Quotes About Music

When you're making a record, you try to achieve stylistically what fits on you. Like a good old coat, you know what I mean?

'Heatwave' just fits the feel of summer for me.

Most of the time I approach a track as series of experiments: seeing what fits, and trying to manipulate sounds into each other so they have some kind of dialogue, and then start building a structure around it.

My favorite singer is Ella Fitzgerald.

My mom played me all kinds of music, from Ella Fitzgerald to Celine Dion. I listened to everything growing up, old and new.

Growing up, I had a natural love for women like Diana Ross, Mary Wells, Ella Fitzgerald. Then I got into Dionne Warwick, Nina Simone, and Patsy Cline.

I go back to, like, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holliday, Elvis. I listen to everything.

The Dave Clark Five had more appearances on 'The Ed Sullivan Show' than The Beatles.

There were a lot of really special moments for me. When I first sang 'Fix You' by Coldplay, that was one. I love that song so much, and I love Coldplay, and I love what the song meant.

No one had ever told me that whites were supposed to sing one kind of music and blacks another - I sang what I liked in the only voice I had.

Doing a concert, I look at a room full of different people, and I see you've got Muslims, you've got Jews, you've got Christians, you've got gays, you've got straights, you've got blacks, you've got whites. I think, 'How can I unite these people through song?'

The only time you had blacks, whites, and Latinos jamming together was in hip-hop. It's an unsung history.

I think the idea is now for blacks to write about the history of our music. It's time for that, because whites have been doing it all the time. It's time for us to do it ourselves and tell it like it is.

In a country that was still racially segregated and prejudiced, music was among the first domains in which African-Americans thrived alongside whites.

I was nearing the end of childhood when I started to pay real attention to jazz singers. Women excelled as jazz singers; they surpassed most of the men. Black women excelled as jazz singers; they surpassed most of the whites.

Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it.

My guitar is not a thing. It is an extension of myself. It is who I am.

I went to a friend's 40th in Manchester, and there was a karaoke machine, and no one was having a go. My mate said, 'No one's singing because you're in the room.' I said, 'Who am I, Frank Sinatra?' They made me sing flipping 'My Star' to a backing track that sounded like '80s Roxy Music. It was pretty embarrassing, but I did it.

I wouldn't necessarily say she is a country artist. I mean, obviously Taylor Swift started in country, but she morphed into somewhat of a cultural icon, so, who am I to judge what she is?

Who am I to sit here and say I'm going to change the face of music?

My dream is to one day just be me and my guitar. I'm working myself to the core. Who am I, underneath everything else? I'm still on that journey, to find that core.

There are so many things to think about when you make an album. Like, who am I trying to impress? Am I going to get respect, critical acclaim? Or am I going to sell lots of records?

Losing my hearing was always my biggest fear, so what's the worst that can happen, sing the wrong notes? Who cares, it's not going to kill you.

The difference between me and other people in my generation is instead of saying the Internet's killing the record business, I say, 'Who cares about the record business, the Internet is enhancing music.'