Quotes About History

If we look at music history closely, it is not difficult to isolate certain elements of great potency which were to nourish the art of music for decades, if not centuries.

The history of a people are found in its songs.

The death of classical music is perhaps its oldest continuing tradition.

I had no idea of the historical evolution of the civilized world's music and had not realized that all modern music owes everything to Bach.

Songs are funny things. They can slip across borders. Proliferate in prisons. Penetrate hard shells. I always believed that the right song at the right moment could change history.

It is evidently known, beyond contradiction, that New Orleans is the cradle of Jazz and I, myself, happened to be the creator in the year 1902.

We need not destroy the past. It is gone.

I don't ever balk at being considered a Motown person, because Motown is the greatest musical event that ever happened in the history of music

Violence existed before our music was even suggested.

Has it struck you that the music which is regarded as the most sublime in western civilization, which is the music of Bach, is called baroque?

White folks hear the blues come out, but they don't know how it got there.

I can't tell my future, so I'm going to tell my past.

When you get to readin' about where the music and John Steinbeck and all those people like that come from, the further you go the more interesting it becomes.

A lot of people think that the music was responsible for a lot of changes in the Sixties, but I think the music came out of it. The music wouldnt have happened without the social changes.

Classical music is an unbroken, living tradition that goes back over 1,000 years, and every one of those years has had something unique and powerful to say to us about what it's like to be alive.

If you want to know about the Sixties, play the music of The Beatles.

You will be most readily cured of vanity or presumption by studying the history of music, and by hearing the master pieces which have been produced at different periods.

I think folk music helps reinforce your sense of history. An old song makes you think of times gone by.

Certainly, jazz has become more of a niche, which is surprising, because it's our music. It's the national music of America.

The blues has been the foundation of all other American music since the beginning.

A songwriter's heart is pure when they have the desire to keep digging deeper into music. And invariably, when you dig deeper it always leads you into the past.

I was listening to a lot of Norwegian black metal and death metal. There's a great history to Norwegian black metal. That music is very dark and violent, but it's also beautiful.

I love that period, between the '20s and the '60s. I love doing period pieces, and those eras are my favorite period in time, music wise, and the elegance and the way of being.

Take Bach or Schubert: Their music was dedicated to God but filled and shaped their worldly lives. If you are a committed atheist, you lean back and miss all the richness of that history.