Quotes on Song

There are things that I refuse to deal with except through my music... because I don't trust humanity that much, and I don't know if I trust me that much. But I trust the songs.

The primary purpose of prayer is not to make requests. The primary purpose is to praise, to sing, to chant. Because the essence of prayer is a song, and man cannot live without a song. Prayer may not save us. But prayer may make us worthy of being saved.

I certainly should have,' he agrees, smiling and thinking what an absurd and universally-accepted bit of nonsense it is, that your best friends must necessarily be the ones who best understand you. As if there weren't far too much understanding in the world already; above all, that understanding between lovers, celebrated in song and story, which is actually such torture that no two of them can bear it without frequent separations or fights.

I think the line is where you're in the studio, you're creating. That belongs to you as an artist. Nothing should taint that. I shouldn't be thinking about what the fans want, I shouldn't be thinking about what the radio wants, what the label wants, what your manager wants, a song for the chicks, a song for the street.

It is a process of discovery. It's being quiet enough and undisturbed enough for a period of time so that the songs can begin to sort of peek out, and you begin to have emotional experiences in a musical way.

A song ain't nothing but a conversation fixed up to where you can talk it over and over without getting tired of it.

I suppose when you do it correctly, a good introduction and a good outro makes the song feel like it's coming out of something and then evolving into something.

I always thought songs are movies for the ears and films are like songs for the eyes.

He was like a song I'd heard once in fragments but had been singing in my mind ever since.

Much as I adore the melodies, I choose a song for what it has to say.

I just sit there and make up songs and sing to [my son] in gibberish. I'm very good at gibberish now.

In the old days, people shared music; they didn't care who made it. A song would be owned by a village, and anyone could sing it, change the words, whatever. That is how humans treated music until the late 19th century. Now, with the Internet, we are going back to having tribal attitudes towards music.

I saw you dancing out the ocean_x000D_ _x000D_ Running fast along the sand_x000D_ _x000D_ A spirit born of earth and water_x000D_ _x000D_ Fire flying from your hands

They're powerful, those songs. At times they've been my only way back, the only door out of the dark, bad places the black dog calls home.

Even if I don't release it myself, somebody else might hear it and want to record it. When you write a song, it gives it that potential.

When someone picks up one of my songs and records it, I'm a flattered man, it's a blessing to me

Rather would I have the love songs of romantic ages, rather Don Juan and Madame Venus, rather an elopement by ladder and rope on a moonlight night, followed by the father's curse, mother's moans, and the moral comments of neighbors, than correctness and propriety measured by yardsticks.

Writing for other artists helped me figure out that magic you have to capture to make everyone connect with a song.

If I wanted to make a quick buck, there's far easier ways of doing it. What I want is to provoke people. If you want a hit song, all you need to do is rewrite an old song. It might have been proven to work, but you won't be remembered the same way.

People want to listen to a message, word from Jah. This could be passed through me or anybody. I am not a leader. Messenger. The words of the songs, not the person, is what attracts people.

What I'm trying to do is just sing what comes to my body in the context of the song. And if you go by the emotion of the song, it's almost like stepping into a city. Cities have certain customs and rules and laws you can break, and that's what I was doing.