Quotes by Songwriters - Page 21

If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace.
John Lennon
Nature always waits in the wings and the winds, ready to pounce with all of its power just at that sloppily contented hour when you foolishly assume it to be plainly tired out. Narcissistic humans do their quite pathetic best to kill nature off, oblivious to their self-reliance on its upkeep, yet nature will only take so much bureaucratic bullying before it snaps a deadly snap - for it does not need your approval, your organised banditry, your prepubescent social laws, your trades of cheapening commerce, your militant preachment, your apologies or blind belief of superiority... as if a presidential seat gives you an intolerable presumption of dominance over this earth's terrain!
Morrissey
It's incredible how nature sets females up to take care of people, and yet it is tricky for them to take care of themselves.
Björk
I never really understood the word ‘loneliness’. As far as I was concerned, I was in an orgy with the sky and the ocean, and with nature.
Björk
People say I was made for thisNothin' else would I trade for thisAnd just think I get paid for this...
Bobby Darin
I've learned one thing, and that's to quit worrying about stupid things. You have four years to be irresponsible here, relax. Work is for people with jobs. You'll never remember class time, but you'll remember the time you wasted hanging out with your friends. So stay out late. Go out with your friends on a Tuesday when you have a paper due on Wednesday. Spend money you don't have. Drink 'til sunrise. The work never ends, but college does...
Tom Petty
It's time for a new National Anthem. America is divided into two definite divisions. The easy thing to cop out with is sayin' black and white. You can see a black person. But now to get down to the nitty-gritty, it's getting' to be old and young - not the age, but the way of thinking. Old and new, actually... because there's so many even older people that took half their lives to reach a certain point that little kids understand now.
Jimi Hendrix
We incline to see history through the lives of great men. That inclination blinds us to the real complexity …
John Kay
The drinking dens are spilling outThere's staggering in the squareThere's lads and lasses falling aboutAnd a crackling in the airDown around the dungeon doorsThe shelters and the queuesEverybody's looking forSomebody's arms to fall intoAnd it's what it isIt's what it is nowThere's frost on the graves and the monumentsBut the taverns are warm in townPeople curse the governmentAnd shovel hot food downThe lights are out in the city hallThe castle and the keepThe moon shines down upon it allThe legless and asleepAnd it's cold on the tollgateWith the wagons creeping throughCold on the tollgateGod knows what I could do with youAnd it's what it isIt's what it is nowThe garrison sleeps in the citadelWith the ghosts and the ancient stonesHigh up on the parapetA Scottish piper stands aloneAnd high on the windThe highland drums begin to rollAnd something from the past just comesAnd stares into my soulAnd it's cold on the tollgateWith the Caledonian BluesCold on the tollgateGod knows what I could do with youAnd it's what it isIt's what it is nowWhat it isIt's what it is nowThere's a chink of light, there's a burning wickThere's a lantern in the towerWee Willie Winkie with a candlestickStill writing songs in the wee wee hoursOn Charlotte Street I takeA walking stick from my hotelThe ghost of Dirty DickIs still in search of Little NellAnd it's what it isIt's what it is nowOh what it isWhat it is now
Mark Knopfler
Waves crack with wicked fury against me ship's hull while ocean currents rage as the full moon rises o're the sea." (Cutthroat's Omen: A Crimson Dawn)
John Phillips
Waves crack with wicked fury against me ship's hull while ocean currents rage as the full moon rises o're the sea." (Cutthroat's Omen: A Crimson Dawn)
John Phillips
Sometimes religion gets in the way of God.
Bono
I read and feel that same compulsion; the desire to possess what he has written, which can only be subdued by writing something myself.
Patti Smith
There were two immediate results of my forced loneliness: I began to find company in books, and greater pleasure in music.
James Weldon Johnson
The Spice Girl Victoria Beckham has just published the story of her life. I confess that it is not in my reading table.
Mick Jagger
Personally, I'm not much for symbolism. I never get it. Why can't things be just as they are? I never thought to psychoanalyze Seymour Glass or sought to break down "Desolation Row." I just wanted to get lost, become one with somewhere else, slip a wreath on a steeple top solely because I wished it.
Patti Smith
Don't raise me up, I am but a messenger.
