Precisely because we do not communicate by singing, a song can be out of place but not out of character; it is just as credible that a stupid person should sing beautifully as that a clever person should do so.
It seems to me that those songs that have been any good, I have nothing much to do with the writing of them. The words have just crawled down my sleeve and come out on the page.
It is the best of all trades, to make songs, and the second best to sing them.
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, lest you should think he never could recapture the first fine careless rapture!
Swans sing before they die -- t'were no bad thing did certain persons die before they sing.
The songs are inspired by my experiences. Sometimes they are more than my real-life and, conversely, my life is more than just my songs.
If a song's about something I've experienced or that could've happened to me it's good. But if it's alien to me, I couldn't lend anything to it. Because that's what soul is all about.
I can't stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession, let alone two years or ten years. If you can, then it ain't music, it's close-order drill or exercise or yodeling or something, not music.
This is a fault common to all singers, that among their friends they will never sing when they are asked; unasked, they will never desist.
— Horace
I'd rather be dead than singing Satisfaction when I'm forty-five.
Singing has always seemed to me the most perfect means of expression. It is so spontaneous. And after singing, I think the violin. Since I cannot sing, I paint.
There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few.
Odds life! must one swear to the truth of a song?
He who sings, frightens away all his ills.
When Satan makes impure verses, Allah sends a divine tune to cleanse them.
I would rather be remembered by a song than by a victory.
Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung.
— Voltaire