Music

Subsections:

They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But man, there's no boundary line to art.

- Charlie Parker

..."Have you got any soul?" a woman asks the next afternoon. That depends, I feel like saying; some days yes, some days no. A few days ago I was right out; now I've got loads, too much, more than I can handle. I wish I could spread it a bit more evenly, I want to tell her, get a better balance, but I can't seem to get it sorted. I can see she wouldn't be interested in my internal stock control problems though, so I simply point to where I keep the soul I have, right by the exit, just next to the blues.

- Nick Hornby, "High Fidelity" ( ? )

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

- Aldous Huxley

He has a woman's name and wears makeup. How original.

- Alice Cooper, on Marilyn Manson

Rock gives children, on a silver platter, with all the public authority of the entertainment industry, everything their parents always used to tell them they had to wait for until they grew up and would understand later.

- Allan Bloom

History is made by stupid people. Clever people wouldn't even try. If you want your name in the history books than do something dumb before you die.

- Arrogant Worms

There is no doubt that the first requirement for a composer is to be dead.

- Arthur Honegger

It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness & of pain: of strength & freedom. The beauty of disappointment & never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature, & everlasting beauty of monotony.

- Benjamin Britten

Beware of those angels with their wings glued on.

- Billy Corgan

I wish I was a queer, so I could get chics. Chics dig guys that are queer, guys that dont like chics. Chics that don't dig guys like me. See I'm not a queer, I'm too ugly.

- Bloodhound Gang

You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns when they all did tricks for you.

- Bob Dylan

Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand. You're sons and your daughters are beyond you're command. You're old road is rapidly aging, please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand, for the times they are a changin'.

- Bob Dylan

One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.

- Bob Marley

"good music is good music and that should be enough for anybody

- Brad Nowell

Music that does not SURGE is not great music.

- Carl Ruggles

Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.

- Charlie Parker

Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn.

- Charlie Parker

Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you donít live it, it wonít come out of your horn. They teach you thereís a boundary line to music. But, man, thereís no boundary line to art.

- Charlie Parker, "Children of Albion: Poetry of the Underground" ( ? )

Music is the silence between the notes.

- Claude Debussy

And it's 1,2,3 what are we fightin' for? Don't ask me I don't give a damn, next stop is Vietnam, and 5,6,7 open up the pearly gates. Well there ain't no time to wonder why, lookout, we all gonna die.

- Country Joe McDonald

When the music of a state changes, the constitution will change too.

- Daimon

I'll always remember 1995 as the year I found out Star Trek wasn't real

- Daniel Johns

"Candles are good as long as you're not me and you don't fall asleep and your house burns down.

- Daniel Johns, Silverchair

So I turned myself to face me, but I've never caught a glimpse of how the others must see the faker. I'm much too fast to take that test.

- David Bowie, "Changes" ( ? )

it dont matter WHAT your doin, ust as long as you LOOK GOOD doin it

- David Lee Roth

Its whats on the record not what labels on it. You know, thats like getting a box of cornflakes and eating the cardboard.

- Elvis Costello

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture - it's really a stupid thing to want to do.

- Elvis Costello

even in a perfect world, where everyone was equal I'd still own the film rights and be working on the sequal

- Elvis Costello

It is the stretched soul that makes music, and souls are stretched by the pull of opposites-opposite bents, tastes, yearnings, loyalties. Where there is not polarity-where energies flow smoothly in one direction-there will be much doing but no music.

- Eric Hoffer

you treat a lady like a dame, and a dame like a lady.

- Frank Sinatra

Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. MUSIC IS BEST.

- Frank Zappa

Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.

- Frank Zappa

Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.

- Frank Zappa

Does it mean this, does it mean that, that's all anybody wants to know. Fuck them, darling. I say what any decent poet would say if you dared ask him to analyse his work: If you see it, dear, then it's there.

- Freddie Mercury

You thought I was a little girl, you thought I was a little mouse, you thought you'd take me by surprise. Now I'm here burning down your house.

- Garbage

The whole business is built on ego, vanity, self-satisfaction, and it's total crap to pretend it's not.

- George Michael

Music is essentially useless, as life is.

