we must speak, I am aware, in that way, if we are to speak at all. But words ought not to harden into things for us. It seems to me, our apprehension of this matter is, for most part, radically falsified thereby. We ought to know withal, and to keep forever in mind, that these divisions are at bottom but names; that man's spiritual nature, the vital Force which dwells in him, is essentially one and indivisible; that what we call imagination, fancy, understanding, and so forth, are but different figures of the same Power of Insight, all indissolubly connected with each other, physiognomically related; that if we knew one of them, we might know all of them. Morality itself, what we call the moral quality of a man, what is this but another side of the one vital Force whereby he is and works? All that a man does is physiognomical of him. You may see how a man would fight, by the way in which he sings; his courage, or want of courage, is visible in the word he utters, in the opinion he has formed, no less than in the stroke he strikes. He is one; and preaches the same Self abroad in all these ways.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Poet

Way, Error, Imagination, Courage

“When Doob came to his senses, he was aware that a large number of telephones were singing their little electronic songs.
Including his.
The birth cry of a new age.”

Neal Stephenson book Seveneves

"The Age of the One Moon"
Seveneves (2015), Part One

Age, Birth, Sense, Cry

“The average person, when they see a black man, they would say "Man, he got soul cos' his color." But I disagree with that. I think that God would be a very selfish God if He gave all the soul to one race. He lets his rain fall on the red flowers, the green flowers, the blue flowers; the good, the bad, no races, so He lets His blessings fall on all races. So I think that there are types of souls, like there are different types of cars. But they're all cars. You know, I think that, when a white guy sing[s], if he have soul, that don't mean that he had to copy no negro to get it. I believe if he feels, when one sings from the heart and it reaches another heart, that's soul.”

Little Richard (1932) American pianist, singer and songwriter

Remarks on the question: can a white man sing soul music?. Pop Chronicles: Show 15 - The Soul Reformation I: A symposium on soul http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc19764/m1/, interview recorded 1.2.1968 http://web.archive.org/web/20110615153027/http://www.library.unt.edu/music/special-collections/john-gilliland/o-s.

God, Cars, Color, Guy

“What am I? I am a comet
in Creator’s night infernal,
dusty grain of far-flung matter
of his labour’s task eternal.Glow upon my moment’s fleeting –
that is all I want to furnish,
song of praise for my heart’s beating –
My desire to sing I’ll burnish.Yes, I want to sing and shining
even end as I once started
in a blinking eyelid’s moment
when a flash across sky darted!Flaming heart that once pulsated,
sun apart that once was burning,
boundless love was what I wanted –
beauty’s gift, my ardent yearning.Space deserted, now surrender
to the light of my star’s beating!
my desire to sing I’ll burnish –
song of praise for life repeating.”

L. Onerva (1882–1972) Finnish poet

Translation by Rupert Moreton

Love, Life, Beauty, Star

“The whole truth…
sings only —and all lovers are the song”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

91
95 poems (1958)

Truth, Lovers

“It’s amazing to have people singing a song back to you on a stage. It’s great to finish recording a song and play it for your friend, and they love it. That feels good. But nothing feels better than when you’ve finished something and you know it’s good, and you know that those other responses will come in time.”

Ben Gibbard (1976) American singer, songwriter and guitarist

Source: The Meaning Of Life, II

Love, People, Feeling, Time

“I said you know what, I thought my transformation was that I needed to transform into Erika Jayne, but my true transformation took place when Erika Jayne showed me that Erika Girardi was just fine the whole time. It was just a truer, shinier version of myself. And you can be fluent in both of your personas, both your personalities. We all have them, whether you’re on a reality television show or not, whether you’re 47 years old and you’re out there singing and dancing. You’re not the same person at home as you are at work, or with other people, so there are performance personas whether you acknowledge them or not. And transformation is individual. This is my story, my experiences, doing this stuff. Maybe yours is something different, but they’re equally important.”

