Pianists from the United States

"Good jazz is when the leader jumps on the piano, waves his arms, and yells. Fine jazz is when a tenorman lifts his foot in the air. Great jazz is when he heaves a piercing note for 32 bars and collapses on his hands and knees. A pure genius of jazz is manifested when he and the rest of the orchestra run around the room while the rhythm section grimaces and dances around their instruments."

"Ladies and gentlemen, please don't associate me with any of this. This is not jazz. These are sick people."

"My son's a painter. All through school his teachers tell him he's a genius. I tell him to paint me an apple that looks like an apple before he paints me one that doesn't. Go where you can go, but start from someplace recognizable. Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity."

"In my music, I'm trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it's difficult is because I'm changing all the time."

"That sound in tune to you? ... Sounds sharp to me. Sounds like I'm playing sharp all the time. My singing teacher told us you should do that. Maybe I got it from her. She said singers when they grow old have a tendency to go flat. So if you sing sharp as a young person, as you get older and go flat, you'll be in tune. In other words, it's never thought good to be flat. It means you can't get to the tone."

"Since the white man says he came from the evolution of animals, well, maybe the black man didn't. The white man has made so many errors in the handling of people that maybe he did come from a gorilla or a fish and crawl up on the sand and then into the trees. Of course, evolution doesn't take God into consideration. I don't think people learned to do all the things they do through evolution."

"What do you think happens to a composer who is sincere and loves to write and has to wait thirty years to have someone play a piece of his music? Had I been born in a different country or had I been born white, I am sure I would have expressed my ideas long ago. Maybe they wouldn't have been as good because when people are born free — I can't imagine it, but I've got a feeling that if it's so easy for you — the struggle and the initiative are not as strong as they are for a person who has to struggle and therefore has more to say."

"It seems so hard for some of us to grow up mentally just enough to realize that there are other persons of flesh and bone, just like us, on this great, big earth. And if they don't ever stand still, move, or "swing," they are as right as we are, even if they are as wrong as hell by our standards. Yes, Miles, I am apologizing for my stupid "Blindfold Test." I can do it gladly because I'm learning a little something. No matter how much they try to say that Brubeck doesn't swing — or whatever else they're stewing or whoever else they're brewing — it's factually unimportant. Not because Dave made Time magazine — and a dollar — but mainly because Dave honestly thinks he's swinging. He feels a certain pulse and plays a certain pulse which gives him pleasure and a sense of exaltation because he's sincerely doing something the way he, Dave Brubeck, feels like doing it. And as you said in your story, Miles, "if a guy makes you pat your foot, and if you feel it down your back, etc.," then Dave is the swingingest by your own definition, Miles, because at Newport and elsewhere Dave had the whole house patting its feet and even clapping its hands...."

"I think my own way. I don't think like you and my music isn't meant just for the patting of feet and going down backs. When and if I feel gay and carefree, I write or play that way. When I feel angry I write or play that way — or when I'm happy, or depressed, even. Just because I'm playing jazz I don't forget about me. I play or write me, the way I feel, through jazz, or whatever. Music is, or was, a language of the emotions. If someone has been escaping reality, I don't expect him to dig my music, and I would begin to worry about my writing if such a person began to really like it. My music is alive and it's about the living and the dead, about good and evil. It's angry, yet it's real because it knows it's angry."

"Each jazz musician when he takes a horn in his hand — trumpet, bass, saxophone, drums — whatever instrument he plays — each soloist, that is, when he begins to ad lib on a given composition with a title and improvise a new creative melody, this man is taking the place of a composer."

"Now, whether there is feeling or not depends upon what your environment or your association is or whatever you may have in common with the player. If you feel empathy for his personal outlook, you naturally feel him musically more than some other environmental and musical opposite who is, in a way. beyond you. I, myself, came to enjoy the players who didn't only just swing but who invented new rhythmic patterns, along with new melodic concepts. And those people are: Art Tatum, Bud Powell, Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie and Charles Parker, who is the greatest genius of all to me because he changed the whole era around. But there is no need to compare composers. If you like Beethoven, Bach or Brahms, that's okay. They were all pencil composers. I always wanted to be a spontaneous composer. I thought I was, although no one's mentioned that. I mean critics or musicians. Now, what I'm getting at is that I know I'm a composer. I marvel at composition, at people who are able to take diatonic scales, chromatics, 12-tone scales, or even quarter-tone scales. I admire anyone who can come up with something original. But not originality alone, because there can be originality in stupidity, with no musical description of any emotion or any beauty the man has seen, or any kind of life he has lived."

"Each jazz musician is supposed to be a composer. Whether he is or not, I don't know. I don't listen to that many people. If I did, I probably wouldn't play half as much to satisfy myself. As a youth I read a book by Debussy and he said that as soon as he finished a composition he had to forget it because it got in the way of his doing anything else new and different. And I believed him. I used to work with Tatum, and Tatum knew every tune written, including the classics, and I think it got in the way of his composition, because he wasn't a Bud Powell. He wasn't as melodically inventive as Bud. He was technically flashy and he knew so much music and so much theory that he couldn't come up with anything wrong; it was just exercising his theory."

"Let my children have music! Let them hear live music. Not noise. My children! You do what you want with your own!"

"Mingus was always a disaster to have around. I loved him, but he was worse than a child. He didn't know how to clean up behind himself. He could cook, but there would be eggs on the floor and the ceiling. Couldn't find his shoes when he had to go to work, didn't have a white shirt, couldn't write a check. All he could really do was play the bass and write."

"Although Charles Mingus probably could have performed professionally as a pianist, as evidenced on Mingus Plays Piano and Oh Yeah, he was an absolute monster on the bass, as well an incredibly gifted composer. While his bass skills can be heard on the outstanding 1953 Jazz at Massey Hall live album with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell and Max Roach, his landmark 1959 Columbia disc, Mingus Ah Um, is hailed by some as his finest recording. It's certainly a great place to start for uninitiated."

"I went through a lot of mental pains and anguish about choosing between jazz and classical. I realized that where I functioned was where I should be, and where I functioned was in jazz, so that was it."

"Music should enrich the soul; it should teach spirituality by showing a person a portion of himself that he would not discover otherwise. It's easy to rediscover part of yourself, but through art you can be shown part of yourself you never knew existed. That's the real mission of art. The artist has to find something within himself that's universal and which he can put into terms that are communicable to other people. The magic of it is that art can communicate to a person without his realizing it... enrichment, that's the function of music."

"I always like people who have developed long and hard, particularly through introspection and a lot of dedication. I think that what they arrive at is usually...deeper and more beautiful...than the person who seems to have that ability and fluidity from the beginning. I say this because it's a good message to give to young talents who feel as I used to. You hear musicians playing with great fluidity and complete conception early on, and you don't have that ability. I didn't. I had to know what I was doing. And ultimately it turned out that these people weren't able to carry their thing very far. I found myself being more attracted to artists who have developed through the years and become better and deeper musicians. I believe in things that are developed through hard work."

"As the painter needs his framework of parchment, the improvising musical group needs its framework in time."

"I am interested in other keyboard sounds, but basically I'm an acoustic pianist. I’ve been happy to use the Fender-Rhodes to add a little colour to certain performances but only as an adjunct [...] It's hard for people to recognize individuals on an electric piano. Because it is an electric instrument, it's hard for a personality to come through."

"I don't think too much about the electronic thing, except that it's kind of fun to have it as an alternate voice. Like, I've used the Fender- Rhodes piano on a couple of records. I don't really look on it as a piano— merely an alternate keyboard instrument, that offers a certain kind of sound that’s appropriate sometimes. I find that it’s kind of a refreshing auxiliary to the piano— but I don't need it, you know. I guess it’s for other people to judge how effective it’s been on my records; I enjoyed it, anyway. I don't enjoy spending a lot of time with the electric piano. I mean, if I play it for a period of time, then I quickly tire of it, and I want to get back to the acoustic piano."

"[Bill Evans talking about Miles Davis's change of style to jazz fusion] I would like to hear more of the consummate melodic master, but I feel that big business and his record company have had a corrupting influence on his material. The rock and pop thing certainly draws a wider audience. It happens more and more these days, that unqualified people with executive positions try to tell musicians what is good and what is bad music. It’s tempting for the musician to prejudice his own views when recording opportunities are so infrequent but I for one am determined to resist the temptation."

"It just doesn’t attract me. I’m of a certain period, a certain evolution. I hear music differently [...] I mean, for me, comparing electric bass to acoustic bass is sacrilege."

"In the rakish, outsider’s world of jazz, Bill Evans seemed an anomaly. Bespectacled and unassuming, he had a clerical air which prompted a bandleader to nickname him ‘the minister’. Yet at the piano – head bent over the keys, eyes closed – he was the image of intensity, spinning out the luminous, questing lines Miles Davis likened to ‘quiet fire’. [...] His purity of sound, and genius for harmonies and voicings, earned him a reputation as ‘the Chopin of jazz’. Indeed, Bill Evans knew much of the classical repertoire: he’d performed Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto at college and regularly practised Bach. But his devotion to jazz was primary, as was his conviction that its essence was emotion. Though he took a rigorous view of what he called ‘the extremely severe and unique disciplines’ of jazz, and disparaged wild-eyed abandon, he regarded feeling as the ‘generating force’. That quality of feeling informs the trio recordings he made live at the Village Vanguard in 1961. Evans’s group marked a revolution in trio-playing: the pianist encouraged virtuoso bassist Scott LaFaro not simply to lay down a beat, but to engage in dialogue. Their subtle interplay, with drummer Paul Motian, illuminates such tunes as Evans’s lilting ‘Waltz for Debby’ and LaFaro’s brooding ‘Jade Visions’."

"I have been surprised, excited and pleasantly shocked by these comics that are extensions of the songs that I have loved and therefore welcome these amazing stories of pictures and words because they are uncompromisingly inspiring. It shows you thought is a powerful, formidable essence and can have a breathtaking domino effect."

"That is some funky-fresh, pop lockin' shit."

"If I saw someone destroy a piano I'd fuckin' kill 'em. Wouldn't think twice. [It's] Just defending your best friend!"

"This is very simple in the world of chicks: some are hoochies, some are not, and some should never try to be. It's no different from the idea of sports. Now, I can go on my little rowing machine for four times a week, twenty-two minutes a time, and I can feel as if I flirt with the sporting world. Similar to the idea that a woman can put on something cuter for her man, for those moments, and flirt with garments that a hoochie woman might be pushing. But never for one moment should you get confused. My little rowing machine and I cannot consider ourselves athletes. Wearing the same garment does not a hoochie woman make. So if you are a true hoochie woman, may garments below the navel always be in your future. If you are not, then please don't throw away your cotton zippy jacket."

"...the most influential journeys I have had have been with Ayahuasca, the vine from the Amazon, the combination of that and mushrooms. They give me the trots and such! It's very much a medicine woman, medicine man's journey drug, where you go inside. It's not a social thing. It's an internal experience. I experiment with things that are usually an internal experience, because that's just what excites me. And yes, it does sometimes give me visions. But my intention when I am doing it is very different than recreational. I don't do it recreationally. I do it to go do inner work, and I'm very clear before I do it what I'm searching for. That way, there's no abuse suffered and I don't rely on it. It's just one more tool that I use sometimes."

"Yeah, there was a period in the late '80s where I was working with different shaman. Myself and a friend, Beene, would take ayahuasca - but it wouldn't be in the liquid form, it would be a freeze-dried pill - and mushrooms. Some of those trips were eighteen hours long and I'll never forget, once I ended up sitting by the bush trying to ask the flowers why they didn't like me. It's like, Why can't I be your friend? I was crawling out of my skin at that time. In my twenties I was really... I was just losing my mind."

"Men have periods, too... they just don´t bleed."

"I love my Saab."

"I got a Saab Convertible."

"And I started to think about this story that was taking over my car at that moment. "Jamaica Inn" walked into my Saab and she said, "You might not like my story because i'm not gonna tell you how it ends yet, and you need to travel it with me."

"And my Saab is so great I'm gonna marry it."

"Dark Energy. It can be found in the observable Universe. Found in ratios of 75% more than any other substance. Dark Energy. It can be found in religious extremists, in cheerleaders. To come to the conclusion that Dark signifies mean and malevolent would define 75% of the Universe as an evil force. Alternatively, to think that some cheerleaders don't have razors in their snatch is to be foolishly unarmed."

"Beck's bass player (Justin Meldal-Johnsen) suggested I do a cover of Slayer's 'Raining Blood," she says applying strawberry lip balm with her pinkie. "I was reading about what was going on in Afghanistan--the way women were being oppressed, the destruction of religious statues. And when i heard that song, i just imagined a huge juicy vagina coming out of the sky, raining blood over all those racist, misogynist fuckers."

"Babooshka's just one of those song's you just can't get out of your head, can you? You know, how she just takes a word, and you start seeing images and pictures. To a word that maybe you haven't used … it's "Babooshka" and she's turned that into an emotion, that's just how she's able to use a combination of a word and a combination of a melody and the rhythm of that, and it creates a new language."

"I just remember pulling aside, I was driving, and I heard it on the radio, in the states — and she didn't really get played a lot in the states, until that song — that really got played — a lot. I remember, I had to pull over, and listen to it, because I'd never heard anything like it."

"The intention is to tell a story, to create a sonic world for us, a sonic painting, for us to walk into, without having to see her. She's transcending that. She's choosing to transcend that. And that's a very powerful thing to do."

"And I rode along side Till you lost me there In the open road And I rode along side Till the honey spread Itself so thin For me to break your bread For me to take your word I had to steal it."

"You could taste heaven perfectly."

"An angel's face is tricky to wear constantly."

"Just what God needs: one more victim. Why do we crucify ourselves?"

"Got enough guilt to start my own religion."

"I've got a cat named Easter; he says, 'Will you ever learn? You're just an empty cage, girl, if you kill the bird.'"

"It was me And a gun And a manOn my back But I haven't seen Barbados so I must get out of this"

"I found the secret to life; I'm okay when everything is not okay"

"God, sometimes you just don't come through. Do you need a woman to look after you?"

"So if I die today, I'll be the happy phantom, And I'll go chasing the nuns out in the yard, ...And the atrocities of school I can forgive: The happy phantom has no right to bitch."

"Look, I'm standing naked before you; Don't you want more than my sex? I can scream as loud as your last one, But I can't claim innocence."

"So you can make me cum; that doesn't make you Jesus."

"So you found a girl who thinks really deep thoughts. What's so amazing about really deep thoughts? Boy, you'd best pray that I bleed real soon -- How's that thought for you?"

"Years go by Will I still be waiting For somebody else to understand Years go by If I'm stripped of my beauty And the orange clouds Raining in head Years go by Will I choke on my tears Till finally there is nothing left One more casualty You know we're too easy Easy Easy"

"I think there are pieces of me you've never seen."

"I can't believe that I would keep, keep you from flying And I would cry a thousand more if that's what it takes to sail you home."

"If you know me so well, then tell me which hand I use."

"A man bites into a dry peach and says "This peach is not good;" the peach replies "It is not my fault that you don't know the proper use for a dry peach.""

"Give me life, give me pain, give me myself again."

"Nothing's gonna stop me from floating."

"I have got my rape hat on, honey, but I always could accessorize."

"You thought that you were the bomb, yes well so did I."

"Just having thoughts of Marianne, quickest girl in the frying pan."

"Say a word to the hangman for me, me and my baby."

"Is it sweet, your sting?"

"So she prays for a prankster and lust in the marriage bed And he waits till she can give And he waits and he waits."

"And I fear my fear is greater than my faith"

"Driving in my Saab, on my way to Ireland."

"From Bad Boy of Music, on his life as a concert pianist:"

"From Bad Boy of Music, on dealing with unruly audiences:"

"We all have ability. The difference is how we use it."

