1,882 Music Quotes

For those of us who have been thrown into hell, mysterious melodies and the torturing images of a vanished beauty will always bring us, in the midst of crime and folly, the echo of that harmonious insurrection which bears witness, throughout the centuries, to the greatness of humanity.

I am attracted only to music which I consider to be better than it can be performed. Therefore I feel (rightly or wrongly) that unless a piece of music presents a problem to me, a never-ending problem, it doesn't interest me too much.

Faust, the Ninth Symphony, and the will of Adolf Hitler are eternal youth and know neither time nor transience.

I think the original, 'They're the next Jane's Addiction' things that people said about us in the beginning have been pretty much wiped out.

The Smashing Pumpkins was never meant to be a small band. It was going to either be a big band, or a no band.

We have a problem with any labels that people try to hang on us, because all it does is drag you down.

About six months ago, I listened to Siamese Dream. That was the first time I'd ever really heard my own album, because I had separated from the experience of making the record. And it really moved me. It made me cry, it's so beautiful.

Music is 99% of my life. But I know I need a break. Besides, if you give people too much, they start to not want it. We need to restrain ourselves.

The Pumpkins love rock-and-roll, we absolutely love it, but we also think it's a flatulent, ego-serving kiddie playground. You can have your cake and eat it too.

Great music completely obliterates any conceptions of genre.

I love the development of our music, that's what I really dig about the whole thing. How we've tried to develop, y'know? It grows. That's why every day people come forward with new songs. Music goes on forever.

My music fights against the system that teaches to live and die.

My music will go on forever. Maybe it's a fool say that, but when me know facts me can say facts. My music will go on forever.

One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.

The piano is always true to me. In times of despair, happiness, and joy, its mood is always my own.

I am a composer first and foremost, and have always believed that being able to write memorable melodies is what sets musicians apart. My songs bring images to the listener's mind. The object is to transport my listeners to another place, some place sacred and spiritual that will make them glad they took the ride.

All the information you need is available to you to have a successful career in music, if you're paying attention, and not closed off to anything. Remember, Perseverance is King.

A lot of musicians don't learn the business. You just have to be well-rounded in both areas. You have to understand publishing. You have to understand how you make money, what's in demand, what helps you make the most out of your talent.

This music is forever for me. It's the stage thing, that rush moment that you live for. It never lasts, but that's what you live for.

Music was my way of keeping people from looking through and around me. I wanted the heavies to know I was around.

We're here to re-dedicate you to The Power, The Passion, The Mystery, and The Ministry of Rock and Roll.

The street's alive as secret debts are paid, Contacts made, they vanished unseen. Kids flash guitars just like switch-blades Hustling for the record machine. The hungry and the hunted explode into rock'n'roll bands That face off against each other out in the street, down in Jungleland.

The first day I can remember looking into a mirror and being able to stand what I saw was the day I had a guitar in my hand.

Saying you have a political solution is like saying you can write a pop song that's going to stay at the top of the list forever. I don't have many illusions about this, but I'm not cynical about it.

I always wanted to be a rock star. That was my childhood dream. That's what I told everybody I was going to be when I grew up.

Remember when we was young, everybody used to have these arguments about who's better, Michael Jackson or Prince? Prince won!

As you get older you will gain a bit more control over everything. Don't let anyone, even your parents, break you. Find good people who care about you and surround yourself with just them. If you can't find them at first, find good music and fall into it, let it hold you until they come. I truly hope you enjoy the new record.

We're pretty! We are though, we're a good-looking band.

When superstition is allowed to perform the task of old age in dulling the human temperament, we can say goodbye to all excellence in poetry, in painting, and in music.

Good music is very close to primitive language.

If they cut off both hands, I will compose music anyway holding the pen in my teeth.

Real music is always revolutionary, for it cements the ranks of the people; it arouses them and leads them onward.

Why did Mozart compose music?

Any time I make a record it's followed by a painting period. It's good crop rotation.

She is of course well past the stage of having to prove herself artistically. She is in possession of one of the most extraordinary song catalogs of the past half-century. Her chords break harmonic rules, have no technical names and defy Western musical theory. Her voice is an instrument that has grown sublimely heavier and huskier over the decades. . . .Once you get past the security gates, Ms. Mitchell's house feels like a pocket of middle-class comfort in the midst of zillionaire Beverly Hills. In some ways life is still as it was in 1974, when she bought the house: She has no computer, no voice mail, no cellphone and no e-mail. At one point, when we tried to remember one of her lyrics, we scrolled through my iPod. She said it was the first time she had listened to one.

You're Still You (lyrics by Linda Thompson)

Per Te (lyrics by Josh Groban)

'To me, that sounded like 'monkey tree xanadu!'

