Quotes About Music

For me to go back and to play for audiences some of whom have been following me for thirty years and some who have found me in the last five or six years, that's really an interesting thing. I have an audience that goes from kids to seventy year olds.

The songwriters whom we think of being the greatest songwriters usually write one hit and six or seven flops. That includes the Irving Berlins and the Hoagy Carmichaels, the Harold Arlens, Cole Porter.

The Western musical canon came about not merely by accumulation, but by opposition and subversion, both to the ruling powers on whom composers depended for their livelihoods and to other musics.

One can't deny what has happened to us in the past. The secret is to enjoy and be proud of the music we've created and the people with whom we have been linked. It's all a long chain of involvement in the world, and we are proud to be yet another link in this chain.

I like Avenged Sevenfold and Five Finger Death Punch, with whom I did a single.

I can show bands how to produce themselves. In the same way, many bands think you can't make it without some fat cat in London or New York to manage you. That's just crap. All you need is someone a bit older than you with a bit of business nous whom you trust.

One of my favorite artists is Tom Waits, whom most people think of as a wonderful singer-songwriter and a great poet. I certainly think of him that way, but I also know him as a terrific actor. You know, that persona that he puts on when he's doing his music comes from being an actor, figuring out a persona.

You bring to chess facets of your personality and what you are. I have interests other than chess, like music and world and current affairs. I also have many friends around the world with whom I like to keep in touch.

I think my music has always been a mixture, depending on whom I'm working with - what band, what musicians, what producer.

When I attained my seventh year, my father, whose ear was unmusical but who was nevertheless passionately fond of music, gave me my elementary lessons on the violin; in a very few months, I was able to play all manner of compositions at sight.

I'm just a human whose skill is making music.

I feel like B sides are always better, no matter whose record it is.

I'm probably the only kid in history whose parents made him stop taking music lessons. They made me stop studying the accordion.

The first artist whose music I really got into was Paolo Nutini. When his album 'Sunny Side Up' came out, I think I listened to it on repeat for, like, six months.

Westminster politics is very unattractive, and people are channelling political energy into more inward questioning - there are a lot of musicians whose songs are all about feeling, and it's almost like that's the only safe place to express yourself.

I can take the steel guitars and fiddles off, we can make it a little more pop, cover ideas that are a little less cowboy. But you got to look at yourself in the mirror and ask, whose flag you are under? For Garth Brooks, I'm steel, fiddles, red, white and blue.

I don't have any problem with being the guy whose album people put on when they're feeling sad.

I think that there are artists of different genres whose calling is to use their art to hope to affect and better the human condition - whether it's System of a Down, or Rage Against the Machine, or Public Enemy, or the Clash, Bruce Springsteen, or Pete Seeger. It's a group that I'm proud to be counted among.

Pink Floyd are one of a handful of bands I've listened to a lot and whose concerts I've been to. I love the experience. I don't dance; I just jig up and down like everybody else.

I started guitar when I was like thirteen. I had a friend whose dad had an electric guitar. In sixth grade or seventh grade I went over and played it and immediately I was super excited by the whole thing.

Unfortunately, we are living in an era where plenty of songs with vulgar, objectionable lyrics are also becoming popular. It's a disturbing trend, and I feel really sad when I see small kids dancing to such numbers in television shows. In my career so far, I have refused any song whose lyrics I haven't been comfortable with.

People often look up to actors. It is not right on their part to do songs whose lyrics are not good. Actors have social responsibility.

I have declared that I will work free of cost with those composers who are passionate about their work. Sohail Sen is one such lad, whose music in Banjaara has been liked a lot.

I guess you could write a good song if your heart hadn't been broken, but I don't know of anyone whose heart hasn't been broken.