You've got to have something to eat and a little love in your life before you can hold still for any damn body's sermon on how to behave.
Billie HolidayRead
I hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my own way of doing it. That's all I know.
Interpretation
Billie Holiday expresses her need for individuality and creative expression in music.
This quote reflects Billie Holiday's perspective on art and music, emphasizing the importance of personal interpretation and authenticity in one's creative endeavors. Rather than adhering to traditional or expected norms of performance, she values the freedom to adapt and change a song to fit her unique style, which speaks to the broader theme of individuality in artistic expression.
In practice
Using this quote in a discussion about the importance of artistic freedom in music classes.
You've got to have something to eat and a little love in your life before you can hold still for any damn body's sermon on how to behave.
One day a whole damn song fell into place in my head.
I'm always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where I've been.
A kiss that is never tasted, is forever and ever wasted.
Don't threaten me with love, baby. Let's just go walking in the rain.
I joined Count Basie's band to make a little money and to see the world. For two years I didn't see anything but the inside of a Blue Goose bus, and I never got to send home a quarter.
The modern artist must live by craft and violence. His gods are violent gods. Those artists, so called, whose work does not show this strife, are uninteresting.
Camus says in 'The Stranger' that reason is the enemy of imagination. Sometimes you have to put reason aside and make something beautiful.
I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space, whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged.
Paint the flying spirit of the bird rather than its feathers.
I've worked with the Los Angeles Zoo for 45 years, and we have this magnificent photographer, Tad Motoyama. He takes these wonderful, wonderful animal pictures. All through the years he's given me copies of these pictures. Well, I have all these gorgeous ones, so I said, 'Tad, I want to do a book with your picture on one side.'
For me, writing a song, I sit down and the process doesn't really involve me thinking about the demographic of people I'm trying to hit or who I want to be able to relate to the song or what genre of music it falls under.
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