“There are so many people that do things better than I do: dancing, singing like a black girl, singing country. Or if, while they sing, they move their arms in and around their crotch; when I sing, I play the piano and look like a little choirgirl. I'd like to mix it up like that.” PeopleCountryMovingGirlBlackSingingDancingBlack Girl Author:Nellie McKay
“Listening closely to songs these days, there's a lot of lazy songwriting where people get away with it. I don't want to be too critical about it. But I also feel like I wanted to say something a bit different from just being a musician and singing about yourself. Ultimately, that's not really interesting to me. Even when I was a kid, I was interested in observing people and maybe making my own stories. That kind of reflects in my music.” PeopleKindDifferentKidsSongInterestingListeningMusicianSingingLazyGet AwaySongwritingAbout YourselfObservingReally Interesting Author:Steve Gunn
“I used to get upset with the word Bollywood, and what it means in the West. The stereotype of us being dancing, singing, puppet showgirls. Indians are nearly one fifth of the world's population; we have one of the most prolific film industries in the world. When people used to ask me about it, or replicate what they think is Bollywood dancing, thinking that they're being funny, I used to get offended. But now I show them the stuff we do.” PeopleThinkingWorldMeanFilmSingingDancingAsk MeUpsetStereotypeOffended Author:Priyanka Chopra
“I think some people are born to Entertain. They just have those personalities and they are great at it. Their forte isn't singing so they use auto tune, etc... But they have a lot of talent in entertaining.” PeopleThinkingTalentPersonalitySinging Author:Orianthi
“There's very little I can sing now. When I asked my first voice teacher, who was the best one, "When will I know when to stop singing?" he said, "Your voice will tell you." And it is very, very difficult to sing now.” DifficultTeacherSinging Author:Joan Baez
“Another hard thing that Gord Downie makes easy: singing ironically. If you don't do it right, you come off like a snarky asshole or the whole thing just falls apart on its own. He has the ability to imbue something ironic with great seriousness, which is the only way to really make it work.” FallEasyAbilitySingingIronicFalling ApartSeriousnessHard Things Author:Steve Berlin
“Mancil Travis - I have always had a fascination with this character from my hometown. When I put pen to paper to recount stories I knew of him, I kept hearing this dream sequence in my head that was Willie Sugarcapps harmonies singing like a Greek chorus, "White carnations."” CharacterDreamSingingHarmonyGreekPensChorusHometown Author:Will Kimbrough
“I've said the line about Ray Charles a million times, but nobody listens to him singing "I Can't Stop Loving You" and wonders who Ray can't stop loving. They apply that to their own lives. That will happen with my songs.” SongWonderSingingLoving YouStop Loving You Author:Jason Pierce
“The power of the masses can influence any government in the world. The power of the masses can elect an official, start a revolution, and drive history. Nelson Mandela did it alone from his prison cell. Ghandi did it lying down. Egypt did it singing songs.” WorldLyingSongInfluenceRevolutionSingingPrison Author:Jason Mraz
“I find that jazz loosens up the deep place of my mind, lets me find my own strange rhythms. Generally, I find the knottier the jazz, the better. Anything with singing is a distraction. Listening to classical music tends to have the unconscious effect of making my writing too smooth.” WritingMindStrangeListeningSingingLet MeJazzRhythmUnconsciousDistractionSmoothClassical Music Author:Paul Lynch
“I don't have a nice singing voice! Particularly if I've had a few beers, that's when I'll get up and go on the karaoke. I'll usually try to murder a Frank Sinatra song like 'My Way'. In my head I sound exactly like him, but when you watch the footage back, evidently not!” TryingSongNiceSingingMurderBeerFrank Author:Danny Miller
“My singing - it's who I am, it's all of me and it's my soul. The self expression of using your vocal equipment is not only physical and spiritual, but it's something you can't explain. It's your heart and soul together. Yes, I enjoy acting, but I portray other people. But when I sing, it's just me on that stage, communicating how I feel, how I think and what I believe.” PeopleThinkingBelieveHeartSoulTogetherSpiritualI BelieveEnjoyActingSingingCommunicateHeart And SoulSelf Expression Author:Nia Vardalos
“Well painting is certainly my main thing. I will keep doing that for the rest of my life, but if I become famous I would maybe like to experiment with acting, or I have a good voice so maybe a little bit of singing. I'm going to take singing lessons, so who knows.” ActingPaintingSinging Author:Autumn de Forest
“When we recorded the song I Just Can't Stop Loving You, my vocal range is a little higher than Michael's range. He had me re-sing the demo in the new key. Then doing that he filmed me singing this demo in the new key. I actually said, "What are you doing? Why are you filming this?" He said to me, "Because I want to sing it like you. You sound so great and I want to sing it just like you." I said, "Oh, great, Mike, my friends are really going to believe me when I tell them that Michael Jackson wanted to sing this song just like me." We laughed about that.” BelieveSongLike YouSingingBelieve In MeLoving YouStop Loving You Author:Siedah Garrett
