Quotes About Music

I don't get involved in record label politics.

When I was really little I would sit in the back of my dad's car when he'd be playing old-school music. He'd turn down the music and turn around and I'd be singing and know all of the words but I didn't even know how to talk. From then on I've always wanted to be a singer.

The joy of music should never be interrupted by a commercial.

Music, of all the arts, stands in a special region, unlit by any star but its own, and utterly without meaning… except its own, a meaning in musical terms, not in terms of words.

Technique is communication: the two words are synonymous in conductors.

Fiatal létemre úgy véltem, minden dallamnak ismétlÅ'désesnek kell lennie – mivel rövid zenei tapasztalatom még csak arra szoktatta hallásomat, hogy ezt várja.

This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.

Music, of all the arts, stands in a special region, unlit by any star but its own, and utterly without meaning ... except its own.

Life without music is unthinkable. Life without music is academic. That is why my contact with music is a total embrace.

I'm not interested in having an orchestra sound like itself. I want it to sound like the composer.

És hiszem Keatsszel, hogy a föld költészete véget mindaddig nem lel, amíg a telet tavasz követi, és van ember, aki észleli. Hiszem, hogy ebbÅ'l a földbÅ'l olyan zene sarjad, amely forrásai természeténél fogva tonális.

It goes like thisThe fourth, the fifthThe minor fall, the major liftThe baffled king composing Hallelujah.

Music is the emotional life of most people.

We used to play music for fun. Much more than now. Now nobody picks up a guitar unless they're paid for it.

We are ugly but we have the music.

A sip of wine, a cigarette, And then it's time to go. I tidied up the kitchenette; I tuned the old banjo. I'm wanted at the traffic-jam. They're saving me a seat.

Fare thee well my nightingale I lived but to be near you Though you are singing somewhere still I can no longer hear you

The maestro says it's Mozart but it sounds like bubble gum

S]ongs must be measured by their utility. Any jaunty little tune that can get you from one point to another as you drive, or get you through the dishes, or that can illuminate or dignify your courting, I always appreciate. -interview, 1995

Listen to the one who has not been wounded, the one who says, 'It is not good that man should be alone.' Recall your longing to the loneliness where it was born, so that when she appears, she will stand before you, not against you. Refine your longing here, in the small silver music of her preparations, under the low-built shelter of repentance.

I am this thing that needs to sing.

Refine your longing here, in the small silver music of her preparations, under the low-built shelter of repentance.

and once again I am a singer in the lower choirs, born fifty years ago to raise my voice this high, and no higher.

The band is playing Auld Lang Syne But the heart will not retreat There's no forsaking what you love No existential leap As witnessed here in time and blood A thousand kisses deep