"Sometimes I think I would love to see … just to see the beauty of flowers and trees and birds and the earth and grass. … Being as I've never seen, I don't know what it's like to see. So in a sense I'm complete. Maybe I'd be incomplete if I did see. Maybe I'd see some things that I didn't want to see … the beauty of the earth compared to the destruction of man. You see, it's one thing when you are blind from birth, and you don't know what it's like to see, anyway, so it is just like seeing. The sensation of seeing is not one that I have and not one that I worry about."

"Most cassettes are afraid of me."

"I've been a vegan for two years, so that's helped my already good-looking self. I think that eating healthy is important. … We have to be about making our planet more greener, the urban areas more sustainable for the children. We can't just talk about it, we have to be about it. … I'm motivating people to do something about how we are living on this planet. … You know it is only possible to be able to have the blessing of song through the fact that God has given me life. And the only way we can have life is by perpetuating life in how we live."

"What I’ve not heard is a unanimous commitment to atone for the sins of this country... I know that dance. I've heard those songs. It was an 18-year fight to (make) Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a national holiday... Yet it was a fight I was not willing to lose... Systemic racism can have an ending. Police brutality can have an ending. Economic repression of Black and brown people can have an ending... A movement without action is a movement standing still. To those who say they care: Move more than your mouth. Move your feet to the polls, and use your hands to vote... Black lives do matter. And this is not another digital, viral trend, moment or hashtag, Yes, all lives do matter, but they only matter when black lives matter too."

"Baby, everything is alright, Uptight, outta sight!"

"My Cherie Amour, pretty little one that I adore You're the only girl my heart beats for How I wish that you were mine."

"For once in my life I have someone who needs me, Someone I needed so long."

"For once in my life I won’t let sorrow hurt me, Not like it’s hurt me before, oh For once I have something I know won't desert me ‘Cause I’m not alone anymore."

"Like a fool I went and stayed too long, Now I'm wondering if your love's still strong, Ooh, baby, here I am, Signed, sealed, delivered, I'm yours!"

"But, very well, I believe I know you very well, Wish that you knew me too, very well, And I think I can deal with everything going through your head."

"When the summer came you were not around, Now the summer's gone and love cannot be found, Where were you when I needed you last winter, my love?"

"I'm happier than the morning sun, And that's the way you said that it would be, If I should ever bring you inside my life."

"You are the sunshine of my life, That's why I'll always be around, You are the apple of my eye, Forever you'll stay in my heart."

"I feel like this is the beginning, Though I've loved you for a million years, And if I thought our love was ending, I'd find myself drowning in my own tears."

"Very superstitious, Writings on the wall, Very superstitious, Ladder's 'bout to fall, Thirteen month old baby, Broke the looking glass, Seven years of bad luck, The good things in your past."

"When you believe in things that you don't understand, Then you suffer, Superstition ain't the way."

"I believe when I fall in love with you It will be forever."

"But what I'd like to know, Is could a place like this Exist so beautiful? Or do we have to find our wings and fly away To the visions in our mind?"

"A boy is born in hard time Mississippi, Surrounded by four walls that ain't so pretty, His parents give him love and affection, To keep him strong, moving in the right direction, Living just enough, just enough for the city."

"Her brother's smart, he's got more sense than many, His patience long, but soon he won't have any, To find a job is like a haystack needle, 'Cause where he lives, they don't use coloured people, Living just enough, just enough for the city."

"To see the heaven in your eyes is not so far, 'Cause I'm not afraid to try and go it, To know the love and beauty never known before, I'll leave it up to you to show it."

"I'm so darn glad he let me try it again, 'Cause my last time on earth I lived a whole world of sin, I'm so glad that I know more than I knew then, Gonna keep on trying until I reach my highest ground."

"But don't you worry 'bout a thing, Don't you worry 'bout a thing, mama, 'Cause I'll be standing in the side when you check it out."

"He's a man with a plan, Got a counterfeit dollar in his hand, He's misstra know-it-all."

"'Where is your God?' That's what my friends ask me, And I say it's taken him so long 'Cause we've got so far to come."

"And I can't go on this way, With it stronger every day, But being too shy to say That I really love you."

"I like to see you boogie right across the floor, I'd like to do it to you 'til you howl for more, I like to reggae, but you dance too fast for me, I'd like to make love to you so you can make me scream."

"'Cause we are sick and tired of hearing your song, Telling us how you are gonna change right from wrong, 'Cause if you really want to hear our views, You haven't done nothin'."

"No more lying friends wanting tragic ends, Though they do pretend, They won't go when I go."

"And I'll go where I've longed to go, So long, away from tears."

"Love's in need of love today, Don't delay, send yours in right away, Hate's going 'round breaking many hearts, Stop it please, before it's gone too far."

"Would you like to go with me Down my dead end street? Would you like to come with me To village ghetto land?"

"Music is a world within itself With a language we all understand, With an equal opportunity For all to sing, dance and clap their hands."

"Well there's Basie, Miller, Satchmo And the king of all, Sir Duke, And with a voice like Ella's ringing out, There's no way the band can lose."

"Looking back on when I was a little nappy-headed boy, Then my only worry was for Christmas, what would be my toy? Even though we sometimes would not get a thing, We were happy with the joy the day would bring."

"I wish those days could come back once more, Why did those days ever have to go?"

"They've been spending most their lives Living in a pastime paradise. They've been spending most their lives Living in a pastime paradise. They've been wasting most their time Glorifying days long gone behind, They've been wasting most their days In remembrance of ignorance oldest praise."

"As around the sun the earth knows she's revolving, And the rosebuds know to bloom in early May, Just as hate knows love's the cure, You can rest your mind assured, That I'll be loving you always."

"For you, there might be a brighter star, But through my eyes the light of you burns all I see. For you, there might be another song, But all my heart can hear is your melody."

"Goin' back to Saturn where the rings all glow, Rainbow, moonbeams and orange snow, On Saturn, people live to be two hundred and five, Goin' back to Saturn where the people smile, Don't need cars 'cause we've learned to fly, On Saturn, just to live to us is our natural high."

"You took me riding in your rocket and gave me a star, But at a half a mile from heaven You dropped me back down to this cold, cold world."

"Everyone's feeling pretty, It's hotter than july, Though the world's full of problems, They couldn't touch us even if they tried."

"Didn't know that you Would be jammin' until the break of dawn, See nobody ever told you that you Would be jammin' until the break of dawn."

"Well I'm a man of many wishes, Hope my premonition misses, But what I really feel, My eyes won't let me hide, 'Cause they always start to cry, 'Cause this time could mean goodbye."

"You know it doesn't make much sense, There ought to be a law against Anyone who takes offence At a day in your celebration, 'Cause we all know in our minds That there ought to be a time That we can set aside To show just how much we love you, And I'm sure you would agree, What could fit more perfectly Than to have a world party On the day you came to be? Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, Happy birthday."

"I just called to say I love you, I just called to say how much I care, I just called to say I love you, And I mean it from the bottom of my heart."

"Call up, ring once, hang up the phone, To let me know you made it home, Don't want nothing to be wrong, With part-time lover."

"We are undercover passion on the run, Chasing love up against the sun, We are strangers by day, lovers by night, Knowing it's so wrong but feeling so right."

"And though you don't believe that they do, They do come true, For did my dreams Come true when I looked at you, And maybe too if you would believe, You too might be overjoyed, over love, over me."

"Raindrops, passionate raindrops, The kind of rain that writes 'They're so in love' on our skin. Raindrops, that we hope won't stop Cooling the red hot love that we are making."

"Shame on me, shame on you, Shame on them, shame on us, Shame on me, shame on you, Shame on them, shame on us, So what the fuss."

"I don't know what life would be like without music. In my lonely times, music has been my closest friend. It has also been my doctor-and my lover, in the sense that I sometimes listen to music and dream of a lover that doesn't exist. Late at night, when I don't feel sleepy, I'll play music-all types of music and lose myself in its mystery. I might decide to play Stevie Wonder, or Debussy, or Tchaikovsky. It depends on my mood."

"As Stevie Wonder says in his song (It will take a long time before white America can understand what his music is about at all; it's almost like a code. They don't really know what Stevie is singing about or what Stevie is saying. They can't afford to know.) Stevie says, "I ain't gotta do nothing to you; I ain't even gotta do nothing to you; you cause your own country to fall." And that's what's happening."

"Stevie Wonder delivered an emphatic, at times impatient video message Tuesday urging on the Black Lives Matter movement. Saying he has listened to "voices on the left, voices on the right," Wonder added, "What I’ve not heard is a unanimous commitment to atone for the sins of this country."... Wonder lamented that three states — North Dakota, South Dakota and Hawaii — have failed to formally recognize Juneteenth as a holiday. "... It was an 18-year fight to (make) Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a national holiday," said Wonder, who teamed with late U.S. Rep. John Conyers in that ultimately successful campaign... The short video, titled "The Universe is Watching Us," was posted to Wonder's social media channels Tuesday afternoon."

"And most of all, I'd like to thank Stevie Wonder, who didn't make an album this year."

"So much of what we do is ephemeral and quickly forgotten, even by ourselves, so it's gratifying to have something you have done linger in people's memories."

"There’s a very basic human, non-verbal aspect to our need to make music and use it as part of our human expression. It doesn’t have to do with body movements, it doesn't have to do with articulation of a language, but with something spiritual."

"I hadn't heard of either disco or Meco. When I was asked to listen to Meco's now-famous recording, I was a little apprehensive, wondering how a pop record could be made from "The March from Star Wars" and what it would be like. I immediately liked what I heard and sensed that a genuine communication was taking place. Meco took things forward another step by bringing Star Wars to a vast audience who otherwise would not have heard it in its original symphonic setting. I am most grateful to Meco for all of this and I am delighted that 'disco' and 'Meco' are now household words."

"Leroy Anderson is an American original - direct, honest, personal, idiosyncratic, and free of pretension. His music is directed to, and reflective of, the American soul."

"Without John Williams, bikes don’t really fly, nor do brooms in Quidditch matches, nor do men in red capes. There is no Force, dinosaurs do not walk the Earth, we do not wonder, we do not weep, we do not believe."

"You gotta know how to get to people's heart"

"I got a woman way over town, That's good to me, Oh yeah!"

"Hey mama, don't you treat me wrong, Come and love your daddy all night long. All right now, hey hey, all right. See the girl with the diamond ring; She knows how to shake that thing. All right now now now, hey hey, hey hey. Tell your mama, tell your pa, I'm gonna send you back to Arkansas. Oh yes, ma'm, you don't do right, don't do right."

"Yeah yeah, what'd I say, all right Well, tell me what'd I say, yeah Tell me what'd I say right now Tell me what'd I say"

"Soul is when you take a song and make it a part of you — a part that's so true, so real, people think it must have happened to you. … It's like electricity — we don't really know what it is, do we? But it's a force that can light a room. Soul is like electricity, like a spirit, a drive, a power."

"But now if I can wrap myself up in that song, and when that song gets to be a part of me, and affects me emotionally, then the emotions that I go through, chances are I’ll be able to communicate to you. Make the people out there become a part of the life of this song that you’re singing about. That’s soul when you can do that."

"Rhythm and blues used to be called race music. … This music was going on for years, but nobody paid any attention to it."

"Music has been around a long time, and there's going to be music long after Ray Charles is dead. I just want to make my mark, leave something musically good behind. If it's a big record, that's the frosting on the cake, but music's the main meal."

"The fact of the matter is, you don't give up what's natural. Anything I've fantasized about, I've done."

"I started to sing like myself — as opposed to imitating Nat Cole, which I had done for a while — when I started singing like Ray Charles, it had this spiritual and churchy, this religious or gospel sound. It had this holiness and preachy tone to it. It was very controversial. I got a lot of criticism for it."

"Do it right or don't do it at all. That comes from my mom. If there's something I want to do, I'm one of those people that won't be satisfied until I get it done. If I'm trying to sing something and I can't get it, I'm going to keep at it until I get where I want it."

"You better live every day like your last because one day you're going to be right."

"Every music has its own soul, Quincy"

"Before I begin, let me say right here and now that I'm a country boy. And, man, I mean the real backwoods! That's at the start of the start of the thing, and that's at the heart of the thing."

"I was born with music inside me. That's the only explanation I know of, since none of my relatives could sing or play an instrument. Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart. Like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me — like food or water."

"I know that men ain't supposed to cry, but I think that's wrong. Crying's always been a way for me to get things out which are buried deep, deep down. When I sing, I often cry. Crying is feeling, and feeling is being human."

"When I was going blind, I didn't turn to God. It didn't seem to me then — and it doesn't seem to me now — that those items were His concern. Early on, I figured I better begin to learn how to count on myself, instead of counting on supernatural forces."

"Then there were motorcycles. I learned to ride one in Tallahassee when I was about 14 or 15. … I got to know the town pretty well, and soon I felt confident about riding round. Tallahassee was full of hills, and I loved racing up and down 'em, sometimes trailing my friend or riding next to him, so I could hear the sound of the exhaust and make sure to follow closely and yet not too closely. I know it sounds strange — a blind teenager buzzin' round on a motorcycle — but I liked that; that was me. I had always been nervy, and I always had a lot of faith in my ability not to break my neck."

"Affluence separates people. Poverty knits 'em together. You got some sugar and I don't; I borrow some of yours. Next month you might not have any flour; well, I'll give you some of mine. That's how my band made it. We swam through a lot of shit together, we swallowed a lot of pride, but we managed to do what we needed to do."

"My music had roots which I'd dug up from my own childhood, musical roots buried in the darkest soil."

"Women anchor me. They're there when I need them. They're sensitive to me, and I'm sensitive to them. I'm not saying I've loved that many women. Love is a special word, and I use it only when I mean it. You say the word too much and it becomes cheap. But sex is something else. I'm not sure that there can ever be too much sex. To me, it's another one of our daily requirements — like eating. If I go twenty-four hours without it, I get hungry. Sex needs to be open and fun, free and happy. It's whatever you make it, and I try my hardest to create situations where me and my woman can enjoy ourselves — all of ourselves — without our inhibitions getting in the way. You got to set your mind right and the rest will come to you naturally. No restrictions, no hang-ups, no stupid rules, no formalities, no forbidden fruit — just everyone getting and giving as much as he and she can."

"Music is nothing separate from me. It is me. I can't retire from music any more than I can retire from my liver. You'd have to remove the music from me surgically — like you were taking out my appendix."

"Other arms reach out to me Other eyes smile tenderly Still in peaceful dreams I see The road leads back to you. Georgia, oh Georgia, no peace I find... Just an old sweet song Keeps Georgia on my mind."

"There are certain artists who belong to all the people, everywhere, all the time. The list of singers, musicians, and poets must include David the harpist from the Old Testament, Aesop the Storyteller, Omar Khayyam the Tent Maker, Shakespeare the Bard of Avon, Louis Armstrong the genius of New Orleans, Om Kalsoum the soul of Egypt, Frank Sinatra, Mahalia Jackson, Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Charles....Celia Cruz...All great artists draw from the same resource: the human heart, which tells us all that we are more alike than we are unalike."

"A lot of Negro style-the style of a man like Miles Davis or Ray Charles or the style of a man like myself is based on a knowledge of what people are really saying and on our refusal to hear it. You pick up on the beat, which is much more truthful than words."

"Ray Charles is the only genius in our business."

"It's a little like a Ray Charles concert, isn't it? Georgia!"

"His melding of styles influenced artists from a wide range of genres, and his own records are classics, running the gamut from country to gospel to R&B."

"This world is bullshit. And you shouldn't model your life — wait a second — you shouldn't model your life about what you think that we think is cool and what we're wearing and what we're saying and everything. Go with yourself. Go with yourself."

"It was because of this guy I had gone out with and had been really, really close with. I really loved him. I felt that he was my best friend. But he was a teenaged guy, and they don't think a lot of times. He mistreated me and then he came back. I couldn't even be friends with him for awhile. I cared about him, but it was just a situation where he kept trying to be friends with me, but I knew that he just wanted to be friends with me so he could have the option of making a move on me whenever he wanted to. And because I was so infatuated with him, and even in love with him, I was always available for that. It made me feel weak every time I would fall for that. And I would look forward to him making a move on me, but I knew that it was wrong. I knew that he was playing with me. And after awhile, I didn't even care anymore because I wanted him so much."

