It's not just songs and glamour. It's sweat, blood, broken toes, and mistakes... It's life.
Interpretation
Success in the arts requires hard work and perseverance, not just talent or glamour.
Mary J. Blige emphasizes that the journey in the music industry, and life in general, goes beyond the surface of fame and beauty. It is filled with struggles, challenges, and sacrifices that shape an artist's experience and contribute to their authentic expression. The quote serves as a reminder that true accomplishment often involves overcoming adversity and embracing the imperfections along the way.
In practice
This quote can inspire a young artist to keep pushing through tough times in their music career.
When I was five years old I was molested and just, you know. I remember feeling, literally right before it happened, I just could not believe that this person was going to do this to me. That thing followed me all my life. The shame of thinking my molestation was my fault - it led me to believe I wasn't worth anything.
We are all spirits. We get depressed. But music makes you want to live. I know my music has saved my life.
I don't know. Only God knows where the story ends for me, but I know where the story begins. It's up to us to choose, whether we win or lose and I choose to win.
As a child I always wanted to be a singer. The music my mother played in the house moved me - Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, Mahalia Jackson. It was truly spiritual. It made you understand what God was. We are all spirits. We get depressed. But music makes you want to live. I know my music has saved my life.
Really, every woman is an example to me, because as women we go through so much pain. We have to live this perfect life when we are messed up inside. We all go through trials and tribulations.
I've been praying to God to show me how to forgive myself. Because... maybe... that's the thing I've been searching for.
I saw Quentin Tarantino's 'Django Unchained,' and you could say a lot of things against it, but it was incredible fun. I don't like blood and gore and I am very squeamish about violence, but Tarantino's violence is actually funny.
There are dozens of young poets and fictioneers most of them a little insane in the tradition of James Joyce, who, however insane they may be, have refused to be genteel and traditional and dull.
Who would have thought that the telephone would bring back drawing?
When a person listens to a good song, and they can look out at the world and their lives and see the dark and the light, the negative and the positive, all the different elements, all come together in one holistic poem, that is a very healing and very reductive thing, and that's what my music is about.
I find that when I write, I need things to be quiet, but when I design, I can't bear it if it's quiet.
Making words rhyme for a living is one of the great joys of my life... That's a superpower I've been very conscious of developing. I started at the same level as everybody else, and then I just listened to more music and talked to myself until it was an actual superpower I could pull out on special occasions.
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