“The essential thing is to WANT to sing. This then is a song. I am singing.”
Source: Tropic of Cancer
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Henry Miller 187
American novelist 1891–1980Related quotes
Interview http://www.interferenza.com/bcs/interw/84-jul30.htm with Bert Kleinman (30 July 1984). Cf. C. S. Lewis: "People won't write the books I want, so I have to do it for myself."
Duerden, Nick. "The Golden Girl" http://www.blender.com/guide/articles.aspx?id=1052. Blender. October 2004. Retrieved October 25 2006.
“What am I singing?
A song of seeds — The food of love. Eat the music.”
Song lyrics, The Red Shoes (1993)
“I wanted to sing other types of songs that Simon and Garfunkel wouldn't do.”
On the breakup of Simon and Garfunkel as a musical team. Interview with Jon Landau for Rolling Stone (1972); republished in The Rolling Stone Interviews: 1967-1980 (1989) edited by Peter Herbst, p. 210
Context: I wanted to sing other types of songs that Simon and Garfunkel wouldn't do. "Mother and Child Reunion" for example, is not a song that you would have normally thought that Simon and Garfunkel would have done. It's possible that they might have. But it wouldn't have been the same, and I don't know if I would have been so inclined in that direction. So for me it was a chance to break out and gamble a little bit … The breakup had to do with a natural drifting apart as we got older and the separate lives that were more individual. We weren't so consumed with recording and performing. We had other activities … there was no great pressure to stay together other than money, which exerted very little influence upon us. … We didn't need the money.
“I am yours. If you feed me garbage,
I will sing a song of garbage.
This is a hymn.”
"Pig Song" http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=21982
Selected Poems 1965-1975 (1976)
“Anything I can sing, I call a song. Anything I can't sing, I call a poem.”
Liner notes https://bobdylan.com/albums/freewheelin-bob-dylan/, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963)
“I wanted to try to be a real live person, rather than just singing songs about them.”
As quoted in "The Rumpus Interview with Thao Nguyen" in The Rumpus (5 August 2013) https://therumpus.net/2013/08/the-rumpus-interview-with-thao-nguyen/