Quotes about song

A collection of quotes on the topic of song, likeness, singing, love.

Quotes about song

“Among those corporeal glances, in the midst of those libidinous flirtations and those wild impulses, there were no doubts or excess verses, not even a bad song…”

José Baroja book El curioso caso de la sombra que murió como un recuerdo y otros cuentos

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colours seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

love, Love, Life, People

“This generation has lost the true meaning of romance. There are so many songs that disrespect women. You can’t treat the woman you love as a piece of meat. You should treat your love like a princess. Give her love songs, something with real meaning. Maybe I’m old fashioned but to respect the woman you love should be a priority.”

Tom Hiddleston (1981) English actor, producer and musical performer

Love, Princess, Fashion, Making love

“There are alway going to be bad things. But you can write it down and make a song out of it.”

Billie Eilish (2001) American singer-songwriter

Bad luck, Making love

“Life is a song - sing it.
Life is a game - play it.
Life is a challenge - meet it.
Life is a dream - realize it.
Life is a sacrifice - offer it.
Life is love - enjoy it.”

Sathya Sai Baba (1926–2011) Indian guru

Life, Love, Life, Dreams

“What I do when I write is that I'll do a raggedy, rough version just to hear the chorus, just to see how much I like the chorus. If it works for me that way when it's raggedy, then I'll know it will just work… Listen to that, that's at home. Janet, Randy, Me… Janet and I are going "Whoo, Whoo… Whoo, Whoo…" I do that same process with every song. It's the melody, it's the melody that's most important, If the melody can sell me, then I'll go to the next step. The idea is to transcribe from what's in your mentality onto tape. If you take a song like "Billie Jean," Where the bass line is the prominent, dominant piece, the protagonist of the song, the main driving riff that you hear, getting the character of the riff to be just the way you want it to be, that takes a lot of time. Listen, you're hearing four basses on there, doing four different personalities, and that's what gives it character, but it takes a lot of work.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

On listening to an early version of Billie Jean on an iPhone
Ebony interview (2007)

Way, Home, Idea, Time

“This next song is only dedicated to beautiful people here tonight. That means all of you. Thank you for coming along… and making this a great occasion.”

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer

Source: Live Aid, 1985/07/13 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A22oy8dFjqc?t=12m5s

People, Beauty

“Your kisses lift me higher… like the sweet song of a choir. You light my morning sky, with burning love.”

Elvis Presley (1935–1977) American singer and actor

Love, Kiss, Light

“Why are our songs so dark but our shows a celebration? Because our songs are to help you get through those dark times and our shows are a celebration of you making it through another day. Our shows are celebrating the fact that you’re not alone. So let’s celebrate.”

Tyler Joseph (1988) American singer-songwriter and record producer

Time, Help

“You don't love someone for their looks, or their clothes, or for their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

love, Valentine's Day, Wedding, Love

“Montserrat Caballé is sensational. She has that same kind of emotion as Aretha Franklin. The way she delivers a song is so very natural. It's a very different gift.”

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer

"I am the Champion" by Nick Ferrari in The Sun (19 July 1985).

Way, Nature

“I was trying to figure out what I’m doing, and that was the first time I was constantly being kicked down for doing that. When I didn’t know, I just wanted to say, ‘This is what I want, this is where I am in my professional life, things changed in my personal life, things changed in my heart — everything.’ And people just thought, ‘Alright, this is what we think.’ And yeah, I made some decisions that weren’t great as well, and so did he and that’s why we went through all that to only make us better. And he has heard [the song] and he has seen the video, and it’s something that I feel like girls need hear, and it’s something I’m willing to share with people.”

Selena Gomez (1992) American singer and actress

Life, People, Feeling, Girl

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

Till Lindemann (1963) German industrial metal musician

"Amerika"
Reise, Reise (2004)

Love, Singing

“I'm possessed by love — but isn't everybody? Most of my songs are love ballads and things to do with sadness and torture and pain.
In terms of love, you're not in control and I hate that feeling. I seem to write a lot of sad songs because I'm a very tragic person. But there's always an element of humour at the end.”