Erika Jayne (1969) American singer, actress and television personality

Erika Jayne interview to Detroit News https://eu.detroitnews.com/story/entertainment/music/2018/10/23/tv-bravo-real-housewives-beverly-hills-erika-jayne-singer-billboard-chart-club-music/38252769/ (2018)

People, Home, Reality, Time

“[While filming 'Ashes to Ashes'] So we're on the beach shooting this scene with a giant bulldozer. The camera was on a very long lens. [The camera is along way away, but the artist fills the frame] In this video I'm dressed from head to toe in a clown suit. Why not. I hear playback and the music starts. So off I go, I start singing and walking, but as soon as I do this old geezer with an old dog walk right between me and the camera… Well, knowing this is gonna take a while I walked past the old guy and sat next to camera in my full costume waiting for him to pass. As he is walking by camera the director said, excuse me Mr do you know who this is? The old guy looks at me from bottom to top and looks back to the director and said… "Of course I do!!!! its some cunt in a clown suit."”

David Bowie (1947–2016) British musician, actor, record producer and arranger

That was a huge moment for me, It put me back in my place and made me realize, yes I'm just a cunt in a clown suit. I think about that old guy all the time.
http://tonythegigguy.com/queen-bitch-beat-city-bowie-special-sleeve-notes

Dogs, Music, Way, Guy

“Maybe you've put your faith in spiritual claptrap because our random, narrative-free universe terrifies you. But that's no solution. If you want comforting, suck your thumb. Buy a pillow. Don't make up a load of floaty blah about energy or destiny. This is the real world, stupid. We should be solving problems, not sticking our fingers in our ears and singing about fairies.”

Charlie Brooker (1971) journalist, broadcaster and writer from England

[Screen Burn, http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguide/columnists/story/0,,2145124,00.html, The Guardian, 11 August 2007, 2007-08-19]
Guardian columns, Screen Burn

Stupidity, World, Faith, Problem

“Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven
Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun
Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flower
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?
'God!' let the torrents, like a shout of nations,
Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, 'God!'
'God! ' sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice!
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!
And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow,
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, 'God!'.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

"Hymn in the Vale of Chamouni" (1802)

God, Soul, Flowers, Sun

“My dame, sing for this person accurate songs.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction (1942), It Must Be Abstract

Personality

“His rhythm is the only one I can sing my songs to.”

Little Richard (1932) American pianist, singer and songwriter

On Chuck Berry, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/chuckberryhailhailrocknrollpgharrington_a0aa6d.htm Song lyrics, Others

“Can you hear me when I sing?
You're the reason I sing.
You're the reason the opera is in me
Well, hey now
Still got to let you know
A house just don't make a home
Don't leave me here alone”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

"Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own"
Lyrics, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (2004)

Home, Housing

“They went on playing quietly and waiting for Sam (who had gone back to the bedroom to seek Tommy) and for their turns to see Mother. Bonnie meanwhile, with a rueful expression, was leaning out the front window, and presently she could not help interrupting them, 'Why is my name Mrs Cabbage, why not Mrs Garlic or Mrs Horse Manure?' They did not hear her, so intent were they, visiting each other and inquiring after the health of their respective new babies. They did not hear her complaining to Louie that, instead of being Mrs Grand Piano or Mrs Stair Carpet, they called her Garbage, 'Greta Garbage, Toni Toilet,' said she laughing sadly, 'because they always see me out there with the garbage can and the wet mop; association in children's naïve innocent minds you see!'
'Oh no, it isn't that, protested Louie, Garbage is just a funny word: they associate you with singing and dancing and all those costumes you have in your trunk!”

Christina Stead book The Man Who Loved Children

'Do you think so?' Bonnie was tempted to believe. 'Mrs Strip Tease?'
The Man Who Loved Children (1940)

Children, Health, Thinking, Waiting

“It's the way you play that makes it. What I say is, for Christ's sake, you don't have to kill yourself to sing. Play like you play. Play like you think, and then you got it, if you're going to get it. And whatever you get, that's you, so that's your story.”