“The whole first two-thirds of the I Just Can't Stop Loving You song is just he and I. He's singing lead and I'm doing all the harmonies and we're both singing all the background. We're singing all the choruses until the choir comes in. We were the first two-thirds of the song.” SongSingingHarmonyLoving YouChorusChoirStop Loving You Author:Siedah Garrett
“I have no idea how I do anything. I never have. You know I just started playing guitar and started singing and started working on this act that I would call "Don McLean" when I was probably in high school. And I have been doing this for 40 years, adding songs and writing things, cobbling together albums, doing live things, you know, albums and tours. And then I have records on the charts. I have no idea how this happened.” WritingSchoolTogetherSongSingingHigh School Author:Don McLean
“If you go and watch a Coldplay show, Chris Martin used to be a little timid onstage, but now the success that the band has had really gives him a lot of confidence to really own it. Also, I really admire the way that Ben Gibbard sings live, he just stays on pitch. That is something that I try to do. I don't have the greatest voice in the world, so I just try to think real hard while I'm singing and just do a good job.” ThinkingWorldGivingTryingRealSingingAdmireGood Job Author:Matt Thiessen
“I always grew up around acting. I did commercials as a kid and all that kind of stuff and my oldest brother did theatre in High School. It's funny, when I was 15 I had a friend of mine who dragged me away to a camp at Boston University. It was the first time truthfully that acting didn't feel presentational; it felt very personal. I didn't just feel like I was singing and dancing for my friends in High School. It felt like I was doing a scene and all of a sudden I started to feeling something - I started to feel emotional.” KindFeelingsKidsSchoolActingEmotionalBrotherSceneSingingHigh SchoolFirst TimeDancingTheatre Author:Patrick Wilson
“I guess I'm attracted to people who are singing about love or life, and they have a particular passion that I can connect with. There are people I can tell are amazing, but I can't connect for some reason. It doesn't really make sense why you connect with someone or you don't.” PeopleReasonPassionSingingMake Sense Author:Langhorne Slim
“I'm always doing things that scare me, because I feel like that's how you should live life. If I'm terrified - and I'm often terrified - then I should be doing that. Like trapeze class, or singing in front of 5,000 people.” PeopleSingingLive LifeScare Author:Felicia Day
“It's my dream to sing onstage all around the world. France is the land of my birth, but I prefer other countries because the world is very, very big and I'd like to discover different countries - it's my first reason for travelling and singing.” WorldDifferentCountryReasonDreamBirthSinging Author:Amaury Vassili
“I was never a kid who dreamt of being a performer. I started singing the songs because nobody knew who I was or cared at all. If I wasn't going to sing them, nobody was going to sing them, so I had to step in and fill that role myself.” KidsSongSinging Author:Will Sheff
“Singing your own songs live is so personal, it's like standing there reading out your diary pages. I still get really nervous so I would have to say performing is the greater rush for me.” SongReadingSingingNervousPerformingGet Real Author:Roxanne Emery
“I was full of energy, and I had a lot of bottled up rage that would come out in my stage performances. It was therapy sessions for someone who couldn't afford to go to therapy, a way to release my frustration, my inhibition. When I was little, growing up in an abusive household, I felt like I didn't have a voice. Suddenly I was on stage and people were watching me and listening to me, so even if I was singing about something that didn't have to do with abuse, when I was on stage I could express all of the anger, the rage.” PeopleEnergyGrowing UpListeningSingingAbuseRageTherapyFrustrationAbusiveInhibitions Author:Alice Bag
“With Neptune City, I could have been singing about anybody's life that grew up where I did. The town I live in it isn't that magical, but when you're growing up, you think that everything is so important.” ThinkingImportantGrowing UpSinging Author:Nicole Atkins
“I feel like I've been doing performing my entire life. I started taking music lessons and singing when I was about ten. I didn't have one of those creepy stage moms that made me do stuff. I started bands at a pretty young age and played with my friends back in Detroit. I've always known that I wanted to do this. It was all I was ever interested in doing. I never had, outside of music, any extracurricular activities that I took part in.” AgeMomSingingPerformingCreepy Author:Alex Winston
“I felt that I really couldn't be creative with opera. You're supposed to sound this way here. You're supposed to crescendo here. You're supposed to do that. I had no sense of identity while singing that kind of music.” KindCreativeIdentitySingingBe CreativeCrescendo Author:Alex Winston
“If you write a piece, it's a different thing to show it to an editor than it is to show it to your best friend. You think, "Maybe she'll see through this or she'll see through that." That happened to me with my best friend back in Vancouver. I showed him "Just a Dream" and he took off the headphones halfway through and said, "Man, this is kind of garbage." He told me I needed to get singing lessons.” ThinkingMenWritingKindDifferentDreamSingingMy Best FriendHalfwayYour Best FriendJust A Dream Author:Tobias Jesso Jr.