"Interviewer: I read a post on the Internet from a young girl who had been victimized by someone and her position was like, "I can talk about this now because Fiona Apple can talk about what happened to her." Do you look at yourself as a role model for women and girls who've had this experience? Fiona: That's the only reason I ever brought the whole rape thing up. It's a terrible thing, but it happens to so many people. I mean, 80 percent of the people I've told have said right back to me, "That happened to me too." It's so common, and so ridiculous that it's a hard thing to talk about. It angers me so much because something like that happens to you and you carry it around for the rest of your life. No matter how much therapy you go through, no matter how much healing you go through, it's part of you. I just feel that it's such a tragedy that so many people have to bear the extra burden of having to keep it secret from everyone else. As if it's too icky a subject to burden other people with and everyone's going to think you're a victim forever. Then you've labeled yourself a victim, and you've been taken advantage of, and you're ruined, and you're soiled, and you're not pure, you know.If I'm in a position where people are looking up to me in any way, then it's absolutely my responsibility to be open and honest about this, because if I'm not, what does that say to people? It doesn't change a person -- well, it does change a person but it doesn't take anything away from you. It can only strengthen you. It has made me so angry in the past. Like I wanted to say it to somebody. I really wanted somebody to connect with, somebody to understand me, somebody to comfort me. But I felt like I couldn't say anything about because it was taboo to talk about."

"I definitely had an eating disorder. What was really frustrating for me was that everyone thought I was anorexic, and I wasn't. I was really depressed and self-loathing. For me, it wasn't about being thin, it was about getting rid of the bait attached to my body. A lot of it came from the self-loathing that came from being raped at the point of developing my voluptuousness. I just thought that if you had a body and if you had anything on you that would be grabbed, it would be grabbed. So I did purposely get rid of it...I mean, my plan is to gain enough weight that I can really be considered voluptuous, and do my 'First Taste' video. And I am preparing myself for what is going to happen. Because soon they will be saying that I'm fat. And it will hurt me."

"My problem was that I felt ashamed of feeling sad or angry. Now, I don't hide my vulnerability in my lyrics. There's no way I was going to get raped and not get something out of it. I learned about power and hope and forgiveness. I like who I am now and I wouldn't be who I am if that hadn't happened."

"I don't have a big thing about leaving my mark or being historic."

"Don't waste your crazy!"

"You could say, more accurately, I had found my voice but I had forgotten that I found it, or I had found my voice but stopped hearing it for a while. I think that happens throughout life. That is maybe why you can write songs about yourself for ever because you cycle through the same things over and over but you’re seeing it a little more clearly every time."

"...In that moment I understood what it was for – it’s really for anybody to have those words and feel validated. Even if no one else believes you, even if you’ve not believed yourself, even if you still don’t believe yourself, let me give you these words to sing and at some point you’re gonna feel it and you’re gonna have compassion for yourself, finally, hopefully."

"I get that, but it didn’t occur to me because that was the truth – Shameika did say I had potential. It was a true sentence and I really like when true things sound pretty. I was pretty sure there was a Shameika at the school and this had happened, but I question my memories – I question my memory even about having been raped. If I had thought of that I probably wouldn’t have put it out because I would have been afraid that that was how it was coming off..."

"...That [speech] was a huge moment in my life that I will never, ever regret, and that I have never regretted, no matter how embarrassed I might have been by it at a certain point. I knew it was one of those moments where you have to be a really good parent to yourself and go: “This is a time you can get out there and just say it, you have to because if you don’t do it now you set a precedent for yourself at these things. You shut up your entire life at school, you took all this shit and you were quiet, look how it made you feel. You’re at this thing right now, this magnified high school class and now you got a chance to go up and say something? Don’t be shy. No matter how it comes out, just let it come out.” So I’m really glad that I did that and I think that that set me on a good path."

"It shouldn’t be like this but I think it’s feeling recognised and appreciated and not being trashed or misunderstood. I feel proud of myself – I’m taking care of myself, I’m taking care of my career and I’m managing things well. I know more than anybody how hard this stuff is for me. There’s been a lot of anxiety and seriously feeling like I cannot do this job but then a lot of outright joy and relief that I actually did put out the album. Something I think about is: if it hadn’t been well received, it would have been the same album, and would I still have felt joy and freedom and satisfaction? I don’t know that I would, and that troubles me. I’m happy that I feel respected in a way that I wasn’t before but it also messes with your idea of yourself."

"I got my feet on the ground and I don't go to sleep to dream; You've got your head in the clouds and you're not at all what you seem. This mind, this body and this voice cannot be stifled by your deviant ways. So don't forget what I told you, don't come around, I got my own hell to raise."

"Once my lover, now my friend; What a cruel thing to pretend. What a cunning way to condescend; Once my lover, and now my friend.Oh, you creep up like the clouds And you set my soul at ease. Then you let your love abound, And you bring me to my knees."

"Oh, it's evil babe The way you let your grace enrapture me, When well you know I'd be insane To ever let that dirty game recapture me.You made me a shadowboxer, baby. I wanna be ready for what you do. I been swinging all around me 'Cause I don't know when you're gonna make your move."

"I've been a bad, bad girl. I've been careless with a delicate man. And it's a sad, sad world When a girl will break a boy just because she can.Don't you tell me to deny it. I've done wrong and I want to suffer for my sins. I've come to you 'cause I need guidance to be true, And I just don't know where I can begin."

"What I need is a good defense 'Cause I'm feeling like a criminal And I need to be redeemed To the one I've sinned against Because he's all I ever knew of love."

"When the pawn hits the conflicts he thinks like a king What he knows throws the blows when he goes to the fight And he’ll win the whole thing ‘fore he enters the ring There’s no body to batter when your mind is your might So when you go solo you hold your own hand And remember that depth is the greatest of heights And if you know where you stand then you know where to land And if you fall it won’t matter cuz you’ll know that you’re right."

"My derring-do allows me to Dance the rigadoon around you. But by the time I'm close to you, I lose my desideratum and now you."

"Hunger hurts, and I want him so bad, oh it kills. 'Cause I know I'm a mess he don't wanna clean up. I got to fold 'cause these hands are too shaky to hold. Hunger hurts, but starving works, when it costs too much to love."

"Do I wanna do right, of course but do I really wanna feel I’m forced to answer you, hell no. I’ve acquired quite a taste for a well-made mistake, I wanna make a mistake."

"I may be soft in your palm, But I'll soon grow hungry for a fight, and I will not let you win. My pretty mouth will frame the phrases that will disprove your faith in man. So if you catch me trying to find my way into your heart from under your skin,Fast as you can, baby Scratch me out, free yourself."

"So keep on calling me names, keep on, keep on. And I'll keep kicking the crap till it's gone. If you keep on killing, you could get me to settle. And as soon as I settle, I bet I'll be able to move on."

"And I will pretend That I don't know of your sins Until you are ready to confess. But all the time, all the time, I'll know, I'll know.And you can use my skin To bury secrets in, And I will settle you down."

"I certainly haven't been shopping for any new shoes, And I certainly haven't been spreading myself around. I still only travel by foot, and by foot it's a slow climb. But I'm good at being uncomfortable, so I can't stop changing all the time."

"One man, he disappoint me; He give me the gouge and he take my glee. Now every other man I see Remind me of the one man who disappoint me."

"Everything good, I deem too good to be true; Everything else is just a bore. Everything I have to look forward to Has a pretty painful and very imposing before."

"I opened my eyes While you were kissing me once more than once, And you looked as sincere as a dog. Just as sincere as a dog does, When it's the food on your lips with which it's in love."

"The early cars Already are Drawing deep breaths past my door. And last night's phrases, Sick with lack of basis, Are still writhing on my floor.And it doesn't seem fair That your wicked words should work In holding me down. No, it doesn't seem right To take information Given at close range For the gag And the bind And the ammunition round."

"Conversation once colored by esteem Became dialogue as a diagram of a play for blood. Took a vacation, my palate got clean. Now I could taste your agenda While you're spitting your cud."

"If you don't have a date Celebrate Go out and sit on the lawn And do nothing 'Cause it's just what you must do Nobody does it anymore."

"Well, you ain't Fiona Apple. And if you ain't Fiona Apple, I don't give a rat's ass."

"And then I went over to the concession stand to get some tea and I ran into Fiona Apple, and I was like, "Who do you think you are, Fiona Snapple?""

"Alas, irreverence has been subsumed by mere grossness, at least in the so-called mass media. What we have now — to quote myself at my most pretentious — is a nimiety of scurrility with a concomitant exiguity of taste. For example, the freedom (hooray!) to say almost anything you want on television about society's problems has been co-opted (alas!) by the freedom to talk instead about flatulence, orgasms, genitalia, masturbation, etc., etc., and to replace real comment with pop-culture references and so-called "adult" language. Irreverence is easy — what's hard is wit."

"Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize."

"Andrew Wiles gently smiles, Does his thing, and voila! Q.E.D., we agree, And we all shout hurrah! As he confirms what Fermat Jotted down in that margin, Which could've used some enlargin'."

"No one is more dangerous than someone who thinks he has "The Truth". To be an atheist is almost as arrogant as to be a fundamentalist. But then again, I can get pretty arrogant."

"I find enough mystery in mathematics to satisfy my spiritual needs. I think, for example, that pi is mysterious enough (don't get me started!) without having to worry about God. Or if pi isn't enough, how about fractals? or quantum mechanics?"

"I would like to state at this time that I am not now and have never been... a member of the Boy Scouts of America. Their motto is, as you know, "Be Prepared!" and that is the name of this song."

"Don't solicit for your sister, that's not nice, Unless you get a good percentage of her price."

"If you're looking for adventure of a new and different kind, And you come across a Girl Scout who is similarly inclined, Don't be nervous, don't be flustered, don't be scared. Be prepared!"

"I always like to make explicit the fact that before I went off not too long ago to fight in the trenches, I was a mathematician by profession. I don't like people to get the idea that I have to do this for a living. I mean, it isn't as though I had to do this, you know, I could be making, oh, $3,000 a year just teaching."

"I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky. In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics: Plagiarize! Plagiarize, Let no one else's work evade your eyes, Remember why the good Lord made your eyes, So don't shade your eyes, But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize... Only be sure always to call it please "research"."

"In all probability I'll lose my virility And you your fertility And desirability, And this liability Of total sterility Will lead to hostility And a sense of futility, So let's act with agility While we still have facility, For we'll soon reach senility And lose the ability."

"I hold your hand in mine, dear, I press it to my lips. I take a healthy bite From your dainty fingertips. My joy would be complete, dear, If you were only here, But still I keep your hand As a precious souvenir."

"You know, of all the songs I have ever sung, that is the one I've had the most requests not to."

"I'd like to take you now, on wings of song as it were, and try and help you forget for a while your drab, wretched lives."

"All the world seems in tune On a spring afternoon, When we're poisoning pigeons in the park. Every Sunday you'll see My sweetheart and me, As we poison the pigeons in the park."

"When they see us coming, the birdies all try an' hide, But they still go for peanuts when coated with cyanide. My pulse will be quickenin', With each drop of strych-a-nine, We feed to a pigeon it just takes a smidgen To poison a pigeon in the park."

"Oh, soon we'll be out amid the cold world's strife. Soon we'll be sliding down the razor blade of life. Oooh."

"A few years ago, a motion picture version appeared of Sophocles' immortal tragedy "Oedipus Rex". This picture played only in the so-called art theaters, and it was not a financial success. And I maintain that the reason it was not a financial success... you're way ahead of me... was that it did not have a title tune which the people could hum, and which would make them actually eager to attend this particular...flick. So, I've attempted to supply this, and here then is the prospective title song from "Oedipus Rex"."

"There once lived a man named Oedipus Rex, You may have heard about his odd complex. His name appears in Freud's index 'Cause he loved his mother."

"His rivals used to say quite a bit That as a monarch he was most unfit. But still in all they had to admit That he loved his mother."

"Yes, he loved his mother like no other, His daughter was his sister and his son was his brother. One thing on which you can depend is, He sure knew who a boy's best friend is."

"So be sweet and kind to mother Now and then, have a chat! Buy her candy or some flowers or a brand-new hat But maybe you best let it go at that! Or you may find yourself with a quite complex ...Com-plex! ...and... You may end up like Oedipus I'd rather marry a duck-billed platypus! Than end up like poor Oedipus Rex!"

"The usual jokes about the Army aside, one of the many fine things one has to admit is the way that the Army has carried the American democratic ideal to its logical conclusion, in the sense that not only do they prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, creed and color, but also on the grounds of ability."

"I recall this sergeant's informing me and my "room-mates" of this rather deplorable fact the army didn't have any official, excuse me, didn't have no official song and suggested that we work on this in our copious free time."

"I ache for the touch of your lips, dear, But much more for the touch of your whips, dear. You can raise welts Like nobody else, As we dance to the Masochism Tango."

"Take your cigarette from its holder, And burn your initials in my shoulder. Fracture my spine, And swear that you're mine, As we dance to the Masochism Tango."

""Life is like a sewer — what you get out of it depends on what you put into it." It's always seemed to me that this is precisely the sort of dynamic, positive thinking that we so desperately need today in these trying times of crisis and universal brouhaha."

"We will all go together when we go Every Hottentot and every Eskimo When We will all go simultaneous Oh, we all will go together when we go."

"I'm sure we all agree that we ought to love one another and I know there are people in the world that do not love their fellow human beings and I hate people like that"

"Any ideas expressed on this record should not be taken as representing Mr. Lehrer's true convictions, for indeed he has none. "If anyone objects to any statement I make," he has said, "I am quite prepared not only to retract it, but also to deny under oath that I ever made it.""

"I do have a cause, though. It is obscenity. I'm for it."

"But don't panic. Base eight is just like base ten really — if you're missing two fingers."

"Last December 13th, there appeared in the newspapers the juiciest, spiciest, raciest obituary it has ever been my pleasure to read. It was that of a lady named Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel, who had, in her lifetime, managed to acquire as lovers practically all of the top creative men in central Europe. And, among these lovers, who were listed in the obituary, by the way, which is what made it so interesting, there were three whom she went so far as to marry: One of the leading composers of the day, Gustav Mahler, composer of "Das Lied von der Erde" and other light classics, one of the leading architects, Walter Gropius, of the "Bauhaus" school of design, and one of the leading writers, Franz Werfel, author of the "Song of Bernadette" and other masterpieces. It's people like that who make you realize how little you've accomplished. It is a sobering thought, for example, that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years."

"The loveliest girl in Vienna Was Alma, the smartest as well. Once you picked her up on your antenna, You'd never be free of her spell."

"And that is the story of Alma, Who knew how to receive and to give. The body that reached her embalma' Was one that had known how to live."

"Speaking of love, one problem that recurs more and more frequently these days, in books and plays and movies, is the inability of people to communicate with the people they love: husbands and wives who can't communicate, children who can't communicate with their parents, and so on. And the characters in these books and plays and so on, and in real life, I might add, spend hours bemoaning the fact that they can't communicate. I feel that if a person can't communicate, the very least he can do is to shut up."

"I feel that if any songs are gonna come out of World War III, we'd better start writing them now."

"Get in line in that processional, Step into that small confessional. There the guy who's got religion'll Tell you if your sin's original. If it is, try playin' it safer, Drink the wine and chew the wafer, Two, four, six, eight, Time to transubstantiate!"

"So get down upon your knees, Fiddle with your rosaries, Bow your head with great respect, And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect!"

"During National Brotherhood Week various special events are arranged to drive home the message of brotherhood — this year, for example, on the first day of the week, Malcolm X was killed, which gives you an idea of how effective the whole thing is. I'm sure we all agree that we ought to love one another, and I know there are people in the world who do not love their fellow human beings — and I hate people like that!"

"Oh, the white folks hate the black folks, And the black folks hate the white folks; To hate all but the right folks Is an old established rule."