Count Basie (1904–1984) American jazz musician, bandleader, and composer

Good Morning Blues : The Autobiography of Count Basie (1985) by Count Basie and Albert Murray

Way, Thinking, Christ

“He is the happy wanderer, who goes,
Singing upon the way, with eyes awake
To every scene, with ears alert to take
The sweetness of all sounds; who loves and knows
The secrets of the highway, and the rose
Holds fairer for the wounds that briars make.”

Percy Addleshaw (1866–1916) English journalist

The Happy Wanderer (1895).

Love, Happiness, Secret, Way

“A good song is a good song, and if I'm lucky enough to write it, well….! I get more kick out of writing than I do singing. I reckon I've written a thousand songs and had over 300 published.”

Hank Williams (1923–1953) American country music singer

Gleason, Ralph (06-28-1969). 1952 interview of Hank Williams. Rolling Stone.

“From Natchez to Mobile, from Memphis to St. Joe, wherever the four winds blow
I been in some big towns an' heard me some big talk, but there is one thing I know
A woman's a two-face, a worrisome thing who'll leave ya to sing the blues in the night.”

Johnny Mercer (1909–1976) American lyricist, songwriter, singer and music professional

Song Blues in the Night

Night

“We were only together for a part of my career, and for every film we did, I did another three on my own. The studio was working me too hard. Fred would rush off for a holiday and call me and say: "Hey, ready to do another?" And I didn't have the sense to say that I was too tired. Those times were murder for me. Oh, I adored Mr. A but all the hard work… the 5 a. m. calls, the months of non-stop dancing, singing and acting. We just worked it out and had a lot of fun and got very exhausted. And Mr A was quite divine.”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

Ginger Rogers quoted in Satchell, Tim. Astaire, The Biography. Hutchinson, London. 1987. . p. 132.

Sense, Time, Holiday, Dance

“Sing the rapturous love-song unto me! Burn to me perfumes! Wear to me jewels! Drink to me, for I love you! I love you!”

Aleister Crowley book The Book of the Law

The Book of the Law (1904)

Love, Drink

“I bought a brand-new air-mobile
It custom-made, 'twas a Flight De Ville
With a pow'ful motor and some hideaway wings
Push in on the button and you can hear her sing
Now you can't catch me, baby you can't catch me
'Cause if you get too close, you know I'm gone like a cool breeze”

Chuck Berry (1926–2017) American rock-and-roll musician

"You Can't Catch Me" (1956)
Song lyrics

Baby

“She's not that attractive. I mean, she was hard to look at at first, but I figured, rough around the edges, but she can sing good.”

Ben Moody (1981) American musician

about Amy Lee.
People

“The Earth sings Mi-Fa-Mi, so we can gather ever from this that Misery and Famine reign in our habitat.”

Johannes Kepler book Harmonices Mundi

Book V, Ch. 6 as quoted in Arthur Koestler, The Sleepwalkers (1959)
Harmonices Mundi (1618)

“A central concept called into question by net-poetry is the relation with reality. Does it make sense to define "virtual" reality as what actually reaches us through the Internet? How the artist relates to it, how he or she perceives and represents it and how a net-poet should "sing" it? The relationship with reality mediated by the Internet is a network of contacts in itself, it is ontologically a "connective" image of reality, which gradually outlines and qualify itself, both as reality and as representation.”

Caterina Davinio (1957) Italian writer

Source: Virtual Mercury House. Planetary & Interplanetary Events, p. 132

Question, Reality, Sense

“She sings the songs without words
Songs that sailors, and blind men, and beggars have heard
She knows more of love than the poets can say
And her eyes are for something that won't go away.”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

She Sings Songs Without Words
Song lyrics, Verities & Balderdash (1974)

Love, Men

“Sing lullabie, as women do,
Wherewith they bring their babes to rest;
And lullabie can I sing to,
As womanly as can the best.”