“If you're up on a stage, naked and solo and singing songs to people, there's not much place to hide, so you may as well confess what you want to confess and say what you want to say, whatever that is. Some songs just turn out as being more about me, and some are more through the eyes of other people, or third-person descriptions of people.” PeopleEyeSongSinging Author:Richard Thompson
“I grew up in an extremely musical atmosphere. There was a lot of music and singing around. I never really thought about one not singing, as a person. I've always sung and made music, it was just self-understood.” SingingMusicalAtmosphere Author:Thomas Hampson
“My only advice as an experience older singer is about singing, it isn't about music. To have a career in music is a completely different question and leads to other kinds of advice and other kind of experts. All you can do is someone planted in my mind very early on, this wonderful truism called, "Fortune favors the prepared mind." Be passionate about being a musician. There is no limit to how hard you must work and how detailed you must be in every facet of what you do, either as a singer, as a musician, or as a person.” MindKindDifferentWonderfulAdviceMusicianMusic IsSingingPassionateTruism Author:Thomas Hampson
“One night as I girl I spied my grandma and one of her sisters outside, holding hands and singing, "Sprites of the night are we, are we. Singing and dancing joyfully." It was witchy and wonderful because it meant there was power in joy. They were not afraid of the night because they were giggling. I am very interested in finding the surprising boundaries, for instance, where do joy and fear meet?” JoyNightGirlWonderfulSingingDancingBoundariesNot AfraidGrandmaHolding HandsMy Grandma Author:Samantha Hunt
“I like things that are contradictory or seem one way but are another way. I think it's more genuine. It's the way I am. I am very positive in certain ways and extremely negative in other ways. I think it's most appropriate if I can write a super pop-y song singing about killing myself.” ThinkingWritingSongSingingNegativeKillingContradictoryVery Positive Author:Memory Tapes
“I think most people get hit by the music first and you can be singing along and realize a song has this melancholy feel. As Swedes, I think we see a beauty in melancholy. You're heartbroken, you're looking out the window and you feel really at ease in the pain. I have so many memories as a teenager with music, sad music, but I was just so into it.” PeopleThinkingPainSongRealizingMemoriesSingingWindowTeenagerMelancholyHeartbroken Author:Yukimi Nagano
“My parents listened to the Outlaws when I was a kid and I just had no interest in it. But my boyfriend at the time listened to Hank Williams III, and I thought that was really cool because he was singing about whatever he wanted to but it was very country.” CountryKidsParentInterestSingingReally CoolOutlawMy Boyfriend Author:Lydia Loveless
“I don't think it's something that people would ask a man. Some people make a huge deal out of the fact that I sing about drinking all the time, but I don't think of it as singing about drinking. It's singing about emotions, and sometimes that centers around drinking. To me, I'm writing about things that I'm going through that mean something to me, but some people just reduce it to: "She must drink all the time." But if a guy sings about that sort of thing, no one really looks twice.” PeopleThinkingMenWritingMeanSometimesGuyEmotionDrinkSingingDrinking Author:Lydia Loveless
“When I do interviews, sometimes I'll just be like "Why the hell did I say that?" because after I hang up the phone I realize there were so many things I could have said, but my brain just goes on lockdown. There's something about having conversations with people that's so much different from just singing and playing guitar. And I think a lot of people are actually performers because of that. I can't really explain why. It's like just the only chance you have in life to feel really good and outgoing.” PeopleThinkingDifferentSometimesRealizingChanceBrainHellSingingOutgoing Author:Lydia Loveless
“Singing a melody is like a lot of easier and when you sing harmony you have to really kind of know music and listen to the music and be able to hear the notes or whatever.” KindSingingHarmonyMelody Author:Kenan Thompson
“For me, we've been singing diversity in movies for 16 years, so it's just beautiful to see the rest of the world finally catching on and they're making it a point to do it.” WorldBeautifulDiversitySinging Author:Tyrese Gibson