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer

As quoted in "I am the Champion" by Nick Ferrari in The Sun (19 July 1985) http://www.queenarchives.com/index.php?title=Freddie_Mercury_-_07-19-1985_-_The_Sun.

Pain, Hate, Love, Personality

“(on "I Don't Get Down Like That" the Swedish group Play pop song) There comes a day when you realise turning the page is the best feeling in the world, because you realise there is so much more to the book than the page you were stuck on.”

Zayn Malik (1993) British singer

As himself talking about it being a yearbook, on 2017-05-10, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/artists/nobodys-reached-out--zayn-maliks-best-quotes/zayn-malik-in-quotes3/

Books, World, Feeling

“Smiling makes me feel weak and not in control and not powerful and small. Writing a song is so personal. You have to have trust in someone you're working with; otherwise, you're not gonna come out with something that's really you.”

Billie Eilish (2001) American singer-songwriter

Source: https://www.wmagazine.com/story/billie-eilish-new-ep/

Personality, Making love, Smile, Feeling

“[his answer to 'do you have a twin sister?] He’s quite influential, that Rodger. He’s done a couple of songs on the new album. He’s off fishing today.”

Zayn Malik (1993) British singer

As 'guy who has a twin sister' on 2017-03-20, https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/03/zayn-malik-interview-the-times-quotes

Fish, Sister

“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 (1935–1977) American singer and actor

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

Singing

“Consciousness expresses itself through creation. This world we live in is the dance of the Creator. Dancers come and go in the twinkling of an eye but the dance lives on. On many an occasion when I am dancing, I have felt touched by something sacred. In those moments, I felt my spirit soar and become one with everything that exists. I become the stars and the moon. I become the lover and the beloved. I become the victor and the vanquished. I become the master and the slave. I become the singer and the song. I become the knower and the known. I keep on dancing and then, it is the eternal dance of creation. The Creator and the creation merge into one wholeness of joy. I keep on dancing — until there is only … the dance.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

"The Dance" - from inlay sleeve of Dangerous (1991)

World, Star, Lovers, Joy

“Measure a man by his actions fully, from the beginning to the end. Don't take a piece out of my life or a song out of my music and say this is what I'm about, because you know better than that.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

1990s, Prison interviews and interrogations (1995)

Life, Music

“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 (1967–1994) American musician and artist

Song lyrics, Nevermind (1991)

Singing

“Ever since I was a little boy, I would study composition. And it was Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky that influenced me the most. If you take an album like Nutcracker Suite, every song is killer, every one. So I said to myself, 'Why can't there be a pop album where every…' — People used to do an album where you'd get one good song, and the rest were like B-sides, they'd call them "album songs" — and I'd say to myself 'Why can't every one be like a hit song? Why can't every song be so great that people would want to buy it if you could release it as a single?. So I always tried to strive for that. That was the purpose for the next album.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

On musical influences
Ebony interview (2007)

People, Boy, Study

“I have very mixed feelings about [Napster]. On one hand, I'm concerned that the rampant downloading of my copyright-protected material over the Internet is severely eating into my album sales and having a decidedly adverse effect on my career. On the other hand, I can get all the Metallica songs I want for FREE! WOW!!!!!”

"Weird Al" Yankovic (1959) American singer-songwriter, music producer, accordionist, actor, comedian, writer, satirist, and parodist

Ask Al Archives: May 2000 http://www.weirdal.com/aaarchive.htm#0500.

Feeling

“Everybody feels these moments of sadness and moments of loss and sometimes I think everybody can relate to sitting alone and feeling like crap and a friend of yours comes up and starts like, you know, 'Come on, feel happy,' and you don't want that. Sometimes its alright to let yourself be upset about something and so that you can show yourself that regardless of how low you feel, you can always rise out of it, but not at the moment. And so the song ends with the lyric, 'I believe we all fall down' but I don't say 'but we we get back up'. It's just, sometimes you fall down and sometimes you fell low, and that's okay.”

Andrew Biersack (1990) American singer-songwriter

Loss, Thinking, Relation ships, Sadness

“I like people to go away from a Queen show feeling fully entertained, having had a good time. I think Queen songs are pure escapism, like going to see a good film - after that, they can go away and say that was great, and go back to their problems. I don't want to change the world with our music. There are no hidden messages in our songs, except for some of Brian's.”