George Gascoigne (1525–1577) English politician and poet

"The Lullabie of a Lover", line 1; p. 272.
A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres (1573)

Women

“See, I'm looking for a man that'll rub me slow, make me sing real high when he goes down low.”

Mariah Carey (1970) American singer-songwriter

"One & Only", The Emancipation of Mimi, 2005.
Lyrics

“I am delighted at Des's support in these elections. And thank him for his rewrite of the lyrics of Send in the Clowns which we are planning to sing at our South East conference.”

Nigel Farage (1964) British politician and former commodity broker

In response to Des Lynam's recent support and vote on UKIP, during the May 2013 local elections - Des Lynam reveals he voted UKIP, 10 May 2013. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/10049891/Des-Lynam-reveals-he-voted-Ukip.html 2013

Support

“Raise your half-buried countenance from the sudden shower of dust, Parthenope, and place your locks, singed by the mountains breath, on the tomb and body of your great foster son.”
Exsere semirutos subito de pulvere vultus, Parthenope, crinemque adflato monte sepultum pone super tumulos et magni funus alumni.

Statius Silvae

iii, line 104
Silvae, Book V

Mountain

“What I fear most is that you will know where the laughs are going to come, or that you will know a character so well that you know when they're going to sing a song. In some shows, you just know that the audience is sitting there going "Oh no, she's going to sing."”

Tracey Ullman (1959) English-born actress, comedian, singer, dancer, screenwriter, producer, director, author and businesswoman

"Tracking Tracey" http://www.dareland.com/emulsionalproblems/ullman.htm (Interview, January 1989)

Fear

“But, O sad Virgin, that thy power
Might raise Musaeus from his bower,
Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing
Such notes as warbled to the string,
Drew Iron tears down Pluto’s cheek,
And made Hell grant what Love did seek.”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

Source: Il Penseroso (1631), Line 105

Love, Sadness, Soul, Hell

“One night, the soul of wine was singing in the flask:
"O man, dear disinherited! to you I sing
This song full of light and of brotherhood
From my prison of glass with its scarlet wax seals."”

Charles Baudelaire book Les Fleurs du mal

Un soir, l'âme du vin chantait dans les bouteilles: "Homme, vers toi je pousse, ô cher déshérité, Sous ma prison de verre et mes cires vermeilles." "L'Âme du Vin" [The Soul of Wine] http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/L%E2%80%99%C3%82me_du_vin Les fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil) (1857)

Soul, Light, Wine, Night

“Since 1939, however, there have been no bonfires on the village greens. No fireworks gleam in the blackened parks and the streets are dark and silent. But this darkness will not last forever. There will some day come a Fifth of November — or another date, it doesn't matter — when fires will burn in a chain of brightness from Land's End to John O' Groats. The children will dance and leap about them as they did in the times before. They will take each other by the hand and watch the rockets breaking, and afterwards they will go home singing to the houses full of light…”

P. L. Travers book Mary Poppins Opens the Door

NOTE (on Guy Fawkes' Day, during World War II)
Mary Poppins Opens the Door (1943)

Children, Home, Light, Time

“No matter what we are, and what we sing,
Time finds a withered leaf in every laurel”

Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935) American poet

Closing couplet- Quatrain 111 Children of the Night 1897 edition kindle ebook ASIN B004UJKLY2

Time

“From all the misty morning air, there comes a summer sound,
A murmur as of waters from skies, and trees, and ground. The birds they sing upon the wing, the pigeons bill and coo.”

Richard Watson Gilder A Midsummer Song

"A Midsummer Song", in Lyrics and Other Poems (1885).

Bird, Tree, Water, Summer

“Roger: Yeah, we're kind of like a rock band with a horn section and high energy. That is how I do say it when I meet people who have no idea who we are. Well, it's like fast reggae and a lot of singing and harmonies. There's a lot of jumping and sweating involved. There's a lot of exchanged energy. A high energy level kind of thing. I really don't like bands who stand around and stare at their shoes and don't really have anything to say.”