'I rock your face off? I rock your face off. I rocked someone's face off at the Grand Ole Opry. Check that off my list.'

'Yeah, it's hard to sing sad songs when there's so much love'

'I hoped to sell 50,000 records. My main goals were to sing my heart out, to challenge myself vocally, to find beautiful music that has great stories and to express what I love about the musicality of different languages. And if 10 people bought it, I'd be thrilled that 10 people listened to it. And if it was 10 million, I'd be thrilled that 10 million people listened to it. This is just beyond any dream that I could have possibly had.'

'First and foremost, I'd like to continue taking risks with my music. Everything I've done so far has been a gut reaction, honest and real. And that's who I am. That's what I want my music to always be -- honest and real.'

'I'm not crossing over from anything. I think of it as pop music with different influences. 'When I walk in the music store, [my] album is under classical/pop/easy listening. It's hard to say what genre it is. It's genreless. I try not to define what it is. I let the audience define it. Because for me, it's just me.'

'I wanted to experiment with that live energy, to push myself a little. It's very much about having intimacy with the music. I love theater - and I love playing in these old theaters. It's not a Vegas stage show. It's very much just me and the music and a five-piece band and a 20-piece string section from each city.'

'I just have to feel it first. It can't be cerebral at all. I'm big on lyrics, a big lyric person, especially the kind of singing I do. It's hard to sound not cheesy sometimes with the voice I have with English songs.'

An iron hand has stilled the throats That throbbed with loud and rhythmic glee And dammed the flood of silver notes That drenched the world in melody.

He is the lord of goodly things That make the poor man's table gay, Yet of his worth no minstrel sings And on his tomb there is no bay.

There is no rope can strangle song And not for long death takes his toll. No prison bars can dim the stars Nor quicklime eat the living soul.

Because Mankind is glad and brave and young, Full of gay flames that white and scarlet glow, All joys and passions that Mankind may know By you were nobly felt and nobly sung. Because Mankind's heart every day is wrung By Fate's wild hands that twist and tear it so, Therefore you echoed Man's undying woe, A harp Aeolian on Life's branches hung.

'Oh my goodness! I can see a bright white light, and I can hear my friends and relatives beckoning me into the afterlife. Wait, what's that...a Richard Marx video? Oh no! I'm goin' to hell!'

What is the Ninth Symphony compared to a Tin Pan Alley hit played on a hurdy-gurdy and a memory?

There's something very special indeed, In all the places where I've seen you shine, boy. There's something very real in how I feel, honey. It's in me. It's in me, And you know it's for real. Tuning in on your saxophone...

Oh, come on, you've got to use your flow. You know what it's like, and you know you want to go. Don't drive too slowly. Don't put your blues where your shoes should be. Don't put your foot on the heartbrake.

To be sung of a summer night on the water. Ooh, on the water. 'Ta, ta-ta! Hmm. Ta, ta-ta! In B, Fenby!'

One of the band told me last night That music is all that he's got in his life. So where does it go? Surely not with his soul. Will all of his licks and his R'n'B Blow away?

Four strings across the bridge, Ready to carry me over, Over the quavers, drunk in the bars, Out of the realm of the orchestra...

Get the bow going! Let it scream to me: Violin! Violin! Violin!

Split me open With devotion You put your hands in And rip my heart out Eat the music.

He does love his numbers And they run, they run, they run him In a great big circle In a circle of infinity 3.14159 26535897932 3846 264 338 3279...

Oh will you come with us To find the song of the oil and the brush?

I think you're all completely mad! -and thank you very much.

One of the main things that brings people to the Bronte Museum from all over the world is Kate Bush. We have copies of her No 1 hit single ' Wuthering Heights' in our collection of Bronte-related items. People often arrive at the Bronte novels through that song.

To me, Kate Bush will always represent the age of exploring your sexuality, when you change from a girl to a woman. I guess that's what I found fascinating about Kate, she totally stuck out. She created her own look and sound. There's a timelessness to her music.

I think she is still relevant. It's nice to see people reinvent themselves. She was a great performer and a great singer. I like that song, you know the one, 'It's me, I'm Cathy...' I love that song. I remember listening to it growing up.

For me, it's not important how well the songs will be received because I think she's already an amazing influence in what she's done. I listen to her stuff a lot while I sketch and I think there is a weird sense of emotional encouragement in her work. There's something therapeutic in her voice and in her attitude, so that sometimes just listening to it can encourage you or give you some kind of energy.

I didn't realise how commercially successful she might be. I thought of her more really, I suppose, in the terms of someone like Joni Mitchell - the level of a lady who's very talented, but would appeal to a more esoteric audience. But she had different ideas.