"Oh, the poor folks hate the rich folks, And the rich folks hate the poor folks. All of my folks hate all of your folks, It's American as apple pie."

"Step up and shake the hand Of someone you can't stand, You can tolerate him if you try!"

"Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics And the Catholics hate the Protestants, And the Hindus hate the Moslems, And everybody hates the Jews."

"It's only for a week so have no fear! Be grateful that it doesn't last all year!"

"What is it that put America in the forefront of the nuclear nations? And what is it that will make it possible to spend twenty billion dollars of your money to put some clown on the moon? Well, it was good old American know how, that's what, as provided by good old Americans like Dr. Wernher von Braun!"

"Don't say that he's hypocritical, Say rather that he's apolitical. "Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department," says Wernher von Braun."

"But things I once thought were funny are scary now. I often feel like a resident of Pompeii who has been asked for some humorous comments on lava."

"People do their best satirical work when they’re young. I’m not interested in saying only the nasty. My mind doesn’t run that way anymore. I don’t know if the times are changing or I am."

"I really don't consider myself a performer by temperament."

"I don't appreciate poetry--I don't mind admitting that now, I don't understand poetry. We studied it in high school and college, but they never told us why it was good. I got A's on all the exams--"Hail to thee blithe spirit, bird thou never wert"-- what the hell does that mean? I have no idea."

"I remember when Richard Pryor said something about how in South Africa, all the black people should pick up guns and kill all the white people, and they went right on with the interview, and nobody stopped him on that. "Oh good old Richard, what a card." As long as you're billed as a comedian, I guess you can say anything."

"I think the people who say we need satire often mean, "We need satire of them, not of us.""

"People are stupider than anybody."

"I'm not tempted to write a song about George W. Bush. I couldn't figure out what sort of song I would write. That's the problem: I don't want to satirise George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporise them. … And that's not funny. … OK, well, if I say that, I might get a shock laugh, but it's not really satire."

"Things are much more complicated. Feminism versus pornography, for example. There are a lot of feminists who think it is bad, but others think it's good. I have become, you might call it mature — I would call it senile — and I can see both sides. But you can't write a satirical song with 'but on the other hand' in it, or 'however'. It's got to be one-sided."

"The real issues I don't think most people touch. The Clinton jokes are all about Monica Lewinsky and all that stuff and not about the important things, like the fact that he wouldn't ban landmines."

"One of the problems I see with these comics on television, particularly cable television, is, since you can say anything in terms of sex and scatological references and so on, therefore, you should do it. So they all limit themselves to these subjects and this vocabulary. My objection is that it is a lack of articulateness … Irreverence is easy, but what is hard is wit. Wit is what these comedians lack."

"The audience usually has to be with you, I'm afraid. I always regarded myself as not even preaching to the converted, I was titillating the converted. The audiences like to think that satire is doing something. But, in fact, it is mostly to leave themselves satisfied. Satisfied rather than angry, which is what they should be."

"You can make fun with Saddam Hussein jokes … but you can't make fun of, say, the concentration camps. I think my target was not so much evil, but benign stupidity people doing stupid things without realising or, instead, thinking they were doing good."

"Dear Mr. Lehrer:"

"The best musical satirist of the 20th Century."

"Lehrer was able to express and to expose, in humorous verse and lilting music, some of the most powerful dangers of the second half of the century … Many of the causes of which Lehrer sang became, three decades later, part of the main creative impulse of mankind."

"Mr. Lehrer's muse is not fettered by such inhibiting factors as taste."

"Lehrer is that rarest of beasts a performer who was never seduced by the roar of the crowd and who rejected show business well before it had a chance to do the same to him. His concert tours were brief and motivated either by a desire to visit a new place (such as Australia, in 1960) or to test and polish material for a recording."

"I’ve always kind of considered him the J. D. Salinger of demented music."

"I call my music the healing music … It makes the blind feel that they can see, the lame feel that they can walk, the deaf and dumb that they can hear and talk."

"The average person, when they see a black man, they would say "Man, he got soul cos' his color." But I disagree with that. I think that God would be a very selfish God if He gave all the soul to one race. He lets his rain fall on the red flowers, the green flowers, the blue flowers; the good, the bad, no races, so He lets His blessings fall on all races. So I think that there are types of souls, like there are different types of cars. But they're all cars. You know, I think that, when a white guy sing[s], if he have soul, that don't mean that he had to copy no negro to get it. I believe if he feels, when one sings from the heart and it reaches another heart, that's soul."

"The Beatles are just a phenomenon; everything that the people say they are, they are. They're great. ... Their music is just melodious."

"I came from a family where my people didn't like rhythm and blues. Bing Crosby - "Pennies from Heaven" - Ella Fitzgerald, was all I heard."

"Well, you know I used to play piano for the church. You know that spiritual, 'Give Me that Old Time Religion', most churches just say, [sings] "Give me that old time religion" but I did, [sings] "Give me that old time, talkin' 'bout religion," you know I put that little thing in it you know, I always did have that thing but I didn't know what to do with the thing I had. So the style has always been with me... I always had my little thing I wanted to let the world hear, you know."

"A lot of songs I sang to crowds to get their reaction. That's how I knew they'd hit."

"His rhythm is the only one I can sing my songs to."

"There's something I prefer not saying, I will say this. I'm a believer in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I believe the seventh-day Sabbath is God's way. I believe we should eat kosher. I was invited to a party night before last. Rod Stewart's. I didn't go, because I open the Sabbath on Friday."

"Bob Dylan is my brother. I love him same as Bobby Darin [deceased] is my baby. I feel Bob Dylan is my blood brother. I believe if I didn't have a place to stay, Bob Dylan would buy me a house. He sat by my bed; he didn't move for hours. I was in pain that medicine couldn't stop. My tongue was cut out, leg all tore up, bladder punctured. I was supposed to be dead. Six feet under. God resurrected me; that's the reason I have to tell the world about it."

"I appreciate being picked one of the top 100 performers, but who is number one and who is number two doesn't matter to me anymore. Because it won't be who I think it should be. The Rolling Stones started with me, but they're going to always be in front of me. The Beatles started with me — at the Star Club in Hamburg, Germany, before they ever made an album — but they're going to always be in front of me. James Brown, Jimi Hendrix — these people started with me. I fed them, I talked to them, and they're going to always be in front of me."

"I am the innovator. I am the creator. I am the emancipator. I am the architect of rock 'n' roll!"

"Wop-bop-a-loo-mop alop-bom-bom! Tutti frutti, oh rutti Tutti frutti, woo! Tutti frutti, oh rutti Tutti frutti, oh rutti Tutti frutti, oh rutti Awop-bop-a-loo-mop alop-bom-bom!"

"I got a gal, named Sue, she knows just what to do, I got a gal, named Sue, she knows just what to do. She rocks to the East, she rocks to the West, She is the gal that I love best. Tutti frutti, oh rutti."

"Well, long tall Sally, she's built for speed, She's got everything that uncle John need. Oh baby, yes baby, woo baby, havin' me some fun tonight."

"I woke up this mornin', Lucille was not in sight, I asked my friends about her but all their lips was tight, Lucille, please come back where you belong, I've been good to you baby, please don't lead me along."

"I wanna introduce a man that started a kind of music that set the pace for a lot of what's happening today. Ladies and gentlemen, if you don't mind, here is my man, bless his little sweet heart, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Little Richard!""

"He was the biggest of them all. And he knew it. ...he wanted everyone to call him 'King Richard'.... He had the biggest, flashiest and with all the best looking players. He also had the greatest parties in his hotel rooms. At least, that's what I was told. They wouldn't let me in, because I was underage." Etta also mentions her first meeting with James Brown, in Macon, Georgia, where this young Dancer/Boxer/Gospel Singer had befriended Little Richard. "He used to carry around an old tattered napkin with him, because Little Richard had written the words, 'Please, Please, Please' on it and James was determined to make a song out of it."

"Little Richard is the Architect of Rock and Roll."

"Thank you all very much, especially the rock 'n' rollers, an' Little Richard there [pointing to him] - it was all his fault really."

"I was a little kid when I heard Little Richard. He was playing piano and singing that song," recalls Green before breaking into the opening lines of Richard's "Jenny, Jenny." Even then, he continues, "I knew he was a classic, one-of-a-kind. I never heard (anyone) with that kind of enthusiasm."

"Well I'd certainly have to have a tip of the hat to Little Richard. I'd say it's sort of a composite guy, because obviously I love Wilson Pickett, and there are a few guys who have that sort of high, edgy thing, Little Richard being the best and the most famous. Wilson even screamed in tune. My voice came out a certain way and I've learned to be that way."

"Little Richard - he was the first one that really got to me. Little Richard and, of course, Elvis Presley. I don't know if it was because of James Brown and Little Richard, I always preferred a high energy vocal, a hard full-force vocal. I liked Little Richard better than Elvis, and I liked James Brown better than the Beatles...but the Miracles were a heavy influence on me, too...[though] I always preferred the more energized vocals."

"The first Rock 'n' Roll record I listened to was 'The Girl Can't Help It,' by Little Richard."

"James Brown, Ray Charles, Jackie Wilson, Chuck Berry and Little Richard - I think they had strong influences on a lot of people, because these were the guys who really got rock'n'roll going. I like to start with the origin of things, because once it gets along it changes. It's so interesting to see how it really was in the beginning."

"Chuck Berry's "duck walk," Presley's bumps and grinds, Jerry Lee Lewis's wanton destruction of pianos, Little Richard's bizarre stage theatrics. As part of the counter-discourse of early rock 'n' roll, such practices not only assaulted high culture but also brought sexual display into the public realm, which is finally the same thing, for it is the body … That is excluded by the dominant course of mid-century modernism."

"First putting the funk in the rock and roll beat."

"...The idea of being gay was never, ever discussed in the black world at that time. It had to happen on such a low-key level – believe me, the idea of being found out was really scary. But Little Richard didn’t care and what I picked up from him early on, a black, gay man, was the freedom he took for himself. No one gave him that right. He just took it. He did just what he needed to do to be who he wanted to be..."

"...Little Richard had that confidence because of the toughness of his early life. He used to talk about how his dad [a deacon who ran a nightclub] used to treat him [his father disapproved of his sexuality and beat him] and how he kept his head up. He was torn between rock’n’roll and the gospel all his life and he talked about that too – it affected him a lot and it was a battle that couldn’t be won..."

"...I loved him, man. He had to push, push, push for everything and I don’t think there was one popular entertainer– from Elvis onwards – who he didn’t affect. I really don’t think he knew how much people were affected by him, but that was probably a good thing. It made him who he was. He was still the guy who took all the ingredients of rock’n’roll, prepared the meal and served it up, who still had that passion for being himself to the end – for letting himself go free."

"Richard opened the door. He brought the races together. When I first went on the road there were many segregated audiences. With Richard, although they still had the audiences segregated in the building, they were there TOGETHER. And most times before the end of the night, they would all be mixed together. Up until then, the audiences were either all black or all white and no one else could come in. His records weren't boy-meets-girl-girl-meets-boy things, they were FUN records, all fun. And they had a lot to say sociologically in our country and the world. The shot was fired here and heard around the world." "When Richard opened his mouth, man, everyone could enjoy it. He's got a voice that would make 'em jump up and down... that's the first time I ever saw spotlights and flicker lights used at a concert show. It had all been used in show business but he brought it into our world."

"Little Richard was not only a giant but a pioneer of the so-called Rock 'n' Roll music industry. He had such a unique voice and style that no one else has matched it... Rock 'n' Soul is here to stay!"

"I never thought I'd ever meet Little Richard. He was my idol at school. The first song I ever sang in public was 'Long Tall Sally,' at a Butlins holiday camp talent competition! I love his voice and I always wanted to sing like him."

"I had heard so much about the audience reaction that I thought there must be some exaggeration. But it was all true. He drove the whole house into a complete frenzy. There's no single phrase to describe his hold on the audience. I couldn't believe the power of Little Richard on stage. He was amazing. Chuck Berry is my favorite, along with Bo (Diddley), but nobody could beat Little Richard's stage act. Little Richard is the originator and my first idol."

"The most exciting moment of my life was appearing on the same stage as Little Richard."

"I want to do with my guitar what Little Richard does with his voice."

"Elvis was bigger than religion in my life. Then this boy at school said he'd got this record by somebody called Little Richard who was better than Elvis. We used to go to this boys house after school and listen to Elvis on 78s: we'd buy five ciggies loose and some chips and go along. The new record was Little Richard's 'Long Tall Sally'. When I heard it, it was so great I couldn't speak. You know how you are torn. I didn't want to leave Elvis but this was so much better. We all looked at each other. I didn't want to say anything against Elvis, even in my mind. How could they both be happening in my life? And then someone said, "It's a nigger singing." I didn't know negroes sang. So Elvis was white and Little Richard was black. This was a great relief. "Thank you God," I said. "There is a difference between them." But I though about it for days at school, of the labels on the records of Elvis and Little Richard. One was yellow and the other was blue, and I thought of the yellow against the blue."

"Little Richard is the beginning of Rock 'n' Roll."

"Little Richard was a one-of-a-kind show business genius. He influenced so many people in the business."

"I love Little Richard. He is a great entertainer and he has done so much for our music."

"Little Richard's records were the best Rock 'n' Roll records."

"After hearing Little Richard on record, I bought a saxaphone and came into the music business. Little Richard was my inspiration."

"In the spiritual poll of Rock n Roll, Little Richard is a tried and true original. Since his beginning, all have picked up from his style and from his music, from the early Beatles to Mick Jagger today. At one time it was all Little Richard's original raving craving thing."

"Little Richard is a great originator. He was right there at the start, a thrilling performer."

"Little Richard is twice as valid artistically and important historically as Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones put together."

"Little Richard represented what I wanted to be. He was, and still is, my idol."

"Once you have seen this man you know instantly that you have seen the greatest Rock n Roll legend of our time."

"He is the King of Rock 'n' Roll."

"Richard is an original, and the songs he's written and the songs he's done and made famous are just one of a kind.""

"Little Richard, man, was the god! I grew up on Little Richard in the rocking 50's."

"The first 45 I ever played was by Little Richard. Even today, I constantly listen to Little Richard."

"There would have been no DEEP PURPLE if there had been no Little Richard."

"When I was in high school I wanted to be like Little Richard."

"If it hadn't been for Little Richard, I would not be here. I entered the music business because of Richard - he is my inspiration. I used to sing like Little Richard, his Rock 'n' Roll stuff, you know. Richard has soul, too. My present music has a lot of him in it."

"No one person has been imitated more than Little Richard."

"I spent a week there one afternoon."

"I never really drove a cab, but I do have a hack license in case of emergencies – like no money."

"The major thing I'm afraid of is being 65 and saying, 'Gee, I wish I had done this and that, and that.' I want to face old age knowing I've tried all I wanted to try."

"This commitment to end world hunger, and my music and story songs, are ways of dealing with the world as I see it. I'm playing 200 concerts per year-- half of them benefits-- all of them attempts at getting across the footlights to people I would enjoy spending time with in non-concert situations. And over the past 4 years of musical fun, millions of dollars have been raised for things I believe in. Telling stories of our time, building a lasting body of work, new songs, new records, new audiences, new challenges, and still that painfully exciting process of growth that can make one's life into a richly woven tapestry."

"It took a while, but she looked in the mirror, And she glanced at the license for my name. A smile seemed to come to her slowly, It was a sad smile, just the same. And she said, "How are you Harry?" I said, "How are you Sue? Through the too many miles and the too little smiles I still remember you.""

"There was not much more for us to talk about, Whatever we had once was gone. So I turned my cab into the driveway, Past the gate and the fine trimmed lawns. And she said we must get together, But I knew it'd never be arranged. And she handed me twenty dollars, For a two fifty fare, she said "Harry, keep the change." Well another man might have been angry, And another man might have been hurt, But another man never would have let her go... I stashed the bill in my shirt."

"And she walked away in silence, It's strange, how you never know, But we'd both gotten what we'd asked for, Such a long, long time ago."

