Quotes About Influence

If I could be anyone, I'd choose the lead singer of Arcade Fire, Win Butler.

My dad was a musician. He was a singer and he played the guitar, so music was always around.

My favorite singer is Lauryn Hill - all time, hands down. She was my biggest inspiration growing up.

My mum was a big fan of E.L.O. and Elvis Costello. She used to play that, consistently, all the time when we were kids. And my dad, he would claim to be a singer... You know, he loves singing, and he used to sing a lot when he was a kid and at parties and stuff like that. So I come from a very party-musical family.

I don't talk about Amy Winehouse as a 'singer.' She's a pioneer. I listened to her endlessly when I started writing.

My mother was an opera singer and my grandmother a concert pianist, and they only liked classical music. If I put on a pop record, they would tell me to turn it off, so I only listen to classical.

I love to sing. I never had any formal training. My mother is a singer, and I picked up listening to her.

I know, in so many cases, a lot of the women who came up through the singer-songwriter, Lilith Fair era, the earlier Lilith Fair era, did say that we were influences on them.

The singer-songwriter has always played music that was stylistically rooted in the '30s and the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. But the fact of the matter is that none of us remember the Depression firsthand.

A young female essayist saying they're influenced by Joan Didion is like a young female singer-songwriter saying they're influenced by Joni Mitchell.

I love Feist. I love Francoise Hardy. She was a French singer-songwriter in the '60s who was pretty huge. I think I'm drawn to her sincerity. I love Fiona Apple, too - she's quirky and really honest in her lyrics.

Even when I was coming up in the singer-songwriter ranks during the early '70s, I thought that people who were stylists and stuff shoulda still been up on the pedestal. I mean, it's fine to recognize people who write songs, but it kinda got out of hand, you know?

Composers, artists, actors, singers - all of them, I think, unconsciously learn from others. I'm sure it's not conscious, but they can't help it.

There weren't a lot of girl singers around. Paul McCartney and John Lennon were the guys I looked up to.

The models for me were more the folk-rock singers of the '60s and '70s.

I never really thought I was going to be a singer, honestly. I never listened to singers; I always listened to rap music.

I have the background singers of Ray Charles, the background singers of Smokey Robinson, and the background singers of Barry White and I built a choir around that.

My parents, Aparesh and Bansari Lahiri were very famous singers from Kolkata.

I have written for, very fortunately, some great singers from Frank Sinatra to Elvis Presley.

I am inspired by all kinds of players and singers.

I'm like two different people. The way I sing comes from the music I listened to when I was younger, from black American R&B singers. My speaking voice is something else. It's what my mum and dad taught me.

My father had lived in the States in the 1960s for a while and came to love American Songbook material. Even today, he sometimes recognizes singers that I never even heard of, which is beautiful and inspiring.

I don't really have a style icon but I really admire the way people dress like Gaga, Rihanna and Gwen Stefani. It's good to be inspired by singers who write music and dress incredibly - rather than models and people in the fashion industry who dress immaculately anyway because it's their style.

I love TLC and Aaliyah and all those early-millennial R&B singers.