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 think this whole division between the genres has more to do with marketing than anything else. It's terrible for the culture of music.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The division of music genres is influenced more by marketing than by artistic merit, negatively impacting music culture.
Tom Waits comments on how the strict classifications of music genres are largely a product of marketing strategies rather than genuine artistic distinctions. He expresses concern that this artificial division hampers the overall culture of music by limiting creativity and cross-genre experimentation.
Themes
MusicGenresMarketingCultureCreativity
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the evolution of music at a cultural forum.
More from Tom Waits
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I knelt at the altar of Ray Charles for years. I worked at a restaurant, and that's all there was on the jukebox.
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