I listen to the radio and I like all kinds of music, you know, but I like to hear from people who have been there. Hank Williams has been there.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the connection between music and personal experience, valuing authenticity.
Leonard Cohen highlights the importance of authenticity in music, expressing a preference for artists whose work is informed by their real-life experiences. He acknowledges Hank Williams as a musician who has truly lived through the emotions his music conveys, emphasizing that those who create art from their lived experiences resonate more deeply with listeners.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about the importance of personal experiences in creating impactful art.
What is most original in a man's nature is often that which is most desperate. Thus new systems are forced on the world by men who simply cannot bear the pain of living with what is. Creators care nothing for their systems except that they be unique. If Hitler had been born in Nazi Germany he wouldn't have been content to enjoy the atmosphere.
I always thought that poetry is the verdict that others give to a certain kind of writing. So to call yourself a poet is a kind of dangerous description. It's for others; it's for others to use.
Be With Me In The Phases Of My Work Because My Brain Feels Like It Has Been Whipped And I Yearn To Make A Small Perfect Thing Which Will Live In Your Morning Like Curious Static Through A President's Elegy Or A Nude Hunchback Acquiring A Tan On The Crowded Oily Beach.
I heard of a man who says words so beautifully that if he only speaks their name women give themselves to him. If I am dumb beside your body while silence blossoms like tumors on our lips it is because I hear a man climb stairs and clear his throat outside our door.
I think what we like about music - and what we like about art in general....is that enterprise that stops our minds from spinning. Because we're always all over the place. A good song, a good lyric is a movie: it will just focus and calm and confer significance on this completely bewildering reality that all of us live in.
Most of the time one is discouraged by the work, but now and again by some grace something stands out and invites you to work on it, to elaborate it or animate it in some way. It's a mysterious process.
Ambient music must be as ignorable as it is interesting.
Songs are funny things. They can slip across borders. Proliferate in prisons. Penetrate hard shells. I always believed that the right song at the right moment could change history.
Blacks own so little of the music business, it's pathetic. But I see that changing soon. Black artists, black businessmen and women will unite.
I think I'm going to be making country records for as long as I can see into the future. It's much more down-home and real.
There's no future without the past and anybody who doesn't really understand where jazz has come from has no right to try to direct where it's going.
When I auditioned for my high school band the band director was excited because my father was known to be a great musician. When he heard me, he said 'Are you sure you're Ellis's son?'
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