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer

"The Man Who Would Be Queen" in Melody Maker (2 May 1981).

Time, People, Music, Problem

“Equality is the song of every generation.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“Those minutes that I'm on stage are the best! Being there and looking at the crowd and seeing their faces, hearing them sing the positive words from the songs.”

Miley Cyrus (1992) American actor and singer-songwriter

Singing

“If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me?”

Karen Blixen (1885–1962) Danish writer

Children, Color, Game, Coffee

“I’m glad we had the times together just to laugh and sing a song, seems like we just got started and then before you know it, the times we had together were gone.”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

Singing, Time

“What I have to say is all in the music. If I want to say anything, I write a song.”

Paul McCartney (1942) English singer-songwriter and composer

Music

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

Louis Armstrong (1901–1971) American jazz trumpeter, composer and singer

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

Music, Singing, Horse

“I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you.
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

"Hallelujah"
Various Positions (1984)

Truth, Fools, Feeling

“(on "Someday My Prince Will Come" the Ashley Tisdale pop song) "Just because your prince hasn't come doesn't mean you're not a princess."”

Zayn Malik (1993) British singer

Princess

“I see every director as a different brand. That way, it’s easy for me to compartmentalise my work. So I can easily switch from one film to the other and refresh myself when I hit a mental block. I don’t want my music to sound like a pastiche of other works. So I stop listening to my songs once the audio for a film is released. When I unwind, it’s usually with jazz.”

Yuvan Shankar Raja (1979) Indian musician

Yuvan Unplugged (2009)

Music, Way

“Note to self: While on the treadmill you may lip-sync to the songs on your iPod but DO NOT dance along. You look like an idiot.”

Chris Colfer (1990) actor, singer, book author

Personal Quotes 2009–2012

Dance

“Won't you help to sing,
These songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever had,
Redemption songs.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

Redemption Song
Uprising (1979)

Freedom, Singing, Help

“A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth — that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Man's Search for Meaning (1946; 1959; 1984)
Context: A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth — that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. … For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory."

Love, Life, Wisdom, Truth

“Mira sang of her love for Krishna with such simplicity and directness that in her songs millions have found a voice and echo of their own God-yearning.”

Meera Bai Hindu mystic poet

Swarup, Ram (2000). Meditations: Yogas, gods, religions. p. 196

Love, Making love, God

“Next to the Word of God, music deserves the highest praise. The gift of language combined with the gift of song was given to man that he should proclaim the Word of God through Music.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

God, Music

“We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

St. 18
To a Skylark (1821)
Source: The Complete Poems

Sad, Pain, Laughter

“That’s the problem with falling in love. It makes you start talking like a bad country song”

Harlan Coben book Six Years

Source: Six Years

Love, Problem, Country

“Our sweetest songs are those of saddest thought.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

Source: The Complete Poems

Sad

“You are an Universe of Universes and your soul a source of songs.”

Rubén Darío (1867–1916) Nicaraguan poet and writer

Soul, Universe

“From love's plectrum arises
the song of the string of life
Love is the light of life
love is the fire of life”

Muhammad Iqbál (1877–1938) Urdu poet and leader of the Pakistan Movement

Love, Life, Light

“Love is not a habit, a commitment, or a debt. It isn't what romantic songs tell us it is - love simply is.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Love

“If you have time to chatter,
Read books.

If you have time to read,
Walk into mountain, desert and ocean.

If you have time to walk,
Sing songs and dance.

If you have time to dance,
Sit quietly, you happy, lucky idiot.”

Nanao Sakaki (1923–2008) Japanese poet

Books, Mountain, Singing, Time

“He who loves not wine, women and song remains a fool his whole life long.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Variant: He who loves not Wine, Women and Song
Remains a fool his whole life long

Love, Life, Women, Fools

“Hold your hands out over the earth as over a flame. To all who love her, who open to her the doors of their veins, she gives of her strength, sustaining them with her own measureless tremor of dark life. Touch the earth, love the earth, honour the earth, her plains, her valleys, her hills, and her seas; rest your spirit in her solitary places. For the gifts of life are the earth’s and they are given to all, and they are the songs of birds at daybreak, Orion and the Bear, and dawn seen over ocean from the beach.”