"You see, she was gonna be an actress And I was gonna learn to fly. She took off to find the footlights, And I took off for the sky. And here, she's acting happy, Inside her handsome home. And me, I'm flying in my taxi, Taking tips, and getting stoned, I go flying so high, when I'm stoned."

"He looks at the city where no one had known him. He looks at the sky where no one looks down. He looks at his life and what it has shown him. He looks for his shadow it cannot be found."

"And the broad who served the whisky She was a big old friendly girl. And she tried to fight her empty nights By smilin' at the world."

"I am the midnight watchman down at Miller's Tool and Die. And I watch the metal rusting, and I watch the time go by. A week ago at the diner I stopped to get a bite. And this here lovely lady she sat two seats from my right. And Lord, Lord, Lord she was alright. Oh she was so damned beautiful that she'd warm a winter's frost. But she was long past lonely, and well nigh unto lost. Now I'm not much of a mover, or a pick-em-up easy guy, But I decided to glide on over, and give her one good try. And Lord, Lord, Lord she was worth a try."

"And it shamed me into silence, as quietly she said, "If you want me to come with you, then that's all right with me. Cause I know I'm going nowhere, and anywhere's a better place to be. Anywhere's a better place to be.""

"The moonlight shown upon her as she lay back in my bed. It was the kind of scene I only had imagined in my head. I just could not believe it, to think that she was real. And as I tried to tell her she said "Shhh.. I know just how you feel. And if you want to come here with me, then that's all right with me. 'Cause I've been oh so lonely, lovin' someone is a better way to be. anywhere's a better way to be.""

"The waitress took a bar rag, and she wiped it across her eyes. And as she spoke her voice came out as something like a sigh. She said "I wish that I was beautiful, or that you were halfway blind. And I wish I weren't so dog-gone fat, I wish that you were mine. And I wish that you'd come with me, when I leave for home. For we both know all about loneliness, and livin' all alone.""

"All my life's a circle; Sunrise and sundown; Moon rolls thru the nighttime; Till the daybreak comes around."

"All my life's a circle; But I can't tell you why; Season's spinning round again; The years keep rollin' by."

"No straight lines make up my life; And all my roads have bends; There's no clear-cut beginnings; And so far no dead-ends."

"I found you a thousand times; I guess you done the same; But then we lose each other; It's like a children's game; As I find you here again; A thought runs through my mind; Our love is like a circle; Let's go 'round one more time."

"Short stories that's all it's ever been Don't you worry 'bout the ending Babe, before we begin I have seen the sun That's behind the rain I have felt the joy That's behind the pain."

"You know I need a dream Like I need my breath We need to take the life Before we get the death You know I need your love Like I need the light Yes I need the chance Can it be tonight?"

"I am the morning DJ... At W.O.L.D. Playin' all the hits for you... Wherever you may be. The bright good morning voice... Who is heard, but never seen! Feelin' all of 45.... Goin' on 15."

"Sometimes I get this crazy dream And I just take off in my car But you can travel on ten thousand miles And still stay where you are."

"Music was his life, it was not his livelihood, And it made him feel so happy and it made him feel so good. And he sang from his heart and he sang from his soul. He did not know how well he sang; It just made him whole."

"Mr. Martin Tanner, a baritone, of Dayton, Ohio made his Town Hall debut last night. He came well prepared, but unfortunately his presentation was not up to contemporary professional standards. His voice lacks the range of tonal color necessary to make it consistently interesting. Full time consideration of another endeavor might be in order."

"My child arrived just the other day, He came to the world in the usual way. But there were planes to catch, and bills to pay. He learned to walk while I was away. And he was talking 'fore I knew it, and as he grew, He'd say, "I'm gonna be like you, dad. You know I'm gonna be like you.""

"And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon, Little boy blue and the man in the moon. "When you coming home, dad?" "I don't know when, But we'll get together then. You know we'll have a good time then.""

"I've long since retired and my son's moved away. I called him up just the other day. I said, "I'd like to see you if you don't mind." He said, "I'd love to, dad, if I could find the time. You see, my new job's a hassle, and the kid's have the flu, But it's sure nice talking to you, dad. It's been sure nice talking to you." And as I hung up the phone, it occurred to me, He'd grown up just like me. My boy was just like me."

"I come fresh from the street, fast on my feet, kind a lean and lazy; not much meat on my bones, and a whole lot alone, and more than a little bit crazy. The old six string was all I had to keep my belly still, and for each full hour lesson I gave I got a crisp ten dollar bill."

"She was married for seven years to a concrete castle king. She said she wanted to learn to play the guitar and to hear her children sing. So I'd show up about once a week in my faded tight-legged jeans with a backlog full of hobo stories and dilapidated dreams."

"She said, "I wanna learn a love song full of happy things." She said, "I wanna learn a love song; won't you let me hear you sing?" She said, "I wanna learn a love song, I wanna hear you play." She said, "I wanna learn a love song before you go away.""

"Oh, he was the sun burning bright and brittle And she was the moon shining back his light a little He was a shooting star She was softer and more slowly He could not make things possible But, she could make them holy."

"He was dancing to some music No one else had ever heard He'd speak in unknown languages She would translate every word And then when the world was laughing At his castles in the sky She'd hold him in her body Till he once again could fly."

"He was a young driver, just out on his second job. And he was carrying the next day's pasty fruits for everyone in that coal-scarred city where children play without despair in backyard slag-piles and folks manage to eat each day about thirty thousand pounds of bananas..."

"He was picking speed as the city spread its twinkling lights below him. But he paid no heed as the shivering thoughts of the nights delights went through him. His foot nudged the brakes to slow him down. But the pedal floored easy without a sound. He said "Christ!" It was funny how he had named the only man who could save him now. He was trapped inside a dead-end hellslide, riding on his fear-hunched back was every one of those yellow green I'm telling you thirty thousand pounds of bananas. Yes, there were thirty thousand pounds of bananas."

"And he said "God, make it a dream!" as he rode his last ride down. And he sideswiped nineteen neat parked cars, clipped off thirteen telephone poles, hit two houses, bruised eight trees, and Blue-Crossed seven people. it was then he lost his head, not to mention an arm or two before he stopped."

"You know the man who told me about it on the bus, as it went up the hill out of Scranton, Pennsylvania, he shrugged his shoulders, he shook his head, and he said (and this is exactly what he said) "Boy that sure must've been something. Just imagine thirty thousand pounds of bananas. Yes, there were thirty thousand pounds of mashed bananas. Of bananas. Just bananas. Thirty thousand pounds. of Bananas—not no driver now. Just bananas!""

"She sings the songs without words Songs that sailors, and blind men, and beggars have heard She knows more of love than the poets can say And her eyes are for something that won't go away."

"It was the town that made America famous. The churches full and the kids all gone to hell. Six traffic lights and seven cops and all the streets kept clean. The supermarket and the drug store and the bars all doing well."

"Something's burning somewhere. Does anybody care?"

"We were the kids that made America famous. The kind of kids that long since drove our parents to dispair. We were lazy long hairs dropping out, lost confused, and copping out. Convinced our futures were in doubt and trying not to care."

"I went to sleep with the hope that made America famous. I had the kind of a dream that maybe they're still trying to teach in school. Of the America that made America famous...and Of the people who just might understand That how together yes we can Create a country better than The one we have made of this land, We have a choice to make each man who dares to dream, reaching out his hand A prophet or just a crazy God damn Dreamer of a fool."

"There's a vacancy, won't you come to me And fill my empty spaces I'm a motel man in a promised land That's filled with empty faces So won't you bring your sorrows bring your dreams, It's a place for you to be There's no more tomorrow or that's how it seems Won't you come to me? I've got a vacancy"

"The very day I purchased it, I christened my guitar as my monophonic symphony, six string orchestra."

"I'd play at all the talent nights, I'd finish, they'd applaud. Some called it muffled laughter, I just figured they were odd. So I went up for an encore, but they screamed they'd had enough. Or maybe I just need a group to help me do my stuff."

"And so I'd dream a bass will join me, and fill the bottom in. And maybe now some lead guitar so it would not sound so thin. I need some drums to set the beat and help me keep in time. And way back in the distance, some strings would sound so fine."

"And we would play together, like fine musicians should, And it would sound like music, and the music would sound good. But in real life I'm stuck with that same old formula, me and my monophonic symphony, six string orchestra."

"The rock is gonna fall on us," he stood and told the class The professor put his chalk down and peered out through his glasses But he went on and said; "I've seen it, high up on the hill If it doesn't fall this year then very soon it will!"

"We've more important studies than your fantasies and fears You know that rock's been perched up there for a hundred thousand years."

"He went up on the mountain beside the giant stone They knew he was insane so they left him alone He'd given up enlisting help for there was no one else He spent his days devising ways to stop the rock himself One night while he was working building braces on the ledge The ground began to rumble the rock trembled on the edge."

"But high up on the mountain When the wind is hitting it If you're watching very closely The rock slips a little bit..."

"The Mayor of Candor lied When he offered me his only daughter The Mayor of Candor tried To take her off across the water What a thing to do to a young man in love What a thing to do to your daughter."

"I was quite surprised to find out all the places that he knew And so I asked the townfolk if his stories were true They said— Old John was born here, he's lived here all his life He's never had a woman, let alone a wife. And very soon you'll find out as you check around That no one named Corey's ever lived in this town So I chided the old man 'bout the truth that I had heard He smiled and said— Reality is only just a word."

"They put the cold dirt over him and left me on my own And when at last I looked up I saw I was not alone So I said— If you're a relative, he had a peaceful end. She said— My name is Corey— you can say I'm just a friend."

"Corey's coming, no more sad stories coming My midnight-moonlight-morning-glory's coming aren't you girl? And like I told you, when she holds you She enfolds you in her world."

"I'm in the Dance Band on the Titanic Singing "Nearer my God to thee" and the icebergs on the starboard bow Won't you dance with me?"

"You see, I have no real complaints of how you've left your past behind I guess what gets me worried is you've erased him from your mind."

"You see, dream-lover of a lady, what shakes me to the core Is the thought as you caress me, you've done this all before I think about the future with me out and others in Will I, too, have disappeared like I've never ever been?"

"Strum your guitar sing it kid Just write about your feelings not the things you never did Inexperience, it once had cursed me But your youth is no handicap it's what makes you thirsty"

"When I started this song I was still thirty-three The age that Mozart died and sweet Jesus was set free Keats and Shelley too soon finished, Charley Parker would be And I fantasized some tragedy'd be soon curtailing me Well just today I had my birthday I made it thirty-four Mere mortal, not immortal, not star-crossed anymore I've got this problem with my aging I no longer can ignore A tame and toothless tabby can't produce a lion's roar."

"Hello my Country I once came to tell everyone your story Your passion was my poetry And your past my most potent glory Your promise was my prayer Your hypocrisy my nightmare And your problems fill my present Are we both going somewhere?"

"Step right up young lady Your two hundred birthdays make you old if not senile And we see the symptoms there in your rigor mortis smile With your old folks eating dog food and your children eating paint While the pirates own the flag and sell us sermons on restraint."

"And while blood's the only language that your deaf old ears can hear And still you will not answer with that message coming clear Does it mean there's no more ripples in your tired old glory stream And the buzzards own the carcass of your dream?"

"Good dreams don't come cheap You've got to pay for them."

"Oh God they got you gun shy You know your skin's as cold as ice Your eyes are double filtered babe You're so afraid to be nice There's no way you're ready To let your defenses down Though I won't come on heavy There is a lesson that I've found."

"If you try to look But you don't touch Then you won't touch But you'll never feel And if you don't feel You'll never cry And if you don't cry Then you'll never heal."

"There are lessons to life That the lovers got to learn There are corners out there You know they're waitin' somewhere And you've got to be prepared to turn There are callouses that come That the lovers got to earn In the years of your youth You can't be fire proof You know you've got to get burned."

"Now if a man tried To take his time on Earth And prove before he died What one man's life could be worth, Well I wonder what would happen to this world."

"And if a woman She used a life line As something more than Some man's servant mother wife time Well I wonder what would happen to this world."

"And if our future Lies on the final line Are we brave enough To see the signals and the signs?"

"If we say that no one's out there And we say we're goin' nowhere And we avoid the question Is this all that it means?"

"Oh, if a man tried To take his time on earth And prove before he died What one man's life could be worth, I wonder what would happen to this world."

"And I know you're frightened By my laughter But you're not afraid To hold my pain You see I'm never sure Just what you're after, Babe But it seems you only love me When it rains. How come you only love me when it rains?"

"Why did the little girls grow crippled While the little boys grow strong The boys allowed to come of age The girls just came along The girls were told sing harmonies The boys could all sing songs That's why little girls grew crippled While little boys grew strong."

"Why were the little girls all frightened To be just what they are The boys were told to ask themselves How high how far The girls were told to reach the shelves While the boys were reaching stars That's why little girls were frightened To be just what they are."

"The little boy went first day of school He got some crayons and started to draw He put colors all over the paper For colors was what he saw And the teacher said.. "What you doin' young man?" "I'm paintin' flowers" he said She said... "It's not the time for art young man And anyway flowers are green and red There's a time for everything young man And a way it should be done You've got to show concern for everyone else For you're not the only one.""

"And she said... "Flowers are red young man Green leaves are green There's no need to see flowers any other way Than they way they always have been seen.""

"But the little boy said... "There are so many colors in the rainbow So many colors in the morning sun So many colors in the flowers and I see every one.""

"But there still must be a way to have our children say... "There are so many colors in the rainbow So many colors in the morning sun So many colors in the flower and I see every one." (Live version)"

"Somebody said...We got to find the words Got to, got to be an answer there Somebody said that...You never get heard 'Cause nobody really cares."

"Somebody said...Where are the dreamers Somebody said...Dead Somebody said...Here comes the holy rollers Tryin' to sell us all the screamers instead."

"You see, ten years ago it was the front seat Drivin' stoned and feelin' no pain. Now here I am straight and sittin' in the back Hitting Sixteen Parkside Lane."

"And the look on her face as she opened the door Was like an old joke told by a friend. It'd taken ten more years but she'd found her smile And I watched the corners start to bend."

"She said I've heard you flying high on my radio I answered "It's not all it seems" That's when she laughed and she said, "It's better sometimes When we don't get to touch our dreams.""

"That's when I asked her where was that actress She said "That was somebody else" And then I asked her why she looked so happy now She said "I finally like myself, at last I like myself.""

"I guess it's a sequel to our story From the journey 'tween heaven and hell With half the time thinking of what might have been and half thinkin' just as well. I guess only time will tell."

"And the wind will whip your tousled hair, The sun, the rain, the sweet despair, Great tales of love and strife. And somewhere on your path to glory You will write your story of a life."

"And all the trips you know you missed And all the lips you never kissed Cut through you like a knife. And now you see stretched out before thee Just another story of a life."

"Now sometimes words can serve me well Sometimes words can go to hell For all that they do. And for every dream that took me high There's been a dream that's passed me by. I know it's so true And I can see it clear out to the end And I'll whisper to her now again Because she shared my life. For more than all the ghosts of glory She makes up the story, She's the only story Of my life."

"Remember when the music Came from wooden boxes strung with silver wire And as we sang the words, it would set our minds on fire, For we believed in things, and so we'd sing."

"Oh all the times I've listened, and all the times I've heard All the melodies I'm missing, and all the magic words, And all those potent voices, and the choices we had then, How I'd love to find we had that kind of choice again."

"And I feel that something's coming, and it's not just in the wind. It's more than just tomorrow, it's more than where we've been, It offers me a promise, it's telling me "Begin", I know we're needing something worth believing in."

"Being single is like liking a Phil Spector record."

"All of us have the privilege of making music that helps and heals — to make music that makes people happier, stronger and kinder. Don't forget: music is God's voice."

"Being called a musical genius was a cross to bear. Genius is a big word. But if you have to live up to something, you might as well live up to that. God damn!"