Jimi Hendrix
I preferred an artist who transformed his time, not mirrored it.
Patti Smith
I had no concept of what life at the Chelsea Hotel would be like when we checked in, but I soon realized it was a tremendous stroke of luck to end up there. We could have had a fair-seized railroad flat in the East Village for what we were paying, but to dwell in this eccentric and damned hotel provided a sense of security as well as a stellar education. The goodwill that surrounded us was proof that the Fates were conspiring to help their enthusiastic children.
Patti Smith
You've got to capture as much of the room sound as possible. That's the very essence of it.
Jimmy Page
We stand on the edge of national metamorphosis armed with hope and lengthy dreams, and the desire to leave the mistakes of the past far, far behind us. Some wake to a blessed plague of amnesia hoping never to recover the damage that was done. Some keep marching forward feeling the heavy ache of everything they wish to change about themselves and our nation dragging behind them like a long, prolonged shadow. And still others shine above the sun, sparkling like raging cosmonauts, propelled by the strength and power of their pathological optimism. I tend to slingshot between all 3 of these distinct planets with unruly fortitude. This is where art comes in. It helps me deal with my compulsive randomness, and allows me to abate life's repressions while exploring all possibilities of transformation and growth. And for this, I am eternally grateful.
Otep Shamaya
The future belongs to us. I think that art is a force that can change the world.
Shahin Najafi
First, you write for yourself... always, to make sense of experience and the world around you. It’s one of the ways I stay sane. Our stories, our books, our films are how we cope with the random trauma-inducing chaos of life as it plays.
Bruce Springsteen
Everybody was sorta going to sleep twards the end of 1983, and I felt that they had to be woken up!
Morrissey
The primary math of the real world is one and one equals two. The layman (as, often, do I) swings that every day. He goes to the job, does his work, pays his bills and comes home. One plus one equals two. It keeps the world spinning. But artists, musicians, con men, poets, mystics and such are paid to turn that math on its head, to rub two sticks together and bring forth fire. Everybody performs this alchemy somewhere in their life, but it’s hard to hold on to and easy to forget. People don’t come to rock shows to learn something. They come to be reminded of something they already know and feel deep down in their gut. That when the world is at its best, when we are at our best, when life feels fullest, one and one equals three. It’s the essential equation of love, art, rock ’n’ roll and rock ’n’ roll bands. It’s the reason the universe will never be fully comprehensible, love will continue to be ecstatic, confounding, and true rock ’n’ roll will never die.
Bruce Springsteen
Art is why I get up in the morning, but my definition ends there. You know, it doesn't seem fair that I'm living for something I can't even define, but there you are, right there, in the meantime.
Ani DiFranco
He wrote me a note to say we would create art together and we would make it, with or without the rest of the world.
Patti Smith
Like a groupie incognito posing as a real singer, life imitates art.
Lana Del Rey
You can't help it. An artist's duty, as far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times.
Nina Simone
There's a very fine line between being artistic and being a dickhead - it's like love and hate.
Peter Hook
Find your authentic voice, become vulnerable, and then put yourself out there.
Meredith Brooks
I'm tired of feeling like I'm fucking crazy.I'm tired of driving till I see stars in my eyes.
Lana Del Rey
and half of learning to play is learning what not to playand she's learning the spaces she leaves have their own things to sayand she's trying to sing just enough so that the air around her movesand make music like mercy that gives what it is and has nothing to proveshe crawls out on a limb and begins to build her homeand it's enough just to look around and to know that she's not aloneup up up up up up up points the spire of the steeplebut god's work isn't done by godit's done by people
Ani DiFranco
If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then in that respect you can call me that... I believe in what I do, and I'll say it.
John Lennon
It was hard to bear your soul while someone was talking to their friend about a new sweater they bought.
Jewel
The truest treasure is a soul who believes in its own existence
Jewel
Something deep in human make up needs and longs for a taste of eternity--a momentary release from the relentless pace of time.
Thomas Moore
There is no evidence of the soul except in tis sudden absence. A nothingness enters, taking the place where something was before. A night without stars falls and for a moment covers everything in the room.
Bruce Springsteen
Renaissance philosophers often said that it is the soul that makes us human. We can turn that idea round and note that it is when we are most human that we have greatest access to the soul.