- George Santayana, "Life of Reason" ( ? )

sometimes the lights all shining on me and other times i can barely see, lately it occurs to me, what a long strange trip it's been.

- Grateful Dead

What's best in music is not to be found in the notes."

- Gustav Mahler

Been around the world and found that only stupid people are breeding, the cretins cloning and feeding, and I don't even own a TV.

- Harvey Danger, Flagpole Sitta

The music business is a cruel and shallow trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men lie like dogs. There is also a negative side

- Hunter S. Thompson

To me, the nut of the thing is that if what you make is hard like a diamond, you can put it anywhere. You can put it up your ass and it will still be beautiful

- Iggy Pop

Love, let me sleep tonight on your couch, and remember the smell and the fabric of your simple city dress, oh, that was so real.

- Jeff Buckley

It's never over, my kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder It's never over, all my riches for her smiles when I slept so soft against her...It's never over, all my blood for the sweetness of her laughter It's never over, she is the tear that hangs inside my soul forever

- Jeff Buckley

The world is going to Hell, we don't have a record deal, and I've never had a better time in my life.

- Jeff Tweedy

a lot has changed since 1959, my life goes beyond that past, that point in time. Since the madness, the changes that we've made, there's still one thing that seems to remain the same. Jimi Hendrix, James Dean, My Dancing Queen. It seems yesterday's stars still shine today's scene. What's the secret to keep it alive? Who will remember, who will survive? A lot will change after 1999, the course of the future lies on that dotted line. Where we are headed, where we might go. Will anyone stop us? Does anyone even know? Well, we may not be mainstream or viciously rotten teens or sing like angels with white soft feathered wings. But I think we've got a shot at that old time capsule box. Help me keep it alive like the golden age of rock. You're never old news, your memories etched in time. It's 1999.

- Jersey

When the good times come around, they gallup in like wild horses. You just try to stay on them for as long as you can. And when they throw you off....you just wait in the shade until they come around again.

- Jimmy Buffett

I don't solve the puzzle that the mesostic string presents. Instead I write or find a source text which is then used as an oracle. I ask it what word shall I use for this letter and what one for the next, etc. This frees me from memory, taste, likes, and dislikes, By means of Mesolist, a program by Jim Rosenberg, all words that satisfy the mesostic rule are listed. IC [the program that generates the I Ching numbers] then chooses which words in the lists are to be used and gives me all the central words, the position of each in the source material identified by page, line, and column. I then add all the wing words from the source text following of course the rule Mesolist does within the limit of forty-five characters to the right and the same to the left. Then I take out the words I don't want.

- John Cage

Which is more musical: a truck passing by a factory or a truck passing by a music school?

- John Cage

I certainly had no feeling for harmony, and Schoenberg thought that that would make it impossible for me to write music. He said, 'You'll come to a wall you won't be able to get through.' So I said, 'I'll beat my head against that wall.'

- John Cage

Ö[But] they canít kill music. God knows, theyíve tried. But music always wins. As long as thereís kids coming up that have a passion. All the bean counters in the world canít kill that. You know? You just canít. They can try, of course, to feed you the most puerile, benign horse manure, but some kidís going to come along and demand something more than that.

- John Hiatt

There's room at the top, they are telling you still. But First you must learn to smile as you kill.

- John Lennon, "Working Class Hero" ( ? )

"Some visualize the Pistols era in shades of black and white. It wasn't. Actually, the colors I envision are neon or army dirt green with fluorescent pink--anything that would annoy."

- John Lydon

you're the puzzle piece behind that couch who makes the sky complete.

- Lemonheads

Music is the effort we make to explain to ourselves how our brains work. We listen to Bach transfixed because this is listening to a human mind.

- Lewis Thomas

I'm 24 years old, I've got a load a money, what am I gonna do, sit at home and twiddle me thumbs? No. I'm gonna go out and 'ave it.

- Liam Of Oasis

If it has more than three chords, it's jazz.

- Lou Reed

The thing you learn is that popular music is easy. The song will play itself. So all you need to do is make it sing a little, make it human, and not fuck it up.

- Lou Reed

If ya ain't got it in ya, ya can't blow it out.