"On all of [our Beach Boys records] I said this is a smash! this is a number one smash! And that's how I used to talk to people. I'd talk to Mike Love, I'd say we've got a Top Ten smash on our hands! On Billboard, on Cashbox. And then finally it'd go to number one and I'd call him and say, "We've made it to number one!" and he'd go, "Whoa!" We'd get excited, right. We couldn't help it. It's an exciting thing to get a number one record. A number one record is like the first time you ever fucked a girl, it's a thrill. You know what I mean?"

"You don't want to be scared all the time. There are other emotions besides fear. You've got anger. You've got jealousy. You've got joy. You've got fascination. You've got jealousy. You've got anger. You've got frustration. You've got hunger. You've got all those emotions. But that's how it's strung together. We strung all these hits together. One hit, strung it together. Another hit, strung it together. Another hit, strung it together. And pretty soon we had a string of hits."

"I would have the musicians keep playing over and over again till the sound made sense. I worked overtime on that; I worked hours to get it right. If the sound didn't make any sense, then I wouldn't know what to do — I'd be lost! It's instinct that tells me. I have an instinct for music, or a feeling about it, and I'll have my feelings guide my hands."

"It was very competitive in the '60s. And everybody caught the bug, y'know? It was like a “competitive bug.” And, as far as I could see, everybody was turning everybody on. … The Beatles were a part of that whole “competition” thing. Rubber Soul blew my mind. It really made me wanna record; it made me wanna cut. It sounds like a collection of songs that belong together, and it was an uplifting feeling. So I thought I'd make a collection of songs — called Pet Sounds — together. That's how I got that idea. … I'm proud of it. I think it's a very everlasting album. I'm very proud of the love that went into it. A lot of love went into that album. And people pick up on that too, and they really like it 'cause they feel the love."

"I think because I felt so sad I had to bring out my feelings, and try to create music that would make me and all my friends feel better."

"It's funny how people are pickin' up on our music now, you know? I think it's wonderful that people like our music."

"I met Paul in 1967, Ringo in 1985, and I saw George Harrison in a nightclub somewhere in L. A. I never met John."

"We wanted to bring some love to the world. I thought we were good at doing that. Bringin' love to the world."

"I'm doing good. I've had a slight nervous breakdown in the '60s. I got through that. And I got through the '70s. And I was in a doctor's program during the '80s and then I met Melinda and we've been together ever since. I've got a happy life."

"Did I suffer from depression? Yes, a little, from time to time. Yes. … I'm not as depressed as I was. I get depressed now and then but not very much anymore. … At the height of it it was just God-awful. It was really bad."

"It started out — my mom and dad took a little vacation to Mexico and they left $250 for food. But instead of food we went and bought some instruments. We got a bass, guitar and a set of drums. … I was 19. Dennis was 15. Carl was 17. Mike was 18. Al was 19. And so we wrote a song called "Surfin'" in my living room. We were all playing and singing and Mike and I wrote a song called "Surfin'" and that's how it all started."

"Dennis surfed. I couldn't surf. I never learned how."

"The sound was essentially background sound, myself, and Carl, Dennis and Al Jardine, Mike was our lead singer. The four of us put our voices together. We had done it really beautifully. We had a beautiful blend. We really did."

"My cousin came over to my house one day just to fool around and we said — he said, some day we should start a rock n' roll group. We could all get together. And I said, I know I guy named Al Jardine who plays bass and could probably sing good. You know. So we went from there."

"I was very, very surprised. I never thought I would be that loved or respected."

"Now and then I'll be a little brief with some of my band members. I won't talk or I'll refrain from talking to my band while we're rehearsing. But basically I am friendly with people. … I'll go on cold streaks. I'll work with a collaborator then I'll stop calling the collaborator for a couple weeks. I'll say I need a break from you for a couple weeks. But they're "OK, fine, fine, I'll see you in two weeks.""

"I talked to Paul McCartney over the years ranging from 1967 to 2004. … At the landmine show he did "God Only Knows" with me and I did "Let It Be" with him. And then I called him about four months ago asking him if he could come out and do — sing a song called "A Friend Like You," which I wrote for him, me and my collaborator wrote for him. And he said he'd love to come out. And he came to the studio and that was one of the bigger thrills of my life to tell you the truth, to produce Paul McCartney. And that was a thrill for me. That was a thrill."

"If there's not love present, it's much, much harder to function. When there's love present, it's easier to deal with life."

"Humor — it helps to make the vibe better — it loosens up the vibrations."

"Spirituality amounts to love with me. I consider it the same as love. And my band members are full of love."

"When people hear music that is spiritual it gets through. Music that is Godlike and loving gets through. I don’t have any power in this world, but I have spiritual power. I think God gave me my music and my talent. I’m trying to get across a feeling of spirituality; I think I have a spiritual influence on people."

"I think about God, yes, and I wonder if there is a God. And if there is a God, will God please help me through my hard trips."

"Brian didn't really write lyrics to the songs; he edited them. That means he might have simply said that he didn't like a particular line. I would then have tried to convince him of its merit, if I felt strongly about it, or I would have written an alternate in an attempt to get closer to what he seemed to be after. None of this is to say that he didn't supply words to some of the songs. He did. But his role was more to react to what I did after I did it, rather than to direct it before it occurred or even as it was occurring. It's fair to say that the general tenor of the lyrics was always his and the actual choice of words was usually mine. I was really just the interpreter."

"There is a new song, too complex to get all of first time around. It could come only out of the ferment that characterizes today's pop music scene. Brian Wilson, leader of the famous Beach Boys, and one of today's most important musicians, sings his own 'Surf's Up.' Poetic, beautiful even in its obscurity, 'Surf's Up' is one aspect of new things happening in pop music today. As such, it is a symbol of the change many of these young musicians see in our future."

"I've always liked Brian Wilson all the way through The Beach Boys. But Pet Sounds blew me away. It’s still one of my favorite albums. When I first heard it, I thought, Wow, this is the greatest record of all time! Brian took the bass into very unusual places. The band would play in C, and Brian would stay in G. That kind of thing. It gave me great ideas. That musical invention of Brian Wilson was eye-opening, I mean, ear-opening. ... It was Pet Sounds that blew me out of the water. I love the album so much. I’ve just bought my kids each a copy of it for their education in life … I figure no one is educated musically ’til they’ve heard that album … I love the orchestra, the arrangements … it may be going overboard to say it’s the classic of the century … but to me, it certainly is a total, classic record that is unbeatable in many ways … I’ve often played Pet Sounds and cried."

"He's a modern day Stravinsky, the way he constructs his music, he's a madman.... He was doing stuff [40 years ago] that modern people do now, looping his work and stuff. There's a track on Smile with a whole bunch of tubas having a conversation with trumpets. It's great."

"The one thing that stopped Pet Sounds from being the best album ever made was that the titles are not memorable at all. The tunes are just sensational, though. Ever since, I've been a giant fan of Brian."

"I believe that any "awareness" of life is "spiritual" since awareness can only be a quality of the spirit not of the material world or of matter and machines. Only a spiritual being has awareness. But if you mean "spiritual" in the sense of a kind of "celebration of Life", then yes, I write music to celebrate life. I think most artists do, no matter how they themselves describe it. It's the joy of creating. It's a way of life."

"The values that Scientology states are universal values. Values that any good mother or father or friend couldn't possibly disagree with. They're the values of health and improvement. It's not a belief system where you have to sign up and believe something particularly. People of all religions study Hubbard, and Hubbard himself encouraged religions to flourish because in our day and age, in our mechanized society, what is lacking is the humanities and people with faith and beliefs. So that's one of our operations. We encourage that. I require a certain amount of ethics from anybody I work with."

"It's a way of life for me. To me, Scientology is the very thing that artists need, in the sense that it's not a religion that you have to change the way that you pray or think about the Creator. What's incredible about Scientology is that this is the first time there's been a real technology on human relationships. To me, that's what's missing in the world. Like most of us, I grew up in a mechanical world. And when I got into music, it was mechanical in the sense of choosing notes and chords. Missing were the humanities. What ever happened to how you really live? How you feel? How you relate to people? How you reach out and help someone? I think that's one of the most basic, natural tendencies all people have—to help. Scientology gives you the necessary tools to be successful at helping someone."

"The most prolific and versatile of any modern jazz musician"

"You a motherfucker!"

"Jazz's most protean and unpredictable character."

"Acoustic, electric, latin, free – Chick Corea’s career seems to have touched all the bases in today’s jazz scene. Yet that variety is firmly centred in some abiding principles: a passion for music, the piano, and performance. They were a kind of birthright. [...] Working with all kinds of bands, and absorbing all kinds of styles – with a special fondness for fiery Latin rhythms – Corea built a reputation as composer and player."

"Suffered from alienation, carried the weight on my own, had to be so strong, so I believed, and now I know I've succeeded, in finding the place I conceived."

"You look at me and see the girl, who lives inside the golden world, but don't believe, that's all there is to see, you'll never know the real me."

"It seems as though I've always been, somebody outside looking in, well, here I am for all of them to bleed, but they can't take my heart from me, and they can't bring me to my knees, they'll never know the real me."

"When you love someone so deeply they become your life, it's easy to succumb to overwhelming fears inside, blindly I imagined I could keep you under glass, now I understand to hold you I must open my hands, and watch you rise."

"Standing alone, eager to just believe, it's good enough to be what you really are, but in your heart, uncertainty forever lies, and you'll always be, somewhere on the outside."

"So many I considered, closest to me, turned on a dime and sold me out dutifully, although that knife was chipping away at me, they turned their eyes away and went home to sleep."

"I can make it through the rain, I can stand up once again, on my own, and I know, that I’m strong enough to mend, and every time I feel afraid I hold tighter to my faith, and I live one more day and I make it through the rain."

"Who's gonna love you when it all falls down? Who's gonna love you when your bankroll runs out? Who's gonna care when the novelty's over? When the star of the show isn't you anymore. Nobody cares when the tears of a clown fall down (I guess your mama never told you what goes around comes back around)."

"Please be at peace father, I'm at peace with you, bitterness isn't worth clinging to, after all the anguish we've all been through."

"Father, thanks for reaching out and lovingly, saying that you've always been proud of me, I needed to feel that so desperately, you're always alive inside of me."

"See, I'm looking for a man that'll rub me slow, make me sing real high when he goes down low."

"By the time you get this message It's gonna be too late. So don't bother paging me cause I'll be on my way. You're gonna miss me baby, hate to say I told you so."

"She'll never be MC."

"But instead I kept my tears inside, cause I knew if I, started I'd keep crying for the rest of my life with you, I finally built up the strength to walk away, don't regret it, but I still live with the side effects."

"For the record, "You'll Always Be a Part Of Me" no matter what you do, For the record, can't nobody say I didn't give "My All" to you, For the record, I told you "Underneath The Stars" that you "Belong" to me, For the record, It's obvious that we just "Can't Let Go" of us "Honey"."

"This is for my peoples who just lost somebody, your best friend, your baby, your man or your lady, put your hand way up high, we will never say bye, mamas, daddies, sisters, brothers, friends and cousins, this is for my peoples who lost their grandmothers, lift your head to the sky, cause we will never say bye."

"They can say anything they want to say Try to bring me down But I won't face the ground"

"Why you so obsessed with me? Boy I wanna know. Lying that you're sexing me when everybody knows"

"Whenever I watch TV and see those poor, starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean, I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff."

"I love Mariah Carey. Mariah Carey's music saved little ghetto children's lives. Songs like "Vision of Love" gave us hope and we would sing those songs and try to hit every note like Mariah -- which we can't. I don't think she knows what a big part she plays in Mary J. Blige's life. And then to meet her….she's such a beautiful person that you can't do anything but defend her when [the media] starts acting stupid on her. She doesn't deserve that."

"Mariah has an amazing gift from God that has no color, no boundaries and no limitations. You hear the passion and the honesty within her music"

"No one would have believed that Mariah Carey could come full circle. Except Mariah."

"When others would have quit, overcome by the negativity, she soldiered on - a phoenix rising from the ashes."

"She has the voice of an angel."

"After I first heard "Vision [of Love]" (Carey's debut single) I first started doing runs [singing harmonic variations on scales]"

"When I discovered Mariah Carey and "Vision of Love," that was a breath of fresh air. And I adored her from that moment on and idolized her. It's really amazing that in articles I've been compared to her."

"I discovered Mariah in my room one day listening to the radio, and as soon as 'Vision of Love' came on, I ran downstairs going, ‘Mommy, mommy - I just found the greatest person in the world! I just heard the greatest new voice!'."

"Mariah Carey... she is a huge influence on me. I mean, she's amazing."

"I love her, she's such a nice person! I had an opportunity to meet her for the first time at the Z100 concert. Randy [Jackson] was like 'Mariah's here, would you like to meet her?' I said no, I don't wanna meet her! I'm gonna be an idiot in front of her. In my mind, I was saying, 'I'm gonna throw up, I'm gonna throw up!' but the words came out of my mouth. Mariah was laughing at me. It so was funny!"

"Sorry, but when you sing songs that the great Mariah Carey sings, you run the hugest risk of being compared to icons. And right now, there's no one hotter than Mariah Carey and we're constantly reminded of how brilliant her voice is. It's a big, big, huge risk to take on a song like that."

"My theory is that Mariah Carey can sing anything. You hear that expression, 'She can sing the phone book’. If you can really sing, you should be able to sing anything. That's [what] the whole competition [is about]."

"Mariah Carey has also covered it... and about bloody time! It took 21 years for someone to do a proper cover of one of our songs."

"I remember the moment I first heard Vision of Love. Then I saw this white girl with a black voice on television, and everything about her bowled me over. You could relate to her and yet she was a magical icon, and throughout my school days all I dreamed of was being like Mariah Carey. She sang with a gospel choir around her, which was always my dream. I just wanted to be her."

"Her friendship is very important to me. And it has provided me with some of my fondest memories and experiences of being in the music industry. It's just great that she is such a down to earth person who just happens to be a little more famous than most of my other friends."

"My first impression of Mariah was that she was an incredible singer, very funny (she's always cracking jokes) and just a very nice person to be around.... after 5 years I still feel the same way. I really enjoy being a part of her team. Normally when I work with a new artist I'm not necessarily a "fan", but there's no question Mariah is a truly great singer, so in this case, yes I was (and am) a fan."

"I’d heard a lot of good and bad things about [Mariah] and was pleasantly surprised by her professionalism and her niceness. She’s a lovely lady and a really good actress as well."

"Mariah was really nice to work with. You hear lots of rumours about Mariah, that she's very egotistical and other bad stories but I have to say that they're untrue. We had a lot of fun with Mariah and we found her a very down to earth person."

"She's brilliant in the studio; I don't think I've heard anyone talk so knowledgeably about the music industry like her. She's very intelligent and very funny - it was a great honour to work with her"

"We hit it off real well. Every time we get together she is open and she really trusts me. The ingredients are good and there is a chemistry there that you can hear through the music. I can't give her advice on her pop stuff but she will seek it for dance stuff. You know she rarely ever works with a producer. She's a writer and producer in the Lauryn Hill category, she doesn't come into the studio with a superstar attitude, the people around her may give you that impression, but we have a really good relationship."

"I don't know where it's going. Maybe it's going to hell. You can't make anything go anywhere. It just happens."

": You liked the arrangement? Monk: Did you make the arrangement? It was crazy. Feather: No. Monk: It was a bunch of musicians who were together, playing an arrangement. It sounded so good, it made me like the song better! Solos ... the trombone sounded good ... that was a good lead trumpet player too ... I don't know how to rate it, but I'd say it was top-notch."

"Which is the way to the toilet?"

"It reminded me of , and that's got to be good. Rhythm section has the right groove, too. Drummer made me think of . Hey, play that again. (Later.) Yeah! He sounds like a piano player! (Hums theme.) You can keep changing keys all the time doing that. Sounds like something that was studied and figured out. And he can play it; you know what's happening with this one. Yeah, he was on a Bobby Timmons kick. He knows what's happening."

"Interviewer: What other interests do you have? Monk: Life in general. Interviewer: What do you do about it? Monk: Keep breathing. Interviewer: What do you think the purpose of life is? Monk: To die."