Roger Manganelli (1973) American musician

People, Shoe, Idea

“A singer who is able to sing even sixteen measures of good music in a natural and engaging way, effortlessly and in tune, without distending the phrase, without exaggerating accents to the point of caricature, without platitude, affectation, or coyness, without making grammatical mistakes, without illicit slurs, without hiatus or hiccup, without making insolent changes in the text, without barks or bleats, without sour notes, without crippling the rhythm, without absurd ornaments and nauseating appoggiaturas – in short, a singer able to sing these measures simply and exactly as the composer wrote them – is a rare, very rare, exceedingly rare bird.”

Hector Berlioz book À travers chants

Un chanteur ou une cantatrice capable de chanter seize mesures seulement de bonne musique avec une voix naturelle, bien posée, sympathique, et de les chanter sans efforts, sans écarteler la phrase, sans exagérer jusqu'à la charge les accents, sans platitude, sans afféterie, sans mièvreries, sans fautes de français, sans liaisons dangereuses, sans hiatus, sans insolentes modifications du texte, sans transposition, sans hoquets, sans aboiements, sans chevrotements, sans intonations fausses, sans faire boiter le rhythme, sans ridicules ornements, sans nauséabondes appogiatures, de manière enfin que la période écrite par le compositeur devienne compréhensible, et reste tout simplement ce qu'il l'a faite, est un oiseau rare, très-rare, excessivement rare. À travers chants, ch. 8 http://www.hberlioz.com/Writings/ATC08.htm; Elizabeth Csicsery-Rónay (trans.) The Art of Music and Other Essays (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994) p. 69.

Music, Way, Nature, Bird

“Baby doll!
When bells ring out the summer free
Oh baby doll!
Will it end for you and me?
We'll sing our old Alma Mater
And think of things that used to be”

Chuck Berry (1926–2017) American rock-and-roll musician

"Oh Baby Doll" (1957)
Song lyrics

Thinking, Summer, Baby

“To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned,
To my brethren in their sorrow overseas,
Sings a gentleman of England cleanly bred, machinely crammed,
And a trooper of the Empress, if you please.”

Rudyard Kipling book Barrack-Room Ballads

Gentlemen-Rankers, Stanza 1.
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, 1896)

“Dicko: There was something missing from that performance. It was the tick tick tick of your mind working. That was the first time we saw you sing without thinking about what you're doing. Now the trick is to follow along on that road. Simple melody sung beautifully - well done.”

Hayley Jensen (1983) Australian singer

Australian Idol, Final Performances, Final 7

Thinking, Time

“When they come together to make music, the Welsh sing their traditional songs, not in unison, as is done elsewhere, but in parts, in many modes and modulations. When a choir gathers to sing, which happens often in this country, you will hear as many different parts and voices as there are performers.”
In musico modulamine, non uniformiter, ut alibi, sed multipliciter, multisque modis et modulis, cantilenas emittunt. Adeo ut in turba canentium, sicut huic genti mos est, quot videas capita, tot audias carmina discriminaque vocum varia.

Gerald of Wales (1146) Medieval clergyman and historian

Book 1, chapter 13, p. 242.
Descriptio Cambriae (The Description of Wales) (1194)

Music, Parting, Country

“One, two, three like a bird I sing, 'cause you given me the most beautiful set of wings.
I'm so glad you're here today, 'cause tomorrow I might have to go and fly away. Fly away, fly away, fly away, fly away.”

Tim McGraw (1967) American country singer

Last Dollar (Fly Away)
Song lyrics, Let It Go (2008)

Beauty, Bird, Flying

“I can't wait 'til you draw something really complicated, like the Brooklyn Bridge or a lobster. You'll probably send me a singing telegram.”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Jace to Clary, pg. 325
The Mortal Instruments, City of Bones (2007)

Waiting, Drawing

“He enter'd now the garden, and a fall
Of singing, voice and lute, sank on his ear :
At first it seem'd thrice sweet and musical,
But it grew sadder as he came more near.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

9th September 1826) Metrical Fragments No. IV. - The Redeemed Captive (under the pen name Iole
(16th September 1826) Metrical Fragments No. V. - The Frozen Ship (under the pen name Iole) see The Vow of the Peacock
The London Literary Gazette, 1826

Music

“I usually quite like women, but this advert makes me want to kill about 900 of them with my bare hands. It ends with the tiresome ladettes marching down a high street triumphantly singing the Here Come the Girls song out loud, like an invading squadron tormenting the natives with its war cry. Next year they'll probably be armed. Fear this.”

