Quotes About Music

Springsteen] sort of catarrh-mumbles his ditties in a disgruntled mushmouth like Robbie Robertson on Quaaludes with Dylan barfing down the back of his neck.

Rock 'n' roll is an attitude, it's not a musical form of a strict sort. It's a way of doing things, of approaching things. Writing can be rock 'n' roll, or a movie can be rock 'n' roll. It's a way of living your life.

Don't ask me why I obsessively look to rock 'n' roll bands for some kind of model for a better society. I guess it's just that I glimpsed something beautiful in a flashbulb moment once, and perhaps mistaking it for prophecy have been seeking its fulfillment ever since.

if the main reason we listen to music in the first place is to hear passion expressed- as i've believed all my life-then what good is this music going to prove to be? what does that say about us? what are we confirming in ourselves by doting on art that is emotionally neutral? and, simultaneously, what in ourselves might we be destroying or at least keeping down?

Irving Berlin said, "Popular music is popular because a lot of people like it." That doesn't mean it's good or bad—that's the equivalent of arguing the merits of hotdogs versus hamburgers. What the hell difference does it make?

They're events you remember all your life, like your first real orgasm. And the whole purpose of the absurd, mechanically persistent involvement with recorded music is the pursuit of that priceless moment. So it's not exactly that records might unhinge the mind, but rather that if anything is going to drive you up the wall it might as well be a record.

Personally I feel that real rock 'n' roll may be on the way out, just like adolescence as a relatively innocent transitional period is on the way out. What we have instead is a small island of new free music surrounded by some good reworkings of past idioms and a vast sargasso sea of absolute garbage.

Jazz was way out front, clearing a path into a new era of truly free music, where the only limits were the musician's own consciousness and imagination, a music that cut across all boundaries yet still made perfect sense and swung like no music had ever swung before.

Lots of people say they've talked to dragons, but it's very hard to verify. Supposedly the Thames dragon wrote most of Pink Floyd's stuff. At least after

Supposedly the Thames dragon wrote most of Pink Floyd's stuff. At least after Syd Barrett left. But there's no way to prove it.

Humbledrum farted mournfully, three distinct notes.

In case of Ragnarok break glass and play an E flat. Where's

thereby forfeiting the juicy solo in Peter and the Wolf (the duck's theme) to the demonstrably inferior Evelyn Oh, whose rendition of it did, appropriately enough, sound like a quacking fucking duck, as did everything that came out of Evelyn Oh's quacking fucking Oh-boe.

How long have you been working for that virtuoso of the magic violin? I don't mean that as a compliment. I only say a magic violin because when he plays it, everyone disappears.

He uses his music as an accompaniment to his conducting.

I don't like to play the piano. It makes me too attractive.

A song playing comprises a very specific and vivid set of memory cues. Because the multiple-trace memory models assume that context is encoded along with memory traces, the music that you have listened to at various times of your life is cross-coded with the events of those times. That is, the music is linked to events of the time, and those events are linked to the music.

Although I don't know Paul McCartney, a mutual friend told me that Paul was reading my book, This Is Your Brain on Music, and stopped after chapter two. McCartney said he was concerned that if he learned more about how he does what he does (as far as composing music), he may not be able to do it anymore!

If you pour some music on whatever's wrong, it'll sure help out.

Drums just always sounded like the most fun part of that good music for me.

We all love musical architecture there's no doubt about that.

We're all dealt with the same hand here, so to speak. I feel like I've had it a lot better than most people. I've had the opportunity to travel and play music all my life.

My dad and I played music. He teaches me a song or two every time I'm home.

Maybe the greatness we heard in [Richard Manuel]'s voice, that catch in it, came from all that pain. To this day, we don't really know.