Thomas Moore
I’m interested in this humbler approach, one that is more accepting of human foibles, and indeed sees dignity and peace as emerging more from that acceptance than from any method of transcending the human condition.
Thomas Moore
Gnostic tales tell of the homesickness of the soul, its yearning for its own milieu…
Thomas Moore
Musically, he was like an old man in a boy's skin.
Eric Clapton
Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.Sold my soul and yeah, the truth hurts.
Marina Diamandis Marina and the Diamonds
I couldn't resist him, his eyes were like yours, his hair was exactly the shade of brown.He's just not as tall, but I couldn't tell, it was dark and I was lying down.
Amy Winehouse
A great song should lift your heart, warm the soul and make you feel good.
Colbie Caillat
It may help us, in those times of trouble, to remember that love is not only about relationship, it is also an affair of the soul.
Thomas Moore
It is only through mystery and madness that the soul is revealed
Thomas Moore
I am a Christian - but sometimes I feel very removed from Christianity. The Jesus Christ that I believe in was the man who turned over the tables in the temple and threw the money-changers out - substitute T.V. evangelists if you like…why in the West, do we spend so much money on extending the arms race instead of wiping out malaria, which could be eradicated given ten minutes worth of the world's arm budget? To me, we are living in the most un-Christian times. When I see these racketeers, the snake-oil salesmen on these right-winged television stations, asking for not your $20.00, or your $50.00, but your $100.00 in the name of Jesus Christ, I just want to throw up!!
Bono
I think for me, beauty is sincerity. I think that there are so many different ways that someone can be beautiful. You know, someone so funny that it makes them beautiful no matter how they look, because they’re sincere in it. Or somebody who’s really emotional, and moody and thoughtful and stoic, but that makes them beautiful because that’s sincerely who they are
Taylor Swift
There's no better makeup than confidence
Shakira Ripoll
Slowly the truth is loadingI'm weighted down with loveSnow lying deep and evenStrung out and dreaming ofNight falling on the cityQuite something to beholdDon't it just look so prettyThis disappearing worldWe're threading hope like fireDown through the desperate bloodDown through the trailing wireInto the leafless woodNight falling on the cityQuite something to beholdDon't it just look so prettyThis disappearing worldThis disappearing worldI'll be sticking right there with itI'll be by your sideSailing like a silver bulletHit 'em 'tween the eyesThrough the smoke and rising waterCross the great divideBaby till it all feels rightNight falling on the citySparkling red and goldDon't it just look so prettyThis disappearing world"~David Gray
David Gray
We get so worried about being pretty. Let’s be pretty kind. Pretty funny. Pretty smart. Pretty strong.
Britt Nicole
I've enjoyed every age I've been, and each has had its own individual merit. Every laugh line, every scar, is a badge I wear to show I've been present, the inner rings of my personal tree trunk that I display proudly for all to see. Nowadays, I don't want a "perfect" face and body; I want to wear the life I've lived.
Pat Benatar
I don't take good pictures 'cause I have the kind of beauty that moves.
Ani DiFranco
Can a mere song change a people's minds? I doubt that it is so. But a song can infiltrate your heart and the heart may change your mind.
Elvis Costello
I had a long talk with Bruce Springsteen on a rooftop during the Vote for Change tour (in 2004). And it boiled down to this: That guy you used to be, he’s still in the car. He’ll always be in the car. Just don’t let him drive. He might be shouting out directions. But whatever you do, don’t let him get behind the wheel.
Eddie Vedder
It's hard to fight when the fight ain't fair.
Taylor Swift
You can walk away and say "We don't need this." but something in your eyes says "We can beat this.
Taylor Swift
A lot of performers, if they go to bed with a woman on the road, they think of her as a slut. As a person and a man, what does that make them then? Lowlife or high living, you give as good as you get, and I don't think women's sex lives have a thing to do with the kinds of human beings they are.
Waylon Jennings
That’s what she was, Joanna felt suddenly. That’s what they all were, all the Stepford wives: actresses in commercials, pleased with detergents and floor wax, with cleansers, shampoos, and deodorants. Pretty actresses, big in the bosom but small in the talent, playing housewives unconvincingly, too nicey-nice to be real.
Ira Levin