Actors are agents of change. A film, a piece of theater, a piece of music, or a book can make a difference. It can change the world.
No matter what language you speak, music can relate to you in some way, and when that ‘Tip Toe’ beat drops, it can instantly do something to you. It has the power to move you.
To me there is no picture so beautiful as smiling, bright-eyed, happy children; no music so sweet as their clear and ringing laughter.
Music is the soul of language.
Keep doing what you do, and people that enjoy what you do are gonna buy your music and love on you.
Arthur Russell is very important to me on many levels, and when I read Tim Lawrence’s biography on him, ‘Hold on to Your Dreams,’ one of the things I took away was: first thought, best thought. I live by that when I make my own music.
If Antarctica were music it would be Mozart. Art, and it would be Michelangelo. Literature, and it would be Shakespeare. And yet it is something even greater; the only place on earth that is still as it should be. May we never tame it.
I suspect music is auditory cheesecake, an exquisite confection crafted to tickle the sensitive spots of… our mental faculties.
But in the next world I shan’t be doing music, with all the striving and disappointments. I shall be being it.
Music is just another language, but it’s very special because it crosses everyone’s borders.
A good compromise, a good piece of legislation, is like a good sentence; or a good piece of music. Everybody can recognize it. They say, ‘Huh. It works. It makes sense.’
So long as the human spirit thrives on this planet, music in some living form will accompany and sustain it and give it expressive meaning.
The old-timers schooled me good. They brainwashed me to respect music, whether we were playing rockabilly or blues or rock and roll.
Reggae has a philosophy, you know? It’s not just entertainment. There’s an idea behind it, a way of life behind the music, which is a positive way of life, which is a progressive way of life for better people.
Music is the most powerful form of communication in the world. It brings us all together. Even religion separates us, but a hit record unites us across religious beliefs, race, politics.
Punk is not just the sound, the music. Punk is a lifestyle.
The music we do is for people to enjoy, dance and sing to it. Dreamers – keep on dreaming and keep working hard to achieve your goals. There are many difficulties, but what matters is to stay focused and have perseverance.
The truest expression of a people is in its dances and its music. Bodies never lie.
Beyond a certain point, the music isn’t mine anymore. It’s yours.
Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.
‘La La Land’ is about the city I live in. It’s about the music that I grew up playing; it’s about movies that I grew up watching. Even the big spectacle of the movie feels private to me in that way.
Music is art, and once you become an artist, you need to learn how to accept criticism.
I was raised in a Catholic school, and I would always go to church on Sunday, and I would hear the same music over and over and over and over again, same gospels, hymns, everything.
When I was young, I played the piano and studied classical music and jazz. I wanted to be a concert pianist, and if I’d devoted myself to it, I could have been. But it would have been too much work and a very lonely life.
Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.