- Louis Armstrong

When I open my eyes, I can only sigh, for what I see is contrary to my creed: and I must despise the world for not perceiving that music is a higher revelation than any wisdom or philosophy. It is the wine that inspires new creations, and I am the Bacchus, who presses out this wine for men, and makes them spiritually drunk; when they are sober they bring to shore all kinds of things which they have caught. God is nearer to me than to others. I approach him without fear, I have always known him. Neither am I anxious about my music, which no adverse fate can overtake, and which will free him who understands it from the misery which afflicts others.

- Ludwig Von Beethoven

Life is about the betterment of the human condition, stretching one's own mind, increasing social awareness, or even random acts of kindness that spill into the soul of humanity. This is why I play music.

- Mark Haugh, of Caroline's Spine

we taught the mirror how to admire itself

- Modest Mouse

"It is better to burn out then fade away "

- Neil Young

...It's no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently or if your favorite films wouldn't even speak to each other if they met at a party.

- Nick Hornby, "High Fidelity" ( ? )

The unhappiest people I know, romantically speaking, are the ones who like pop music the most; and I don't know whether pop music has caused this unhappiness, but I do know that they've been listening to the sad songs longer than they've been living the unhappy lives.

- Nick Hornby, "High Fidelity" ( ? )

We are all of us living in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

- Oscar Wilde

As long as there are kids who are pissed off and have no real way in venting out that anger, heavy metal will live on

- Ozzy Osbourne

At night, as I tried to go to sleep, I listened to Mr. Fox play the piano, and I learned from those evening recitals that music could ache and hurt, that beautiful music was a place a suffering man could hide.

- Pat Conroy, "Beach Music" ( ? )

Compare music to drinks. Some is like a strong brandy. Some is like a fine wine. The music you're playing sounds like Diet Coke.

- Pavarotti

[Music] takes us out of the actual and whispers to us dim secrets that startle our wonder as to who we are, and for what, whence, and whereto.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Many years ago, in the easy, earliest time of the Dead, I was the girl who danced on stage-- before the need for stringent backstage security, before record contracts, world travels, and a general nervousness about the motives of nearby peoples. I had no motive except to step inside that magic circle of music and dance with it from that cental place. I knew this time of privilege wouldn't last long, so I wasn't surprised when it ended. But for some of the most unspeakably happy and truely liberated times I have ever had in my life, I always wanted to thank you guys.

- Rosie McGee

Give me a laundry list and I'll set it to music

- Rossini

Different eyes see different things. Different hearts beat on different strings. But there are times for you and me when all such things agree.

- Rush

Great music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and leaves the memory with difficulty. Magical music never leaves the memory.

- Sir Thomas Beecham

I'm looking California, but feeling Minnesota

- Soundgarden

There's nothing on top but a bucket and a mop and an illustrated book about birds. You'll see a lot up there but don't be scared. Who needs actions when you got words?

- The Meat Puppets

We came a long long way together / Ate the pills and killed the pinks / I have to celebrate it, baby / I've got to praise "Bob" like I should / I've got to praise "Bob"

- The Original Lyrics Of Fatboy Slim'S Massive Hit "Praise" Before Conspiracy Censors Had Their Say ( ? )

Last night, I dreamt somebody loved me. No hope, No harm, just another false alarm.

- The Smiths

We were children in our places with the world beneath our feet. Growing up was on our faces, I remember yours so sweet

- The Supremes

Jazz is My Adventure

- Thelonius Monk

Nothing is so loud as hearing when we lie

- Toad The Wet Sprocket - All I Want

Are you pretty? Are you queen of the dark silhouettes on the movie screen? Do you want my heart, or do you want more 'Cos everyone's a whore on the disco floor.

- Tom Dorman

A verbal art like poetry is reflective; it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become.

- W. H. Auden

I think it's probably a good thing to be considered stable, but with a capacity for madness.

- Wayne Coyne, The Flaming Lips

If it's too loud, turn it down.

- Weezer

Related Quotes

Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the spaces between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.

- Maya Angelou, In Loneliness

Music is an indirect force for change, because it provides an anchor against human tragedy

- Jessie Michael, Operation Ivy, In Music/Punk

Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it.

- John Lennon, In Music/John Lennon

Music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance.

- Ezra Pound, In Art/Dancing

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