One of music's most reclusive and enigmatic figures has re-emerged into what some have seen as a rich era for British female singer-songwriters. Bush's new double album, Aerial, is due out in November, only her eighth after three decades in the business. It will be treated with due reverence.

That's a song where we were listening to a lot of Kate Bush last summer, and we wanted a song which had a lot of tom-toms in it,I just had my daughter up also, and was kind of feeling in a sense of awe and wonderment, so the song is kind of a Kate Bush song about miracles.

Of course she's still relevant. I wasn't actually in the country when her music first came out, so I only discovered it three or four years ago. What's amazing is that something like 'Wuthering Heights' still sounds so different. I actually saw her about nine months ago, we were just passing at an industry event and I went up to her and said I was a big fan and asked her about the new record. She was really excited about it but quite nervous because she felt that everyone was hyping it up a bit and she just wanted to bring out an album. You know, she's a musician.

I simply think she is one of the greatest figures in British music over the last 30 years. There are an awful lot of people in the business wandering around claiming to be artists, but she is one of the few who can genuinely make that claim... I don't think there is any competition, she's on a different level and quite outside them all.

With a voice you either love or hate, she belts out a song with a desperation that grabs you and won't let go.

I'm really looking forward to Kate Bush's return - I'm no expert on her work but I know some of it and I think she's an incredibly original and talented artist. Anyone who writes most of an album like her first album, The Kick Inside, at 15 years old has got to be pretty special.

When EMI invites a group of journalists to the Royal Academy of Music, in London, for a one-off listen to Kate Bush's new album, they are sending a clear signal - this album is not to be dismissed lightly.

A Sky of Honey is a celebration of song itself, which has a child's joyful lack of inhibition about it - Kate Bush is heard laughing freely towards the end while a young child, possibly her son, is heard several times... Aerial stands alongside The Hounds of Love and The Kick Inside as her finest work.

I always heard about Kate Bush being considered one of the most influential female artists during the modern era of pop/rock music, but never understood what her appeal was... But when I recently stumbled upon her debut 1978 single, 'Wuthering Heights,' I found myself spending hours absorbing as much of her pre-1985 material as possible . . . Listening to an early Kate Bush album brings you far, far, away to a dreamworld filled with pixies and love and Peter Pan and pure hearts . . . 'Wuthering Heights' and the rest of The Kick Inside display all of Bush's trademarks: a literary consciousness; flourishing, heartfelt waves and the ability to successfully incorporate just about every eccentric vocal style you've never heard into each song.

Illusion, dance, mime, even magic - the Tour of Life, as it was called, had the lot. I shan't forget the way those Pink Floyd-like whale sounds that open The Kick Inside album heralded Kate's entry to the stage as waves were projected on huge screens and her band launched into Moving. For a split second, the audience thought Kate was lip-synching because there was no microphone, but in pre-dating Madonna by a couple of decades, she was wearing a headset to allow free movement around the stage. Every song from that first album was performed before the switch to stuff from follow-up Lionheart, virtually every number warranting a change of costume and stage set. ... The entire show was pure theatre.

After a thousand songs on the theme of boy-meets-girl-boy-loses-girl or Thatcher's Britain, exposure to her music comes as an imaginative release as we go giddily flying into the limitless possibilities of the poetic viewpoint. Here is talk of whales, of Peter Pan, kites, Houdini, mysticism... Acquaintances have observed, 'She lives in a world of her own.' But it's a world that lives within all of us, and her songs shine light into neglected areas of our minds.

Her subjects come tripping from library shelves, television and cinema screens and musty books of fairy tales, the stuff that dreams are made of. She spins tunes that haunt, twist and turn the mind, triggering long forgotten moods. Listening intently to her albums is an experience akin to having a lucid and feverish dream. Jungian symbols of youth, innocence, spiritual escape and the dark, feminine realm abound. Ghosts haunt the black vinyl grooves... But it's not all brooding intensity. There are jokes, too...

It's a mischievous paradox that, while rock at its ultra-macho best is exhilarating and energizing, yet just at the moment when it is most strident and loud it leaves you needing something more. Then along comes a shy doctor's daughter from Welling who out-screams the best, out-powers the noisiest and tops it with the satisfying impact of musical and psychological depth. It's almost Wagnerian.

Her talent was precocious. 'The Saxophone Song' and 'The Man With the Child in His Eyes' were recorded as demo tapes when Kate was still at school. The first album, The Kick Inside (1978), caused tremendous media interest and is still the public's favourite. Her voice, criticized at the time, was small and childlike, the range erratic, if impressive. Since then it has improved enormously, deepening and gaining power and flexibility, until now it is a great asset, individual and capable of both subtle and stunning effects.