Charlie Brooker (1971) journalist, broadcaster and writer from England

The Guardian 16 November 2009. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/16/charlie-brooker-christmas-television-adverts Guardian columns

Women, War, Fear, Girl

“Tell mankind Jehovah reigns;
He shall bind the world in chains,
So as it shall never slide,
And with sacred justice guide.
Let the smiling heavens rejoice,
Joyful earth exalt her voice;
Let the dancing billows roar,
Echoes answer from the shore,
Fields their flowery mantles shake;
All shall in their joy partake;
While the wood-musicians sing
To the ever-youthful spring.
Fill His courts with sacred mirth;
Lo! He comes to judge the earth:
Justly He the world shall sway,
And His truth to men display.”

Henry More (1614–1687) British philosopher

"A Hymn of Praise" (1668)

Men, Truth, Youth, World

“What is a strain is being forced into the lobster pot of good behaviour while being forced to sing its praises.”

Edward St. Aubyn (1960) British writer

Some Hope, Chapter 1

“Or he may study the hidden mind of the animal. A mixture of feelings and of thoughts, of dumb intelligences and of rudimentary affections, he reads the whole humble moral life of the beast in its eyes and in its movements.
He is even the confidant of nature. The trees, the plants talk to him like friends. The old gnarled oaks speak to him of their kindliness for the human race whom they protect beneath their sheltering branches. The flowers commune with him by the gracious swaying of their stalks, by the singing tones of their petals — each blossom amidst the grass is a friendly word addressed to him by nature.”

Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French sculptor

Source: Art, 1912, Ch. II. To the artist, all in nature is beautiful, p. 48

Life, Feeling, Confidence, Intelligence

“How sweet and beautifull is every place & I visit my old Haunts with renewed delight… nothing can exceed the beautiful green of the meadows which are beginning to fill with butter Cups — & various flowers — the birds are singing from morning till night but most of all the Sky larks — How delightfull is the Country.”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

Letter to his wife, Maria Bicknell (20 April 1821); as quoted in Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable (Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1993), p. 28
1820s

Beauty, Flowers, Bird, Night

“Charlotte Corday walked alone
Paris birds sang sugar calls
Charlotte walked down lanes of stone
through the haze of perfume stalls
Charlotte smelt the dead's gangrene
Heard the singing guillotine”

Peter Weiss Marat/Sade

Singers, act 1, scene 10 (p. 19)
Marat/Sade (1963)

Bird, Dead

“Marcia: It's lovely to see you stand so still and so metered, and sing so beautifully. I do believe in you very much Hayley, but I mean, I believe in everyone who has performed tonight. I fought for you, and I will always fight for you no matter what, because I think you're a very beautiful singer.”

Hayley Jensen (1983) Australian singer

Australian Idol, First Round

Love, Beauty, Thinking, Fight

“I'm singing this song for you and your mum that's all,
And it won't be long before everyone is gone.”

Liam Gallagher (1972) English musician and songwriter

Song Little James

“I could heartily wish that you and all others concerned in this sad loss, were more taken up in minding the happy exchange that she hath made, than with your present loss. She hath exchanged earth for heaven, a wilderness for a paradise, a prison for a palace, a house made with hands for one eternal in the heavens (2 Cor 5:1-2). She hath exchanged imperfection for perfection, sighing for singing, mourning for rejoicing, prayers for praises, the society of sinful mortals for the company of God, Christ, angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect, Heb 12:22-24; an imperfect transient enjoyment of God for a more clear, full, perfect, and permanent enjoyment of God. She hath exchanged pain for ease, sickness for health, a bed of weakness for a bed of spices, a complete blessedness. She hath exchanged her brass for silver, her counters for gold, and her earthly contentments for heavenly enjoyments.”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

A String of Pearls

Men, God, Pain, Happiness

“Flow my tears, fall from your springs,
Exil'd for ever: let me mourn
Where night's black bird her sad infamy sings,
There let me live forlorn.”

