If our history can challenge the next wave of musicians to keep moving and changing, to keep spiritually hungry and horny, that's what it's all about.
Carlos SantanaRead
I grew up in the sixties watching B.B. King and Tito Puente and Miles Davis and Coltrane, everybody, Marvin Gaye, Jimi. And at the same time, with my left eye I was watching Dolores Huerta, Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Mother Teresa.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the influence of music and social activism on personal growth.
Carlos Santana reflects on his upbringing during a culturally rich time in the 1960s, where music icons inspired him alongside prominent figures of social justice. This intersection shows how art and activism can shape a young person's understanding of the world, blending creativity with a commitment to social change.
In practice
In a speech about cultural influences, one might quote Santana to emphasize the power of music in shaping social change.
If our history can challenge the next wave of musicians to keep moving and changing, to keep spiritually hungry and horny, that's what it's all about.
My dad's a beautiful man, but like a lot of Mexican men, or men in general, a lot of men have a problem with the balance of masculinity and femininity - intuition and compassion and tenderness - and get overboard with the macho thing. It took him a while to become more, I would say, conscious, evolved.
First of all, the music that people call Latin or Spanish is really African. So Black people need to get the credit for that.
You can take things that Jimi Hendrix took, from Curtis Mayfield or from Buddy Guy for example, because we are all children of everything, even Picasso. But if you want to stand out, you have to learn to crystallize your existence and create your own fingerprints.
Ever since I was a child I've always been very attracted to melodies. Whether I hear Jeff Beck, a choir, an ocean or the wind, there's always a melody in there.
I realised a long time ago that instrumental music speaks a lot more clearly than English, Spanish, Yiddish, Swahili, any other language. Pure melody goes outside time.
The Wright brothers didn't contemplate the staying on the ground of things. Alexander Graham Bell didn't contemplate the noncommunication of things. Thomas Edison didn't contemplate the darkness of things. In order to float an idea into your reality, you must be willing to do a somersault into the unconceivable and land on your feet, contemplating what you want instead of what you don't have.
Think outside the box, collapse the box, and take a f**king sharp knife to it.
You are an instrument of God. Don't leave the instrument sitting in its case, my son. Play! Leave no part of your instrument unexplored. Why settle for 'Three Blind Mice' when you can can play the 'Gloria'? No, not Bach's 'Gloria.' Yours! Your 'Gloria' lives within you. The greatest sin is not finding it, ignoring what God made possible in you.
In this world you've a soul for a compass_x000D_ _x000D_ And a heart for a pair of wings_x000D_ _x000D_ There's a star on the far horizon_x000D_ _x000D_ Rising bright in an azure sky_x000D_ _x000D_ For the rest of the time that you're given_x000D_ _x000D_ Why walk when you can fly?
Magic exists. Who can doubt it, when there are rainbows and wildflowers, the music of the wind and the silence of the stars? Anyone who has loved has been touched by magic. It is such a simple and such an extraordinary part of the lives we live.
There is an appropriate way to use your story, not as an excuse but as a testimony to God's ability to free you from the past.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.