Quotes About Music

I have a certain amount of creative energy, and it used to go painting. Now most of it goes to music. I like to make things. I treat the songs more like poems than prose, so in that sense, I don't really have a point to make. I just try to be surprised.

Sharing the stage while singing my songs was a bit of a daunting prospect.

There's a certain type of indie fan who would balk at the prospect of there being value in pop music, but I think that's foolish. They're not really listening.

The prospect of music being detachable from time and place meant that one could start to think of music as a part of one's furniture.

I was asked to sing with Mavis Staples on a gospel compilation called 'Oh Happy Day.' And, you know, other than being totally intimidated at the prospect of singing with Mavis, I was honored. I don't really have much of a background in gospel music.

I accidentally saw David Byrne's last two songs in Prospect Park at a free concert because I came out of a movie late, and he was still playing.

If we look at the fact that record covers are essentially advertisements for the music, we acknowledge a function and purpose to draw in the prospective buyer.

What happens with a good score is, somehow the composer manages to cast himself or herself in the role of the protagonist. And then you write from their perspective.

I've done well, I've been disappointed, and I think it all goes back to you. Of course the labels are going to be the labels. It's the music business. You are a business. That's what they do. So you've got to protect yourself.

As many problems as there are with Hollywood, I feel so much more protected because if there's a serious issue, I have someone I can talk to. Where's that in the music industry? We need it.

In India, I have been called a 'destroyer.' But that is only because they mixed my identity as a performer and as a composer. As a composer I have tried everything, even electronic music and avant-garde. But as a performer I am, believe me, getting more classical and more orthodox, jealously protecting the heritage that I have learned.

I always seem to feel that everything is about to cave in on me. I think that maybe music is my protection from that and in some senses it's an outlet to turn it into something euphoric: embracing the eventual decline.

This kid came up with Napster, and before that, none of us thought of content protection.

You begin to see that all of these things are connected: The kind of cuts that mean less environmental protection are also the kind of cuts that mean less musical education for the schools and that also mean more overcrowded schools.

When you start your first band and it has an impact on the rest of the world you go through a lot with those guys and you become very protective of that legacy.

My parents were just really weird and protective about the music I listened to. Whenever I wanted to buy an album, they would have to buy it first and listen to it and let me know if I could have it.

The fun thing about song writing is that it's just creative. It can be whatever you want it to be. For me, I'm really protective of that. I'm not going to write something because I feel like it fits here or it fits there - I just want to write music that feels good to me, you know?

Usually, two or three hours after getting offstage, I'll begin the eating process: usually carbohydrates, protein, and fat.

We talk too much of black art when we should be talking about art, just art. Black composers must be free to write rondos and fugues, not only protest songs.

I mean, there's a hell of a lot of grounds for protest, but you don't do it through music.

Early in my career, people wanted to hear music about protest, about trying to change things.

Back in high school, I had this folk protest band, and I used to write all the time. And then, when I got in The B-52s, we began to write collectively, collaboratively - most all of our songs are written by jamming together.

In the '60s and '70s, a protest song was a genre in music.

To me, protesting and playing music go hand in hand.