Quotes About Music

Oh, I'll tell you about 'Anyone Can Whistle' - the lesson I learned with doing that record is that the simplest songs are the hardest to do.

I went to Irish dance when I was four. I was playing the tin whistle when I was five. So I think certain things are bred into you.

I was straight listening to rap at 15: LL Cool J, the Skinny Boys, Whistle, UTFO. And Run-D.M.C.'s debut was at the top of my list.

If you can whistle the melody, then the song will stick. But if you need a bunch of machines to make it sound good, you're probably not writing anything that's going to last a long time.

Elliott Carter does not write the kind of music that the kids go off to school whistling.

Playing the violin and singing and whistling are just three different ways of making sound.

It is impossible to be miserable and depressed whilst whistling.

Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.

If I could find a white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel, I could make a billion dollars.

White people couldn't do black music back in the day because they weren't funky or bad enough. They weren't from the ghettoes, but hip-hop and R&B changed all of that because white kids want to be down with it. They wanted to learn it so they studied the culture. It's kind of a cool thing because we shouldn't be so separate.

And the White Album is important to me for different reasons. One - I had left the band on the White Album.

I love 'White Christmas.' That's one of my favorites just because I love the music. I love the story, Bing Crosby. It's just one of my all time favorites. And it's hard to have a Christmas without seeing a little bit of Jimmy Stewart and angels running around town.

That's where the Black Keys and Jack White have succeeded and I've failed: They've actually convinced college kids that they're listening to hip music - but it's just blues twisted a new way - while I'm playing for the college kid's parents.

Presley is country music, white music. Jazz is black music - it was invented by the blacks in New Orleans. And I'm really a jazz singer. I was impressed with Elvis - he was the handsomest guy I ever met in my life, and a very nice person, too. But the music doesn't impress me.

I think my most famous was 'Poco's Legend.' It's a white album with a simple line drawing of a horse. It almost has a Picasso feel to it. I remember that Rusty Young, the lead singer of the band, said, 'I want you to draw a horse for the song 'Legend,' which is about a phantom spirit horse. I want you to do it in several lines.'

I'd like to see more crossover between white and black music. That's something I've been advocating for years.

You didn't know whether Chuck Berry was black or white - it was not a concern.

I got to see Jack White. I love his new album. There's a song on the album called 'I Think I Should Go to Sleep' that my son loves. We play it on a loop around the house, and he just bounces around.

The social scene in Daytona Beach was simple. The white cats surf, and the blacks play music.

The first rap I recorded was on Jeezy's 'White Girl' beat. One of my partners invited me to his studio, so I go. I wasn't planning on recording, we were just messing around. And I started recording a song, just a freestyle. Back then, Jeezy was going so hard, that's what everyone was on. That's what me and my partners in the trap would listen to.

I have to give credit to my mum for my music taste. She's white and Welsh but she listens to dancehall, reggae, Reggaeton.'

Christmas brings us great music: Everything from Handel's 'Messiah' to 'White Christmas,' to 'I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.'

Overall my race hasn't been a problem. I'm a Black artist with White skin. At the end of the day you have to sing what's in your own soul.

Apple was selling $400 iPods with $1 earbuds. They're making a beautiful white object with all the music in the world in it... I'm going to make a beautiful black object that will play it back.