Song Quotes - Page 36

Life is so short. I would rather sing one song than interpret the thousand.

If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me?

I am a politically motivated person, and that will come through in the music. I'm not sure if every song will be Take Me to Church, but I can only hope that people enjoy the body of work that I have ahead of me.

In poor environment, I find great inspiration. Many of the men and women whom I admire as artists, the things they write, the songs they sing, the admission is filled with inspired moments to overcome oppression.

My songs are basically my diaries. Some of my best songwriting has come out of time when I've been going through a personal nightmare.

Gershwin's melodic gift was phenomenal. His songs contain the essence of New York in the 1920s and have deservedly become classics of their kind, part of the 20th-century folk-song tradition in the sense that they are popular music which has been spread by oral tradition (for many must have sung a Gershwin song without having any idea who wrote it).

You know Nashville, there's people that are ten times more talented than me, ten times better singer than me, song writer than me, but for some reason you get the ball and now - and now you run with it. And you do the best you can.

Sing your song. Dance your dance. Tell your tale.

Before music videos first came out, you’d listen to a song with headphones on, sitting in a beanbag chair with your eyes closed, and you’d come up with your own visions, these things that came from within. Then all of a sudden, sometimes even the very first time you heard a song, it was with these visual images attached, and it robbed you of any form of self-expression.

I was always brutally teased for being George Harrison's son. That was from the age of about four or five, before I even knew who he was. And for seven years people would follow me about school singing 'Yellow Submarine.' I still can't listen to that song to this day.

As a horn player, the greatest compliment one can get is when a person comes to you and says, 'I heard this saxophone on the radio the other day and I knew it was you. I don't know the song, but I know it was you on sax.'

When the song is over, the mikes turned off, the lights dimmed, all the glitter and glamour shed, and I am left alone with my own thoughts, free to contemplate the paths that led me to where I am today, I pause to give thanks.

You say how you feel, and songs don't lie. Songs are the most honest form of human expression there is--there's nothing that lies about a song.

All the songs we do are basically about one of three things: booze, sex or rock n roll.

If someone asked me if I could have anything in the world, what would l want? If l could own anything, like owning a piece of art, l think it would be Elton John's publishing, on his first seven albums. I don't want the money. Being able to own those songs Is like owning a painting of someone you admire.

I will always believe in love and I don't care what happens to me or how many times I get my heart broken, or how many breakup songs I write, I'm always going to believe that someday I am going to meet somebody who is actually right for me and he's going to be wonderful and it's going to work out.

There're songs to make you smile, there're songs to make you sad. But with a happy song to sing it never seems as bad.

All we do as songwriters is rewrite the songs that have impressed us till we find our own voice. It's part of learning the craft.

Then with Lucy [Hale], her little thing that I kind of learned from her is her country music because she’s obsessed with country and at the beginning, I wasn’t a huge fan of it, but I was listening to some songs that she plays in the hair and makeup room and she’s also so funny, too. She does these character impersonations and they’re just so funny. Made up characters of course, but she can switch into someone else so fast. I’m always laughing at Lucy and she’s like a little Polly Pocket, you know? The tiny one.

As a musician and a guitar player, I can noodle as well as anybody. But from my background as a session musician, I always try to play what is called for by the lyric and listening to the song. As a writer, that's what I do, too.

Faith without works is like a song you can't sing. It's about as useless as a screen door on a submarine.

Love is the Song of the Soul singing to God.

When I was young, I just sat down and started playing Chopsticks at the piano. I got so far and then lost interest. Eventually, I regained it and started writing songs.

Because too many times in life there's just one person that I met, just one thing that I heard, one movie that I saw, one song that was sung, that changed my life. So I'm always trying to stay awake to be in the moment, and capture the moments when they come, because they come and go all the time.

I think it was Tommy who told me, 'When your song is called 'XYZ' or whatever, every line has got to make sense against your title.' He showed me little methods of proving to yourself whether the line belongs, and ways of finding out whether you were able to get more out of a line if you tried.