John Dowland (1563–1626) English Renaissance composer, lutenist, and singer

"Flow my tears", line 1, The Second Book of Songs (1600).

Sadness, Spring, Bird, Tear

“I'd never heard anything like it before. It was like banshee music. This absolutely otherworldly voice, singing about a book, and as a bookish kid, I was always fascinated by anything, any music that seems to be about or inspired by books.”

Neil Gaiman (1960) English fantasy writer

On the song "Wuthering Heights"
The Kate Bush Story (2014)

Books, Music

“Sound, jocund strains; on pipe and viol sound,
Young voices sing;
Wreathe every door with snow-white voices round,
For lo! 't is Spring!
Winter has passed with its sad funeral train,
And Love revives again.”

Lewis Morris (poet) (1833–1907) Welsh poet in the English language

Life-Music, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Love, Sadness, Spring, Winter

“I have grown weary of the winds of heaven.
I will not be a reed to hold the sound
Of whatsoever breath the gods may blow,
Turning my torment into music for them.
They gave me life; the gift was bountiful,
I lived with the swift singing strength of fire,
Seeking for beauty as a flame for fuel —
Beauty in all things and in every hour.
The gods have given life — I gave them song;
The debt is paid and now I turn to go.”

Sara Teasdale (1884–1933) American writer and poet

"Sappho (Rivers to the Sea)"
Rivers to the Sea (1915)

Life, God, Beauty, Music

“Sing, sweet nightingale,
Sing me a song of a night never-ending,
Sing, sweet nightingale,
And I'll try to pretend
That tomorrow's nowhere near
And there's nothing to fear.”

Tom Springfield (1934) English musician, songwriter and record producer

Song Morning Please Don't Come.

Fear, Night

“Maybe the songs that we sing are wrong / Maybe the dreams that we dream are gone / So bring it on home and it won't be long / It's gettin' better man!”

Noel Gallagher (1967) British musician

It's Getting Better (Man!
Be Here Now (1997)

Dreams, Home

“John Pienaar (BBC reporter): Which do you regret more, singing in the bath when forced to withdraw from the ERM, or talking prematurely of green shoots last autumn?
Norman Lamont: I.. Je ne regrette rien.”

Norman Lamont (1942) British politician

Sheila Gunn, "Chancellor warns Newbury against short-term protest", The Times, 24 April 1993.
At a press conference in support of Julian Davidson, Conservative candidate in the Newbury byelection, on 23 April 1993.

Autumn

“Rage:
Sing, Goddess, Achilles' rage,
Black and murderous, that cost the Greeks
Incalculable pain.”

Stanley Lombardo (1943) Philosopher, Classicist

Book I, opening lines
Translations, Iliad (1997)

Pain, Rage

“Marcia: I love you, they love you, always sing from your heart.”

Hayley Jensen (1983) Australian singer

Australian Idol, Final Performances, Final 6

Love, Heart

“I've got no talent. Still sing flat as a table. I'm a sort of human spaniel. People come to see what I'm like. I make them feel, I exhaust them, I destroy them.”