Henry Beston (1888–1968) American writer

Source: The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod

Love, Life, Bird, Sea

“I know my fans look up to me and that's why I make my songs so personal; it's all about things I've experienced and things I like or hate. I write for myself and hope that my fans like what I have to say.”

Avril Lavigne (1984) Canadian singer-songwriter and actress

"Avril Lavigne Over the Hedge Interview" https://www.girl.com.au/avril-lavigne-over-the-hedge-interview.htm by Gaynor Flynn, in Girl.com.au (July 2006)

Hate, Hope, Personality

“I was just reading some poetry, and it talked about how things start as one thing and change into another, and I just thought, what a great concept for a song.”

Tommy Lee (1962) American drummer

http://www.drdrew.com/article.asp?id=393.

Change, Reading

“I am not insecure enough to count the bouquets I receive on my birthday, I don’t assess my popularity by the number of magazine covers I am on, I don’t get worried if my song is on the seventh position on countdown charts.”

Shahrukh Khan (1965) Indian actor, producer and television personality

From interview with Komal Nahta

Birthday

“Our song is the slamming screen door,
Sneakin' out late, tapping on your window.
When we're on the phone and you talk real slow
'Cause it's late and your mama don't know.
Our song is the way you laugh,
The first date "man, I didn't kiss her, and I should have."
And when I got home, before I said amen
Asking God if he could play it again.”

Taylor Swift (1989) American singer-songwriter

Our Song.
Song lyrics, Taylor Swift (2006)

God, Way, Home, Kiss

“O Chatterton! that thou wert yet alive!
Sure thou would'st spread the canvass to the gale,
And love, with us, the tinkling team to drive
O'er peaceful Freedom's undivided dale;
And we, at sober eve, would round thee throng,
Hanging, enraptur'd, on thy stately song!
And greet with smiles the young-eyed Poesy
All deftly mask'd, as hoar Antiquity.”

Thomas Chatterton (1752–1770) English poet, forger

Samuel Taylor Coleridge "Monody on the Death of Chatterton" (1794) line 126.
Criticism

Love, Peace, Smile, Freedom

“Last year, a girl was raped by two wastes of sperm and eggs while they sang the lyrics to our song "Polly". I have a hard time carrying on knowing there are plankton like that in our audience.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

Incesticide liner notes (1992)

Girl, Time

“I despise your religious festivals;
your assemblies are a stench to me.
Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
I will have no regard for them.
Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!”

Amos (prophet) Hebrew prophet

5:21-24 NIV
Book of Amos

Justice, Music

“I wake up from dreams and go, 'Wow, put this down on paper.' The whole thing is strange. You hear the words, everything is right there in front of your face. And you say to yourself, 'I'm sorry, I just didn't write this. It's there already.' That's why I hate to take credit for the songs I've written. I feel that somewhere, someplace, it's been done and I'm just a courier bringing it into the world. I really believe that. I love what I do. I'm happy at what I do. It's escapism.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

"Michael Jackson - Life in the magical kingdom" - Rolling Stone (February 17, 1983) http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/michael-jackson-life-in-the-magical-kingdom-19830217 <br class="br">"Michael Jackson - Life in the Magical Kingdom" Rolling Stone 1983

Love, Hate, World, Dreams

“When we speak, in gestures or signs, we fashion a real object in the world; the gesture is seen, the words and the song are heard. The arts are simply a kind of writing, which, in one way or another, fixes words or gestures, and gives body to the invisible.”

Alain (1868–1951) French philosopher

Introduction
The Gods (1934)

World, Art, Way, Fashion

“I've got no time to look back, I've got no time to see
The pieces of my heart that have been ripped away from me.
And if the feeling starts to coming, I've learned to stop 'em fast
Because I don't know, if I let 'em go, they might not wanna pass.
And there's just so many people trying to get me on the phone
And there's bills to pay, and songs to play
And a house to make a home.
I guess I'm older now and I've got no time to cry.”

