Quotes About Singing

My chutzpah was me singing to Mario Lanza. So Mario looked at me after I talk-sang 'Be My Love' for the first time; he took the lyric out of my hand as contemptuously as you can take a lyric out of someone's hand, and he sang 'Be My Love' back at me.

I always sang after every dinner or when we had people over or when we had a show in school. I just loved to be on stage and sing in front of people.

I always sang around the house. My brother and I would sing songs like 'Take Me Out to the Ballgame' and stuff like that.

I had aunts who played piano and sang and also were entertainers, so music was very much a part of my life.

When I first started singing, I didn't know which direction to take - I sang rock & roll and all kinds of things.

My mother was the only musician. She played piano and she sang. She also played saxophone. And she played at home a lot.

I find it scary to sing - scarier than acting actually.

I love music, and I once thought about doing a choral scholarship, but the people put me off.

I generally feel like you should only ever sing a capella for like maximum 30 seconds.

I grew up singing in church. My family owned funeral homes so I would sing for the occasional funeral, as well.

I remember Pavarotti telling me, 'Oh, Neil, after seventy, the voice is going to go.' But I've been lucky. You almost have to learn how to sing all over again. You use your diaphragm more. You have to choose the notes and pace yourself.

To distract myself from writing, I was singing Bob Dylan's 'My Back Pages.' You know, 'I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now.' I thought, 'I should write a character like that.'

Actually, what I did, because I couldn't make sense of it, and I have to have lyrics that make sense, I decided the best way to sing 'I Have Confidence' was to go completely nuts with panic and fear.

I had heard a live show, where my voice didn't sound the way I wanted to hear it and I got paranoid. I'm not an amazing singer, I just belt it out in this crappy old way, but for a while I had it in my head that I couldn't sing.

I didn't know why I couldn't sing - all I knew was that it was muscular or mechanical. Then, when I was diagnosed with Parkinson's, I was finally given the reason. I now understand that no one can sing with Parkinson's disease. No matter how hard you try. And in my case, I can't sing a note.

I was a part of my school choir and used to participate in several singing competitions back then.

When I was young, we had these parties, and they'd make me sing in front of the family all the time.

There were times I used to go to parties when I was, you know, like 15-, 16-years-old, and I'd always bring my guitar, and all my friends would be like, sing one of the Smokey songs. And everything I sang was his music, and I could sound just like him.

I loved to sing in family parties, for my friends and family. That's how I discovered my talent.

Lots of people think I'm telling porky pies when I say how nervous I get about singing. I was good at working out how music was put together, and I was good at being at the back, but if you asked me to sing up front, then I looked like I was going to pass out.

It's bad poetry executed by people that can't sing. That's my definition of Rap.

I don't much like opera, either. Especially Wagner. There's something about Wagner that's just too piss-German, too fucking Bavarian for a Prussian like me. I like my music to be every bit as vulgar as I am myself. I like a bit of innuendo and stocking-top when a woman's singing a song.

I am going to keep on singing. I have no intention of retiring. Actually, I always wonder whether people know my songs in the different countries I visit. I feel nervous over whether they will sing along with me or not.

I remember a concert for a visiting girls school, and that was the first time I ever sang - it was always about girls - that was the main thing. But somewhere along the line, it became a cathartic thing.