Johnnie Ray (1927–1990) American singer, actor, songwriter and composer

On his audience, quoted in Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock https://books.google.com/books?id=GDqHDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT10&lpg=PT10&dq=johnnie+ray+i%27ve+got+no+talent.+Still+sing+flat+as+a+table.+I%27m+a+sort+of+human+spaniel.+People+come+to+see+what+I%27m+like.+I+make+them+feel,+I+exhaust+them,+I+destroy+them.&source=bl&ots=TA8ZYtZoiO&sig=ghfk2d2wBgArGv8PV2AlqkXAavY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjs7dWrpI7UAhUr1oMKHRwCDeMQ6AEIKjAB#v=onepage&q=johnnie%20ray%20i've%20got%20no%20talent.%20Still%20sing%20flat%20as%20a%20table.%20I'm%20a%20sort%20of%20human%20spaniel.%20People%20come%20to%20see%20what%20I'm%20like.%20I%20make%20them%20feel%2C%20I%20exhaust%20them%2C%20I%20destroy%20them.&f=false

People, Feeling

“When I hear of anyone walking into a lab and walking out with animals, my heart sings.”

Ingrid Newkirk (1949) British-American activist

"To Market, To Market," Los Angeles Times Magazine, 1992 March 22.
On animal research and activism against it

Heart, Animals

“But you were brushing out your hair
and singing to yourself.
And, for a moment, I think I saw
what those artists saw —
someone half in love with herself
and half in love with the world.”

John Yau (1950) American poet

"January 18, 1979" lines 7-12, Corpse and Mirror, Henry Holt, 1983

Love, World, Thinking

“I found some consolation or narcotic. Sometimes it was a woman, sometimes a good friend — yes, you too once helped me that way — at other times it was music or applause in the theater. But now these things no longer give me pleasure and that is why I drink. I could never sing without first having a couple of drinks, but now I can also not think, talk, live and feel tolerably well without first having a couple of drinks.”

Hermann Hesse book Gertrud

Source: Gertrude (1910), p. 225

Pleasure, Music, Way, Feeling

“Grove of Tuoni, grove of night!
There thy bed of sand is light.
Thither my baby I lead.
Mirth and joy each long hour yields
In the Prince of Tuoni's fields
Tending the Tuonela cattle.
Mirth and joy my babe will know,
Lulled to sleep at evening glow
By the pale Tuonela maiden.
Surely joy hours will hold,
Lying in thy cot of gold,
Hearing the nightjar singing.
Grove of Tuoni, grove of peace!
There all strife and passion cease.
Distant the treacherous world.”

Aleksis Kivi (1834–1872) Finnish writer

"Tuonen lehto, öinen lehto! / Siell' on hieno hietakehto, / Sinnepä lapseni saatan. // Siell' on lapsen lysti olla, / Tuonen herran vainiolla / Kaitsea Tuonelan karjaa. // Siell' on lapsen lysti olla, / Illan tullen tuuditella / Helmassa Tuonelan immen. // Onpa kullan lysti olla, / Kultakehdoss' kellahdella, / Kuullella kehräjälintuu. // Tuonen viita, rauhan viita! / Kaukana on vaino, riita, / Kaukana kavala maailma." (Äiti Aleksis Kiven kuvaamana, koonnut Ukko Kivistö, Turussa, kustannusosakeyhtiö Aura 1948)

World, Peace, Lying, Sleep

“If you find it hard to believe that there was an Intelligent Designer, give this some thought. Man, with all his genius, can’t make a rock, a leaf, a flower, a living singing bird, a croaking frog, or even a grain of dead sand from nothing. We can recreate, but we can’t create anything material from nothing, living or dead. Not a thing. Did you realize that if we could simply make one blade of grass without using existing materials, we could solve the world’s hunger problem? If we could make a blade of grass, we could then create a lot more grass, feed the green material through a machine that does what the common cow does, and have pure white full cream milk, then smooth cream, delicious yogurt, tasty cheese, and smooth butter. But we can’t make even one blade of grass from nothing, let alone giving it the ability to reproduce after its own kind, as regular grass does. We have no idea where to begin when it comes to creating. If that’s true, how intellectually dishonest is it to say that this entire incredible creation in which we live, came into existence with no Intelligent Designer?”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

The Origin of Species: 150th Anniversary Edition (2009)

Hunger, World, Intelligence, Flowers

Quotes about singing page 6

Quotes about singing
page 6