“I'm sort of old-fashioned in the sense that I like to write something that I feel I could just perform alone, obviously, because I do that a lot in concert. So I try to make a song where there is as much that is as distinct as I can get it, just if I'm playing it or if I'm singing it. That makes me really do a lot of stuff in the guitar work when I sit and try to figure out how to indicate what sort of dynamic I'm aiming for. Where, rhythmically, I want to go. That's sort of what ties a lot of different records together, is that it's usually always based around me singing and playing a guitar.” WritingTryingDifferentTogetherSongSinging Author:Sondre Lerche
“Earlier in my career I just thought "I'm not very confident, I don't like singing to people." But people had some faith in me, and here we are. Sometimes I think "Oh maybe I should just be a backing singer." But I've got an amazing team of people who tell me to shut up when I'm like "Oh god, I can't do it." But now, I can't really imagine it being the other way.” PeopleThinkingSometimesImagineTeamSingingShut Up Author:Jessie Ware
“Vocals are not central to what I do, and I've never liked singing live. I've always been more inspired by rhythm, texture, harmony than vocal melodies and lyrics. Plus, for me, I can better express my musical ideas through instrumental music than vocal music, the emotional interpretation of which can easily supersede the actual musical content or aim.” EmotionalSingingHarmonyAimInspiredMusicalRhythmMelody Author:Laurel Halo
“I took piano lessons when I was a little kid, but even before that, you're singing in the classroom and wherever. Gosh, children are always singing. But I took music lessons, some choir and things like that at school. I learned how to play the guitar when I was about 13... ancient history.” ChildrenKidsSchoolSingingAncientClassroomLittle KidChoirAncient History Author:Cass McCombs
“My first job was singing at the Hammersmith Odeon. It was years ago, so I can't remember who I was performing with. I was a sort of anti-climax after two hours of heavy rock-'n'-roll. Seventeen years old in a white dress. It was the first time that I got applause. Wonderful, that noise in my ears.” RememberHoursWonderfulSingingFirst TimePerforming Author:Marianne Faithfull
“A lot of Appalachian music has a certain haunted, foggy feel to it; a certain sinister quality. And that transcends who is singing it. I think it's good if an artist can represent some kind of culture that they either aspire to ignite, or that they themselves experience.” ThinkingKindArtistCultureQualitySingingSinister Author:Bradford Cox
“The first thing I think I ever played in public, aside from singing in church, would have been - and this is a true story - when I was about nine or 10 years old, I was obsessed with Twin Peaks. I played the theme from Twin Peaks on a little tiny Casio keyboard. People politely applauded. I just fell in love with that song and thought it was very heartbreaking.” PeopleThinkingSongChurchSingingObsessedTwinsHeartbreakingTrue Story Author:Bradford Cox
“It's really surreal when I play shows, I'll have three or four people who are in the front row who are singing every word to my songs. The first time I experienced that I was like,"Are they mocking me? Is this a joke?" But it's not a joke. They actually identify with my music and that is something that I'm getting used to.” PeopleSongSingingJokesFirst TimeSurreal Author:Zella Day
“When I was in the hospital getting my sex change, I was just wishing I could be a pretty girl working in a mall. If I could have a crystal ball and see what I look like now - you know, modeling, David LaChapelle, hanging out with Daphne Guinness, singing with Lil' Kim, and traveling all over the world, I'd be like, "Wow, I can't believe this."” WorldBelieveGirlWishSingingHanging OutModelingPretty GirlCrystal Ball Author:Amanda Lepore
“I started singing when I was a teenager. I always wanted to write songs; I just didn't understand how someone could sing without writing their own songs.” WritingSongSingingTeenager Author:Olivia Merilahti
“When I am onstage, singing all these songs... what's going through my mind is nothing. That's what's so amazing about meditation - achieving that state, getting to a place where you're clear and present. I'm not thinking about anything except connecting with an audience.” ThinkingMindSongAudienceMeditationAchieveSinging Author:Thao Nguyen