When you're writing, you're conjuring. It's a ritual, and you need to be brave and respectful and sometimes get out of the way of whatever it is that you're inviting into the room.
Tom WaitsRead
I used to imagine that making it in music - really making it in music - is if you're an old man going by a schoolyard and you hear children singing your songs, playing jump-rope, or on the swings. That's the ultimate. You're in the culture.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True success in music is when your work becomes a part of everyday life and culture.
In this quote, Tom Waits expresses that real achievement in music goes beyond fame and personal accolades; it lies in the impact one has on the next generation. Hearing children engage with your music in their joyful play symbolizes a connection that transcends time and shows that your art has woven itself into the fabric of society.
Themes
MusicSuccessCultureLegacyImpact
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech at a music awards ceremony to highlight the importance of cultural impact.
More from Tom Waits
All quotes →If you're in the middle of the ocean with no flippers and no life preserver and you hear a helicopter, this is music. You have to adjust to your needs at the moment.
Tom WaitsRead
I knelt at the altar of Ray Charles for years. I worked at a restaurant, and that's all there was on the jukebox.
Tom WaitsRead
Don't plant your bad days. They grow into weeks. The weeks grow into months. Before you know it, you got yourself a bad year. Take it from me - choke those little bad days. Choke 'em down to nothing.
Tom WaitsRead
My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane.
Tom WaitsRead
Now its raining its pouring the old man is snoring now I lay me down to sleep I hear the sirens in the street all my dreams are made of chrome I have no way to get back home I’d rather die before I wake like Marilyn Monroe and throw my dreams out in the street and the rain make ‘em grow
Tom WaitsRead
Similar quotes
Look, Hollywood's a mecca, but it's not the final answer. You pick up a camera anyplace in the world, you can make a movie.
Robert DuvallRead
As photographs give people an imaginary possession of a past that is unreal, they also help people to take possession of space in which they are insecure.
Susan SontagRead
Art is longing. You never arrive, but you keep going in the hope that you will.
Anselm KieferRead
I could fill an entire second life with working on my prints.
M. C. EscherRead
Rhythm is a perception of time... when drawing, the tiredness of the hand is a rhythm.
Pablo PicassoRead
Singing in Spanish is much more honest, much closer to my roots. For me, Spanish is essential. I still think in Spanish, dream in Spanish. It's the melodies and arrangements that transmit meaning.
JuanesRead