"All musicians are subconsciously mathematicians."

"Monk enters the studio and starts playing, the rest of the musicians join him. After few minutes of play the technician from his room shouts and stops the band.] Monk: Why did we stop? Technician: I thought you were rehearsing. Monk: Aren't we always?"

"The piano ain't got no wrong notes."

"I know this from somewhere—it seems as though every time I turn on the radio this seems to slip in; and I've always liked it. It's cute, real cute; and although it's sort of not in my department and I don't know too much about that type of music, I like it an awful lot. Wonderful piano ..."

"Working with Monk brought me close to a musical architect of the highest order. I felt I learned from him in every way — through the senses, theoretically, technically. I would talk to Monk about musical problems, and he would sit at the piano and show me the answers just by playing them. I could watch him play and find out the things I wanted to know. Also, I could see a lot of things that I didn't know about at all."

"Working with Monk is like falling down a dark elevator shaft."

"I don't see how a record company can record something like that. You know the way Monk plays—he never gives any support to a rhythm section. When I had him on my date, I had him lay out until the ensemble. I like to hear him play, but I can't stand him in a rhythm section unless it's one of his own songs ... I can't understand a record like this."

"Pianistically, I don't think has anything to worry about, but if he (Monk) gets that stride thing going a little faster, I don't know... Maybe will have to come back. Pianistically, he's beautiful. (A promoter I know uses that phrase; I guess he likes the way it rolls off his tongue.) But Thelonious is pianistically beautiful. He approaches the piano somehow from an angle, and it is the right angle. He does the thing completely and thoroughly... He hasn't been influenced through the traditional techniques because he hasn't worked through the keyboard composers and, therefore, has his own complete approach of musical thinking. He is such a thinking musician, and I think this is something a lot of people forget about Monk. They somehow feel he's eccentric, but Monk knows exactly what he's doing. Structurally, and musically, he's very aware of every note he plays."

"Count Basie at Town Hall ... No, I'm only kidding; of course it was Thelonious Monk. There's been a lot of pro and con talk about Thelonious through the years, but from the beginning I was pro. I was fascinated, and I wondered how he arrived at these things. Eventually I found out, by studying and analyzing them. Now, he is not a virtuoso pianist, but there is real thought behind what he is composing. It's all very well laid out."

"All I can say is, Monk writes some beautiful tunes. When it comes to being a piano player, I'll see you later."

"That piano player sounded as honest as a little child. I think the left hand during the first part was a little hard. It could be Monk. Also it could be Mingus playing piano—sometimes he plays piano like that. I liked the record, the honesty of it and the good feeling it had. However, I think it could have been a little better; so I'll give it a three. I'd rather hear wrong notes being played by a person with good feeling than another person playing perfect, like a typewriter, and sound cold."

"[Reported exchange on telephone in 1980] "Thelonious, are you touching the piano at all these days?" "No, I'm not." "Do you want to get back to playing?" "No, I don't." "I'm only in town for a few days; would you like me to come and visit, to talk about the old days?" "No, I wouldn't." When I repeated this to Barry Harris, the pianist who was much closer to him than almost anyone else in the last years, he said, "You're lucky. You got complete sentences. With most people he just says, 'No.'""

"His is the sort of music that spans time ... it's something that's happening, and it always feels good to me. I can always readily identify with it, and it always has a freshness about it because of the way he constructs his phrases and the kinds of twists it has. I sometimes would like to hear him in a context with some more adventuresome musicians."

"A few weeks ago I made a call at his 63rd St apartment and found him practising very thoughtfully on his Klein piano. I felt pretty good when I realised how satisfied he was with his instrument. He invited me to try it out. First I played one of his compositions which I learned a few weeks ago at the Spotlite which he had played with "Hawk". Later I played some of my own tunes which he seemed to like. We promptly agreed to swap three piano arrangements of our tunes. I would arrange "Stratosphere," "Striving," and "Sailing" for him and he agreed to arrange "Ruby, My Dear," "Round Midnight" and another very expressive tune which he hadn't named or whose name he had forgotten. On the day of the proposed swap my tunes were the only ones completed. However, I haven't given up all hope of eventually learning his tunes which I will play morning, noon, and night."

"That I like. That's Monk ... I think Monk has developed a certain thing. It's not the ordinary left hand like and a lot of piano players used to use; he's done something different"

"Unlike many piano players, I love Monk's playing very much. He was brought to my attention by Richard Abrams, a pianist in Chicago, and we used to analyse Monk's playing. We found that Monk's penchant for playing the piano is not in velocity, and not in dynamics, but in sound and s. He has a lot of other devices for producing the "sound"—I've noticed a lot of times, playing in clubs, where the audience is inattentive, you play something of a Monk nature and use that sonority, automatically their ears respond to it. No other piano player has done more to find out the notes that really produce sound than Monk. To completely toss him aside as a pianistic influence is an asinine view."

"Even people who don’t know much about jazz are aware that jazz musicians are meant to be 'characters' – free-spirited types whose absorption in music generates bizarre behaviour. Though this hipster mythology is exaggerated, it seemed made for Thelonious Monk. His mystique was compounded by his unforgettable name (albeit the same as his father's), his taste for exotic headgear, a penchant for breaking into impromptu dances on the bandstand and a jabbing, idiosyncratic piano style punctuated by the silences which also marked his everyday demeanour. But Monk's media status as the 'high priest of bebop' obscured the real nature of his achievement. At a time when modern jazz was dominated by harmonic legerdemain and omnivorous technique, he showed that a deep-rooted personal vision was still possible. Monk's compositions were unlike anyone else's, full of curiously stretched and sharply angled chords, wrong-footing rhythms, melodies that could be gnomic, rich or grainily lyrical. He defied facility. When you played Monk, you played him on his terms, and his best interpreter was probably himself. His approach to the piano could seem splayed and halting – one fleet-fingered rival dismissed him as 'hamstrung' – but he could produce marvellous, probing colours, somehow getting in between the keys to make the piano seem the ultimate blues instrument. And he swung enormously, with spikey accents and clangorous, tumbling runs. As a soloist or accompanist, his timing was perfect, and he could galvanise a rhythm section by knowing exactly when and when not to play. Listening to Monk can easily become a lifelong habit, since what he has to offer is unavailable anywhere else."

"From what I know about alcoholism, I'd say there's nothing romantic, nothing grand, nothing heroic, nothing brave — nothing like that about drinking. It's a real coward's death."

"I'm insane. I'm fucked up. I have problems. But I don't get depressed and I don't get bored."

"I write songs about things that I'm simultaneously trying to not think about."

"It just sort of happened. I wrote like what I'd always read and what was in the movies … I'm sure popular music is supposed to be like this."

"Well, first of all, let me say that I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years. It was one of those phobias that really didn’t pay off."

"You know, you put more value on every minute … I mean, I always thought I kind of did that. I really always enjoyed myself. But it's more valuable now. You're reminded to enjoy every sandwich, and every minute of playing with the guys, and being with the kids and everything."

"Sickness, doctors, that scares me, not violence — helplessness. That's why I turn to violent stories."

"I wrote my songs despite the fact that I was a drunk, not because of it."

"She's so many women, He can't find the one who was his friend. So he's hanging on to half her heart. He can't have the restless part, So he tells her to hasten down the wind."

"Poor, poor pitiful me. Poor, poor pitiful me. These young girls won't let me be. Lord have mercy on me. Woe is me."

"Loneliness and frustration, We both came down with an acute case. And when the lights came up at two, I caught a glimpse of you. And your face looked like something Death brought with him in his suitcase"

"So much to do, there's plenty on the farm; I'll sleep when I'm dead. Saturday night I like to raise a little harm; I'll sleep when I'm dead."

"Carmelita hold me tighter, I think I'm sinking down. And I'm all strung out on heroin On the outskirts of town."

"And if California slides into the ocean Like the mystics and statistics say it will, I predict this motel will be standing until I pay my bill.Don't the sun look angry through the trees? Don't the trees look like crucified thieves? Don't you feel like Desperados under the eaves? Heaven help the one who leaves."

"Except in dreams, you're never really free."

"Roland the headless Thompson gunner, Norway's bravest son. Time, time, time For another peaceful war. But time stands still for Roland 'Til he evens up the score. They can still see his headless body stalking through the night In the muzzle flash of Roland's Thompson gun; In the muzzle flash of Roland's Thompson gun."

"He took little Suzie to the Junior Prom. Excitable boy, they all said. And he raped her and killed her, then he took her home. Excitable boy, they all said."

"I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand, Walking through the streets of Soho in the rain. He was looking for a place called Le Ho Fooks. Gonna get a big dish of beef chow mein."

"He's the hairy-handed gent, who ran amok in Kent. Lately he's been overheard in Mayfair. You better stay away from him. He'll rip your lungs out, Jim. Huh, I'd like to meet his tailor."

"I saw Lon Chaney, Jr. walking with the Queen Doing the werewolves of London. I saw a werewolf drinking a piña colada at Trader Vic's... His hair was perfect."

"We made mad love: Shadow love, Random love, And abandoned love. Accidentally like a martyr. The hurt gets worse and the heart gets harder"

"Well, I went home with the waitress The way I always do How was I to know She was with the Russians, too"

"Send lawyers, guns and money. Dad, get me out of this!"

"I'm the innocent bystander Somehow I got stuck Between the rock and the hard place And I'm down on my luck"

"Now I'm hiding in Honduras I'm a desperate man Send lawyers, guns and money The shit has hit the fan"

"So I'm gonna hurl myself against the wall, 'Cause I'd rather feel bad than not feel anything at all."

"Every day I get up in the morning and go to work And do my job — whatever. I need some Sentimental Hygiene. Everybody's at war these days. Let's have a mini-surrender. I need some Sentimental hygiene"

"They made hypocrite judgments after the fact, But the name of the game is be hit and hit back."

"I woke up this morning and fell out of bed; Trouble waiting to happen. Should've quit while I was ahead; Trouble waiting to happen. I turned on the news to the Third World War, Opened up the paper to World War IV. Just when I thought it was safe to be bored, Trouble waiting to happen."

"When I was young, times were hard. When I got older it was worse."

"I'm very well acquainted with the seven deadly sins I keep a busy schedule trying to fit them in I'm proud to be a glutton and I don't have time for sloth I'm greedy and I'm angry and I don't care who I cross."

"Down in the basement I have a Craftsman lathe. Show it to the children When they misbehave."

"And I'm searching for a heart, Searching everyone. They say love conquers all. You can't start it like a car, You can't stop it with a gun."

"We contemplate eternity Beneath the vast indifference of heaven."

"Life'll kill ya, That's what I said. Life'll kill ya, Then you'll be dead. Life'll find ya Wherever you go. Requiescat in pace That's all she wrote."

"I can saw a woman in two. But you won't want to look in the box when I do"

"You know I hate it when you put your hand inside my head And switch all my priorities around. Why don't you go pick on someone your own size instead?"

"My shit's fucked up. It had to happen to the best of us. The rich folk suffer like the rest of us, It will happen to you."

"Inka dinka doo, a dinka dee, A dinka doo. Oh, what a tune for crooning. Inka dinka doo, a dinka dee A dinka doo. It's got the whole world spooning."

"Don't put no constrictions on da people. Leave 'em ta hell alone."

"That's the conditions that prevail!"

"I'm mortified!"

"Surrounded by assassins!"

"Everybody wants ta get inta da act!"

"I don't know where it's going, but I'm sticking with it!"

"I was hurt so deep that I made up my mind never to hurt anybody else, no matter what. I never made jokes about anybody's big ears, their stut- terin', or about them bein' off their nut."

"Goodnight Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are."

"Politics is developing more comedians than radio ever did."

"Be awful nice to 'em goin' up, because you're gonna meet 'em all comin' down."

"Music isn't enough. Performers aren't enough. There must be someone that loves music as much as life. For you, and remember this always, those of us with something urgent to say, we give everything."

"He was, this smoldering, passionate young pianist, generous, lovable, deeply gentle of heart."

"Few artists have ever battled so manfully with management or so unheitatingly sassed the press. He was afraid of nobody because his heart was pure."

"I felt something impossible for me to explain in words. Then when they took her away, it hit me. I got scared all over again and began to feel giddy. Then it came to me— I was a father.""

"Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark."

"I … started out to become a jazz pianist; in the meantime I started singing and I sang the way I felt and that's just the way it came out."

"I'm a businessman. I work for business people. The kind of thing they say is: Now we've sold a lot of records, let's sell some more."

"I'm a musician at heart, I know I'm not really a singer. I couldn't compete with real singers. But I sing because the public buys it."

"Critics don't buy records. They get 'em free."

"«There's just one thing I can't understand. My income tax!”»."

"A buzzard took the monkey for a ride in the air The monkey thought that everything was on the square The buzzard tried to throw the monkey off his back But the monkey grabbed his neck and said — "Now listen, Jack..." "Straighten up and fly right Straighten up and fly right Straighten up and fly right Cool down, papa, don't you blow your top.""

"The buzzard told the monkey "You're chokin' me Release your hold and I'll set you free" The monkey looked the buzzard right dead in the eye and said "Your story's touching but it sounds like a lie.""

"Oh, I've got news for you Baby, that I've made plans for two I guess I'm just a stubborn kind of fellow Got my mind made up to love you."

"You are my pride and joy And I just love you, little darlin' Like a baby boy loves his toy You've got kisses sweeter than honey And I work every day to give you all I know And that's why you're my pride and joy."

"By the look in your eye I can tell you're gonna cry. Is it over me? If it is, save your tears For I'm not worth it, you see. For I'm the type of boy who is always on the roam, Wherever I lay my hat that's my home, I'm telling you that's my home."

"Mother, mother There's too many of you crying. Brother, brother, brother There's far too many of you dying. You know we've got to find a way To bring some lovin' here today."

"Father, father We don't need to escalate. You see, war is not the answer For only love can conquer hate. You know we've got to find a way To bring some lovin' here today."

"Picket lines and picket signs Don't punish me with brutality Talk to me, so you can see Oh, what's going on What's going on."

"Father, father, everybody thinks we're wrong Oh, but who are they to judge us Simply because our hair is long Oh, you know we've got to find a way To bring some understanding here today."

"Hey baby, what'cha know good? I'm just gettin' back, but you knew I would. War is hell, when will it end? When will people start gettin' together again?"

"I just want to ask a question: Who really cares? To save a world in despair There'll come a time, when the world won't be singin' Flowers won't grow, bells won't be ringin' Who really cares? Who's willing to try to save a world That's destined to die?"

"Woo ah, mercy mercy me. Ah things ain't what they used to be, no no. Where did all the blue skies go?"

"Oh mercy, mercy me. Ah things ain't what they used to be. What about this overcrowded land? How much more abuse from man can she stand? Oh, na na... My sweet Lord... No."

"Rockets, moon shots Spend it on the have nots Money, we make it 'Fore we see it you take it Oh, make you wanna holler The way they do my life Make me wanna holler."

"Crime is increasing Trigger happy policing Panic is spreading God know where we're heading Oh, make me wanna holler They don't understand."

"I've come of heart, baby, but now I'm cool I didn't make it surely, playin' by the rules I've come of heart, baby, but now I'm fine I'm checkin' trouble, sure movin' down the line I've come of heart, baby, but that's OK 'Cause Trouble Man don't get in my way."

"I've been really tryin, baby Tryin to hold back these feelings for so long And if you feel, like I feel baby Come on, oh come on, Let's get it on."

"Stop beatin round the bush, Let's get it on."

"Oh, If I should die tonight Oh baby, though it be far before my time I won't die blue, sugar yeah 'Cause I've known you."

"Oooh, oh, how many eyes Have seen their dream? Oh, how many arms Have felt their dream? How many hearts, baby... Have felt their world stand still?"

"Won't you rather make love, children As opposed to war, like you know you should?"

"Ooo remember, baby, how you made me feel just like a king? Ah, I've been waiting I'm ready for you to start doin' the things So I'll know you're mine. You're so fine, so petite, oh candy sweet. Ah, I've been waiting. Come here, baby, get to this."