Iris DeMent (1961) American singer and songwriter

No Time to Cry
Song lyrics, My Life (1994)

People, Feeling, Home, Learning

“The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth,
One is nearer God's Heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on Earth.”

Dorothy Frances Gurney (1858–1932) English hymnwriter, poet

"God's Garden" lines 13–16, Poems, by Dorothy Frances Gurney (London: Country Life, 1913).

God, Kiss, Bird, Sun

“I wasn't a woman, I was a song factory.”

Dalida (1933–1987) French singer, actress, model and beauty pageant titleholder

“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 (1989) American singer-songwriter

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

Cars, Star, Singing

“Here's a song I made up while I was watching Xena the Warrior Princess with the sound off. It's a fact. I had a secret crush on Xena. It was a secret to me too. I wouldn't admit it. She's pretty fuckin' tough. She has a good yell… she kills the stupid gladiators with the log-trap. Release the log-trap! She releases the log-trap and they all get… crushed. They'd all wanna be with her if they could, but unfortunately they're not on her side. It's a lot better with the sound off. Really, it is. And the song didn't have anything to do with Xena… but… I was about half a bottle through Jameson's… if that makes any sense.”

Elliott Smith (1969–2003) American singer-songwriter

before playing "Between the Bars" at a concert in 1996. http://www.archive.org/details/esmith2006-09-25..flacf.

Secret, Stupidity, Sense, Princess

“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 (1879–1944) Korean writer

"Inverse Proportion", translated by Sammy Solberg

Light, Silence, Singing

“Because of you, each day is a melon slice
smelling sweetly of earth
Because of you, all fruits reach out to me
as if I were the sun.
Thanks to you, I live on the honey of hope.
You are the reason my heart beats.
Because of you, even my loneliest nights
smile like an Anatolian kilim on your wall.
Should my journey end before I reach my city,
I've rested in a rose garden thanks to you.
Because of you I don't let death enter,
clothed in the softest garments,
and knocking on my door with songs
calling me to the greatest place.”

Nâzım Hikmet (1902–1963) Turkish poet

From Because of You (29 August 1960)

Death, Smile, Hope, Sun

“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 (1979) singer, songwriter, actor, and record producer from the United States

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

Sister, Singing, Time

“I'm the most sampled and stolen. What's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine, too … I got a song about that … But I'm never gonna release it. Don't want a war with the rappers. If it wasn't good, they wouldn't steal it.”

James Brown (1933–2006) American singer, songwriter, musician, and recording artist

"Being James Brown," Rolling Stone Magazine, 2006-06-12.

War

“My idea in "My Sweet Lord," because it sounded like a "pop song," was to sneak up on them a bit.”

George Harrison (1943–2001) British musician, former member of the Beatles

Interview with Mukunda Goswami (4 September 1982)
Context: My idea in "My Sweet Lord," because it sounded like a "pop song," was to sneak up on them a bit. The point was to have the people not offended by "Hallelujah," and by the time it gets to "Hare Krishna," they're already hooked, and their foot's tapping, and they're already singing along "Hallelujah," to kind of lull them into a sense of false security. And then suddenly it turns into "Hare Krishna," and they will all be singing that before they know what's happened, and they will think, "Hey, I thought I wasn't supposed to like Hare Krishna!"

Idea

“I'm crazy for love but
I'm not coming on.
I'm just paying my rent everyday
In the Tower Of Song.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

"Tower Of Song"
I'm Your Man (1988)
Context: My friends are gone and
My hair is grey.
I ache in the places where I used to play.
And I'm crazy for love but
I'm not coming on.
I'm just paying my rent everyday
In the Tower Of Song.

Love

“There's a little book I'm thinking of writing — "Swan Song" is what I shall call it. The song of the dying.”

Maxim Gorky (1868–1936) Russian and Soviet writer

Foma Gordeyev (1899) [also translated as The Man Who Was Afraid; the English music group Led Zeppelin would later name their record label "Swan Song".
Context: There's a little book I'm thinking of writing — "Swan Song" is what I shall call it. The song of the dying. And my book will be incense burnt at the deathbed of this society, damned with the damnation of its own impotence.

Books, Thinking