American Musician Quotes

There is a road, no simple highway, between the dawn and the dark of night, and if you go, no one may follow, that path is for your steps alone

I hadn't been exposed to music except in church. They used to have me singing a solo when I was five years old.

I like New York better than Seattle. It's bigger. I was really sad when I left, because I miss my friends, but I call them almost every day, and I have friends here now.

Rachel Trachtenburg

To exceed the expectations of others, we must first raise expectations of ourselves.

I think, fundamentally, music is something inherently people love and need and relate to, and a lot of what's out right now feels like McDonalds. It's quick-fix. You kind of have a stomachache afterwards.

I have really bad days and I have really OK days. It's strange. I'm blessed. I'm alive. I'm here.

I wanna know all of your names. So at the count of three I want you all to scream your names! 1-2-3! (fans yell names) Good, now we know each other intimately. You know what that means? (fan yells Orgy!) Orgy? (laughs) No!

What are words worth?
Words in papers
Words in books
Words on TV
Words are crooks
Words of comfort
Words of peace
Words to make the fighting cease
Words to tell you what to do
Words are working hard for you.

What does it mean that social structures among young people are so often predicated upon trying really, really hard to appear to not-be-trying?

Well there are walls, that make a prison, many names that can bring hate. Yeah tear 'em down and ride 'em over.

Jackson C. Frank

From a distance, there is harmony
And it echoes through the land
It's the voice of hope, it's the voice of peace
It's the voice of every man.

Limitation is the condition of our lives. What matters — what allows us to reach beyond ourselves, as we are, and push at the boundaries of our ability — is that we continue. But then everything depends on how we practice, what we practice.

Bill Mitchell said he really liked it. But when he asked the other four their opinions, we all took one look at ourselves in our raggedly long winter coats and cracked up. We knew we weren't likely to tempt anyone or anything, but what the hell, it was as good a name as any.

It's one for the money,
Two for the show,
Three to get ready,
Now go, cat, go!
But don't you step on my Blue Suede Shoes.
You can do anything but lay off my Blue Suede Shoes.

Oh, dem golden slippers!
Oh, dem golden slippers!
Golden slippers I'm gwinter to wear,
To walk the golden streets.

What one leads on-sight, in good, strong style, safely, is what one's ability is.

In response to some favorable criticism by the French jazz critic Hugues Panassie:

I don't see why we need a Frenchman to come over here and tell us how to play American music. I wouldn't think of going to France and telling him how to jump on a grape.

If you don't love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?

If not then you must be trying to hear us and in such cases we cannot be heard. We remain in the darkness, unseen. In the center of unpeeled bananas, we exist. Uncolored by perception. Clothed to the naked eye. Five senses cannot sense the fact of our existence. And that's the only fact. In fact, there are no facts.

A child is born with no state of mind
Blind to the ways of mankind
God is smiling on you but He's frowning too
Because only God knows what you'll go through.

We're tenting tonight on the old campground, Give us a song to cheer Our weary hearts, a song of home And friends we love so dear.

Walter Kittredge

There's very little to be said for learning a piece note by note, reading the rhythmic markings, practising the fingerings and following your instructor's suggestions, if you haven't any idea how the music will eventually sound and feel. If you learn a piece mechanically, you may have to 'unlearn' it before you can play it with expression and feeling.

Anyone who says the Backstreet Boys can't sing is crazy. They're probably just reading some highbrow critic who hates anyone the general public embraces. I'm sorry, but those boys sing their butts off. They work hard on their choreography, and on their harmonies. Their tracks are tight and solid. Their songs are musical and memorable.

You come into this world a zero, and you leave a zero.

The word "hillbilly", I've never liked that, and I've never used that in my music.