“There was a f**king review in f**king Melody Maker [of the first BOSSANOVA single, 'Velouria'] - 'Sounds like someone's been taking singing lessons'. Like, motherf**king A! I am the singer. Who do sing SONGS. It's like I never sang before; like I was - I don't know - reading PROSE on my previous records and now I sing. EXCUUUUUUSE me for singing” KnowsFirstsSongReadingSoundRecordsKingsLessonsSingingSingersProseMelodyMakersReviews Author:Black Francis
“Gertrude Stein's prose-song is a cold, black suet-pudding.... Cut it at any point, it is the same thing ... all fat, without nerve.” SongBlackCuttingColdFatsProseNervesPuddingGertrude Author:Wyndham Lewis
“I think it's hard to really write a song that will educate someone because songs are meant to be ... you don't want to be too didactic in a song because it doesn't make for good music. And I think the role of songs can be to inspire people but there needs to education and prose to back that up.” PeopleThinkingWantNeedsWritingHardSongRolesInspireProseMeant To BeEducateBe YouDidactic Author:John Legend
“The poet is a creator, not an iconoclast, and never will tamely endeavor to say in prose what can only be expressed in song.” SongPoetCreatorProseEndeavor Book:VICTORIAN POETS Source: VICTORIAN POETS
“Of little use, the man you may suppose, Who says in verse what others say in prose; Yet let me show a poet's of some weight, And (though no soldier) useful to the state, What will a child learn sooner than a song? What better teach a foreigner the tongue? What's long or short, each accent where to place And speak in public with some sort of grace?” MenMayChildrenLittlesLongStatesUseShowsSongSpeakTeachGraceHe ManPoetWeightLet MeSoldierTongueProseVersesAccentsForeigners Book:An Essay on Man: And Other Poems Source: An Essay on Man: And Other Poems
“There is a certain standard of grace and beauty which consists in a certain relation between our nature, such as it is, weak or strong, and the thing which pleases us. Whatever is formed according to this standard pleases us, be it house, song, discourse, verse, prose, woman, birds, rivers, trees, room, dress, and so on. Whatever is not made according to this standard displeases those who have good taste.” MadeCertainSongHouseStrongRoomsBeautyGraceTreePleaseTasteStandardsBirdRiversWeakRelationDressesProseVersesDiscourseGood Taste Book:Thoughts, Letters & Minor Works Source: Thoughts, Letters & Minor Works
“...in song the words tend to lose their significance, do often lose it, while at the other extreme, in current prose it is the musical value that tends to disappear - so that verse stands symmetrically, as it were, between song, on the one hand, and prose on the other - and is thus admirably and delicately balanced between the sensual and the intellectual power of language.” HandsValuesSongLanguageLosesIntellectualMusicalCurrentsExtremesDisappearSensualProseSignificanceBalancedVersesPower Of Language Author:Paul Valery