The album Never for Ever came next and starts in happy mood, with a summer night of a cha-cha-cha tribute to a new-found hero, 'Delius'. The philosophic All We Ever Look For creates a remarkable and rare mood of reassurance and upbeat resignation, a Bush specialty . . . The end comes in the horrifying 'Breathing', a vision of the nuclear holocaust through the eyes of an unborn child.

On to The Dreaming, a strange, alien album full of mysticism and obscurantae. Its impact owes much to sheer production quality. Kate has gradually taken over this aspect of her records since Lionheart, and each LP is technically more impressive. Her voice here is forward and strong and, on 'Leave It Open', deliberately distorted to create a surreal effect. Get Out of My House is a shattering trip into madness, with a stunning culmination which finds Kate braying like a mule amid a chorus of Indian drum talk.

The new album, Hounds of Love, breaks new ground for Kate with the b-side. This is a story - The Ninth Wave - told in a series of songs, like a Pink Floyd concept album.

Casual listeners will miss the depth of the music. You must sit down with the lyric sheet and find out what's going on. All the vocal acrobatics and weird sounds click into place when you know what ideas, stories and situations they are expressing. In most rock and pop, the music and words may be linked, but are basically separate. Kate creates, more and more, a fusion between the two - the sounds directly expressing the subject. This is a throwback to Wagner's music-drama, with its leitmotifs, turning music into an idea. The Beatles revived the technique, and bands of the hippy era like Pink Floyd carried the banner. . . Kate is fast becoming a master in the use of this sonic montage, perhaps because the ideas she is using are far more complex, have more 'resonances', than those of her contemporaries.

I had always considered Kate Bush truly original both as a performer and as a songwriter with an unusually fresh sense of harmony. If her new album next month is awaited with some excitement after a long fallow period, then in 1985 it was assumed that Hounds of Love would be something of a final fling at the conclusion of a waning career. I soon realised how wrong this assumption was when Kate sent me a cassette: it was zany, ambitious and yet utterly Kate Bush, but with gaps where I was to do her bidding. Having chatted at length, she sent me a long letter with the words of the song and precise instructions on how it should unfold... Structure was carefully delineated, verses and choruses written out fully and marked up in colour, and she talked of the sound quality in the most graphic terms.

Although she had piano and violin lessons at school, Bush is essentially self-taught. I have always been fascinated by the difference of dynamics at work between popular artists and conventionally trained classical musicians, and had a similar experience with the Edge, of U2, when we worked together on the score of a film called Captive. In fact, gifted 'pop' musicians like Bush and U2 are far more demanding of themselves in the studio than classical musicians can afford to be, and will spend days working on a tiny fragment.

Such is the idiosyncratic nature of her work that she could probably disappear for a half-century and still sustain her own unique position in the pop firmament. But then, who else would write about an obsessive-compulsive housewife or attempt a vocal duet with trilling birds, or, in the most courageous of the album's many unusual strategies, sing huge strings of numbers, a gambit that brings new meaning to the old critic's chestnut about being happy to listen to someone singing the telephone directory?

She has always freely admitted being like a little girl in many ways, and furthermore, happily presumes she'll still be that way in her dotage. It's certainly still a factor on Aerial , both in the track 'Bertie' itself and in the memories and reminiscences that cobweb some other songs. But compared to the darker corners of the mind sometimes mined in earlier songs, the new album seems a much sunnier affair: an enduring image I took away from it - not necessarily a lyric, though it might have been - was of windows flung wide open, their curtains billowing out in the breeze, a room's long-dormant dust stirred into life again.

For me, Kate Bush was always a trump card when the tiresome 'question' of female artistic genius came up. ... Before disgust stopped me getting dragged into these skirmishes, I had a ready arsenal of Girl Greats - Patti Smith, Bjork, Nina Simone, w:Delia Derbyshire:, Polly Harvey, and so on. And yet, there would often be some caveat why genius eluded my candidates (ripped off Dylan etc). Until we would get to Kate. Female genius? Kate Bush. End of. Aerial, the first Kate Bush album in a young lifetime (12 years), re-establishes the fact. It is extraordinary - jaw-dropping, no less.

'And now let us play our reeds together.' And they played together. And their music smote heaven and earth, and a terror struck all living things. I heard the bellow of beasts and the hunger of the forest. And I heard the cry of lonely men, and the plaint of those who long for what they know not. I heard the sighing of the maiden for her lover, and the panting of the luckless hunter for his prey. And then there came peace into their music, and the heavens and the earth sang together. All this I saw in my dream, and all this I heard.

They're playin our song Gene!

The first feminism I expressed was long ago through melodies and rhythms, and a few years later my life caught up.