"Distant lover, ooo, sugar How can you treat my heart so mean and cruel? Didn't you know, sugar, that I dream Of what I spent with you? I treasure it like it was a precious jewel, oh baby. Lord have mercy!"

"Ooh, baby let's get down tonight Baby I'm hot just like an oven I need some lovin' And baby, I can't hold it much longer It's getting stronger and stronger And when I get that feeling I want Sexual Healing. Sexual Healing, baby Makes me feel so fine Helps to relieve my mind. Sexual Healing baby, is good for me Sexual Healing is something that's good for me."

"Get up, Get up, Get up, Get up, let's make love tonight Wake up, Wake up, Wake up, Wake up, 'cos you do it right."

"My baby ohhh Come take control, just grab a hold Of my body and mind; soon we'll be making it Honey, oh we're feeling fine You're my medicine. Open up and let me in. Darling, you're so great; I can't wait for you to operate."

"There's a poem in I Am Becoming ["Invoke Mercy Extraordinary"] - it's about Marvin Gaye because I love his music and I think there was an extraordinary pull in him between the flesh and the spirit. These two things operated in him very strongly. He has a record called 'What's Going On' which is a most loving piece of work - the concern for humanity, the earth and ecology - it was such an incredibly beautiful piece; it was levitating; it was going to incredible heights. I think if he had continued in that direction he would have ended monastery or on a hill by himself. But always that pull between the flesh and the spirit, that fight."

"It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)."

"I think of music sometimes in terms of color [...] and [in a furnace] I like to see the flames licking yellow in the dark and then pulsing down to a kind of red glow."

"[Sights enabling musical inspiration] The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician [...] Things like the old folks singing in the moonlight in the back yard on a hot night, or something someone said long ago. I remember I once wrote a sixty-four-bar piece about a memory of when I was a little boy in bed and heard a man whistling on the street outside, his footsteps echoing away. Things like these may be more important to a musician than technique."

"As Bach says [...] if you ain't got a left hand, you ain't worth a hoot in hell."

"[Expressing a liking for trains] Folks can't rush you until you get off."

"You can't write music right [...] until you know how the man that'll play it plays poker."

"[Y]ou've got to write with certain men in mind. You write just for their abilities and natural tendencies and give them places where they do their best—certain entrances and background stuff. You got to know each man to know what he'll react well to. One guy likes very simple ornamentation; another guy likes ornamentation better than the theme because it gives him a feeling of being a second mind. Every musician has his favorite licks and you gotta write to them."

"I know what sounds well on a trombone and I know what sounds well on a trumpet and they are not the same. [...] I know what Tricky Sam can play on a trombone and I know what Lawrence Brown can play on a trombone and they are not the same either."

"My band is my instrument more than the piano."

"Playing "Bop" is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing."

"[Asked about the vogue for Rock 'n' Roll and calypso] [N]o matter what you call it, music is as good as it sounds. Music is an oral art. Until you hear it, it is not music and if it sounds good it is good."

"The piano players were very important in the early days, and the great piano players were always on the East Coast; there never was anybody in the West who could play two notes. (By West I mean ; in those days there was no other West to speak of, west of that.) , who was mainly a writer and had more music published than anyone else, played piano like one of those high school teachers in Washington; as a matter of fact, high school teachers played better jazz. Among other things, his rhythm was unsteady; but that's the kind of piano the West was geared up to. On the other hand, the piano players on the East Coast did the most impossible things. If you dig up the early piano rolls or records by , you will hear the most beautiful and perfect performances. was a giant of those days, too. It is one of my great regrets that when the Lion used to come up to my house I didn't have a recording machine so that I could preserve some of those early performances of his."

"It's like an act of murder; you play with intent to commit something."

"There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind ... the only yardstick by which the result should be judged is simply that of how it sounds. If it sounds good it's successful; if it doesn't it has failed."

"Every man prays in his own language."

"How can anyone expect to be understood unless he presents his thoughts with complete honesty? This situation is unfair because it asks too much of the world. In effect, we say, "I don't dare show you what I am because I don't trust you for a minute but please love me anyway because I so need you to. And, of course, if you don't love me anyway, you're a dirty dog, just as I suspected, so I was right in the first place." Yet, every time God's children have thrown away fear in pursuit of honesty-trying to communicate themselves, understood or not, miracles have happened."

"Fate is being kind to me. [...] Fate doesn’t want me to be too famous too young."

"[Asked about his "fate doesn’t want me to be too famous too young" comment] What else could I have said? [...] In the first place, I never do give any thought to prizes. I work and I write, and that's it. My reward is hearing what I have done, and unlike most composers, I can hear it immediately. That's why I keep these expensive gentlemen with me. And secondly, I'm hardly surprised that my kind of music is still without, let us say, official honor at home. Most Americans still take it for granted that European music–classical music, if you will–is the only really respectable kind. I remember, for example when Franklin Roosevelt died, practically no American music was played on the air in tribute to him. We were given a dispensation, I must admit. We did one radio program dedicated to him. But by and large, then as now, jazz was the kind of man you wouldn't want your daughter to associate with. The word 'jazz' has been part of the problem [...] It never lost its association with those New Orleans bordellos. In the nineteen-twenties, I used to try to convince Fletcher Henderson that we ought to call what we were doing "negro music". But it's too late for that now. The music has become so integrated you can't tell one part from the other as far as color is concerned. Well, I don't have time time to worry about it. I've got too much music on my mind."

"Roaming through the jungle of "oohs" and "ahs," searching for a more agreeable noise, I live a life of primitivity with the mind of a child and an unquenchable thirst for sharps and flats."

"Louis Armstrong was on J-and never got off his J-never, never stopped. I mean for all intents and purposes, died with his trumpet in his hand. So did Duke Ellington, all those people who inspire one, who inspire me. Duke was still going on the road right up till the last. Louis Armstrong still on the road till the very last. I appreciate that, I respect it and I am grateful for it. I am grateful, in the name of my grandson I am grateful."

"Of course anything that Duke does I like. He just seems to have a sixth sense about things turning out so good ... But I especially like the marriage between strings and what he did with the band. He didn't confine the strings to just whole notes and half notes, which most guys do, but he gave them little pizzicato things and little staccato things in there, which works out beautifully ...."

"Well, that's about the quintessence of slick, professional, expert, boring arrangement. I couldn't say offhand who it was. As I say, I haven't heard jazz for a year. I found it dull—the last word in polish and professionality [sic]—but dull."

"That's wild! I'll start off with five stars and work backwards from there. Now there, to me, is the most perfect band in existence, whether you're thinking of it orchestrationally or in terms of Duke's immensely creative writing. I can't think of anybody I admire more than this man; nobody could even be compared with him, except Billy Strayhorn. Duke does something with this old, tired instrumentation of trumpets, trombones and saxophones, and he has a perfect way of utilizing the men's specific sounds. Anything he plays is a work of art. The band is out of tune, for instance, and it doesn't even matter. They almost have their own brand of intonation. Duke can take an exotic-sounding idea and create something – you might call it sophisticated crudity. It gives both the qualities that I look for – an earthy quality and the sophisticated quality."

"Since jazz is usually celebrated as an improvisor’s art, it may seem paradoxical that one of its major figures was a composer. Though Duke Ellington was a notable pianist, he declared, ‘My band is my instrument,’ and for over half a century he made it the medium of a peerless body of work. For Ellington, composition was never an abstract process, but a direct response to people and situations. He once said, ‘I see something and want to make a tone parallel,’ and the titles of his works are a catalogue of incidents, encounters and atmospheres. ‘Haunted Nights’, ‘The Mooche’, ‘Daybreak Express’, ‘Black, Brown and Beige’ – every Ellington piece enshrines a life in motion, pursued with spontaneity. And Ellington’s lifelong companions were the members of his band – among them the gutbucket growls of trumpeters Bubber Miley and Cootie Williams, the arching sensuousness of altoist Johnny Hodges and the rumbling majesty of Harry Carney’s baritone. As individual and sometimes contrary a set of virtuosos as ever shared a bandstand, he composed with these sounds and personalities in his head, writing specifically for them. And they provided the raw material for his astonishing originality in harmony and orchestration. To many, Ellington may have been known for such lush popular hits as ‘Sophisticated Lady’, but his colleagues recognised an attainment of another order. As Miles Davis put it, ‘Some day all the jazz musicians should get together in one place and go down on their knees and thank Duke.’"

"Interesting pianist, but I think he is just a little bit meshuga."

"Perfection itself is imperfection."

"Of the Russian pianists I like only one, Richter. Gilels did some things well, but I did not like his mannerisms, the way he moved around while he was playing."

"I was impressed mostly by Gieseking [Horowitz said in 1987]. He had a finished style, played with elegance, and had a fine musical mind."

"I heard Edwin Fischer, who did not mean much to me. I heard another pianist in Berlin who had a big success and I thought he was awful — Mischa Levitzki. Just fingers, and you cannot listen only to fingers. There is a difference between artist and artisan. Levitzki was an artisan. But Ignaz Friedman, who I admired, was a great artist. He had wonderful fingers and a very personal, individual way of playing, even if some of his ideas were very strange to me. He had no hesitation touching up the music. I got annoyed with him at one concert when he changed the basses in Chopin's F minor Ballade. I didn't like that. For some reason he was happier making records than he was on the stage."

"I liked him [Arthur Rubinstein] as a pianist. He was a good musician and had a fantastic repertoire. He never had a great technique, but certain things he played well. I heard him play some of the Chopin etudes, the easier ones with great panache and I told him I had never heard them played better. He said, "Do you mean it?" and I said, "Yes, I do mean it.""

"there are three kinds of pianists: Jewish pianists, homosexual pianists, and bad pianists."

"I don’t believe that about his Chopin, actually. I think his Chopin was extraordinarily perceptive and terribly personal. ... On the criticism of Horowitz’ Chopin, I haven’t heard that myself, but I think that comes down to taste."

"Nearly five years have passed since I had the opportunity to admire this magician of the keyboard. My impatience to hear him again was shared by the public, who actually assaulted the doors of the great Salle Pleyel in order to attend the Horowitz recital. I expected to hear the 'demonic' virtuoso who amazed the world at his debut. Instead I found him transformed-but not for the better. He still remains the same extraordinary pianist, but I had the impression-and I hope I am not the only one-that Horowitz is trying a tout prix to 'purify' his interpretations, to strip them of anything approaching artificiality. Yet, he accomplished this in such a way as to produce the contrary effect: his playing becomes mechanical and deadly artificial!"

"No pianist, it is unnecessary to say, has an all-embracing culture. Like any other, Horowitz has had his specialties. Most professionals would agree that Horowitz played Rachmaninoff, Liszt, Scriabin and Prokofieff with more flair than any pianist of his time. And one of the curious things about this extraordinary technician was that he had a surprising affinity for the miniatures of the repertoire. Scarlatti; Chopin mazurkas and waltzes; isolated pieces by Schumann; salon music by Moszkowski — these he played with grace, charm and unaffected simplicity. In the larger Beethoven, Schumann and Chopin works, he sometimes would become too engrossed in detail, and at those moments his playing could sound disconnected. At times, too, the nervous intensity with which he approached music could be unsettling. Inner repose was lacking. Yet he could turn around and play Schumann's Arabesque in a calm, rippling, spacious manner, or sing out the last movement of the C major Fantasy with with wide-arched lines and a luminous quality of tone. A paradoxical and fearsome pianist."

"I don't expect people who listen to Emerson, Lake, and Palmer to come hear me. I accept that reality."

"Sometimes when it goes really well, you wonder, "who's that at the piano?""

"You practice so you can invent. Discipline? No. The joy of practicing leads you to the celebration of the creation."

"To feel is the most terrifying thing in this society."

"Even listeners who dispute Cecil Taylor’s jazz credentials wouldn’t deny his creative intensity. They’d just protest that his furious, free-form piano improvisations, pummelling the keyboard with fingers, fists and forearms, bearing no relation to metre or melody and often lasting well over an hour, belong to the European avant-garde, not African-American tradition. But Taylor himself has always disagreed. Though conservatory-trained and possessing a virtuoso technique, he regards jazz as black music, his way, he once said, ‘of holding on to Negro culture’. His fascination with the rhythmic and harmonic abstractions of Stravinsky and Bartók, Dave Brubeck and Lennie Tristano gave way to the potency of African-American pianists: Ellington, Monk, Horace Silver. Revelling in what he called ‘the physicality, the filth, the movement in the attack’, the young Taylor made it his own. He viewed the piano as percussive – ‘88 tuned drums’, his style an amalgam he dubbed ‘rhythm-sound-energy’. His ultimate inspiration was the very force of nature: ‘music is as close as I can become to a mountain, tree or river’. Though that kind of mysticism may seem a long way from blues and swing, Taylor’s work has its own intoxication."

"In 1964 I was in Paris ... [in] a bar (I think it was the Blue Note) where there was a very drunk man sitting peacefully alone, when to my surprise someone led him (drink in hand) to the piano. I groaned at the thought of what was going to be inflicted on us. He took a large swig, and then played some of the most beautiful, fluent jazz I have ever heard. After half an hour he was helped back to his table where he slumped with his drink. It was Bud Powell."

"He was the foundation out of which stemmed the whole edifice of modern jazz piano; every jazz pianist since Bud either came through him or is deliberately attempting to get away from playing like him."

"All too often, the begetters of bebop confirmed F. Scott Fitzgerald's dictum that there are no second acts in American lives. Many, such as Charlie Parker, died young, burned out by the music’s drug-ridden lifestyle. But the fate of Bud Powell, who had as revolutionary an impact on the piano as Parker did on the saxophone, may be more poignant. A shy, reclusive personality, Powell's career was blighted by a police beating, periods in mental institutions, alcoholism and TB. During his last decade, his playing veered between flickers of brilliance and painful, fumbling approximation, until his death in 1966 aged 41. There wasn't a single jazz pianist who didn't bear the imprint of his fiery creativity. He set both the terms for the modern keyboard style and, in his heyday, an almost terrifying standard of performance. A Powell piano solo wasn't so much played as unleashed, its momentum combining dazzling imagination and uncanny technical lucidity. His up-tempo feats were astonishing, as his right hand sent lines spinning over the keyboard, with riffs and bursts of melody punctuated by his left. That non-stop linear virtuosity became the hallmark of bebop piano, but what made him unique was his variety of accent and nuance. This was no mechanical stream of quavers, but a torrent of ideas – accompanied by the pianist’s groans, as if reflecting the intensity of his inspiration."

"It certainly will be if you are still around."

"Tell me, George, if you had it to do all over, would you fall in love with yourself again?"

"It would have been better if you had died and Gershwin had written the elegy."

"A symphonic conductor should reconcile himself to the realization that, regardless of his approach or temperament, the eventual result is the same — the orchestra will hate him."

"I would like to have been present, if I could have my choice of all moments in music history, when Stokowski suddenly became conscious of his beautiful hands. That must have been a moment. Like stout Cortez [sic] on a peak in Darien (I know it was Balboa) he saw before him a limitless expanse, a whole uncharted sea that might be subjected to his influence, free from the encumbrance of a baton."

"He never asks the orchestra to do anything which contradicts the players' feeling of what the music signifies or what the printed notes of the score actually mean in plain musical language. To his credit he does not pretend to omniscience. When a certain progression of programs with the Philharmonic decreed that he conduct the Brahms Fourth Symphony two seasons ago, he disavowed intensive rehearsals with the simple statement to the orchestra: "Gentlemen, you know the work better than I do." Both the compliment and the attitude endeared themselves so much to the orchestra that they literally forgot themselves in a mass effort to justify his statement—and, as one of those who heard the performance, I can testify that they delivered one of the most powerful and integrated interpretations of the score that New York has experienced in years."

"Incompatibility. And besides, I think she hated me."

"This piano plays. Which is more than I can say for her."

"It's not a pretty face, I grant you. But underneath its flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character."

"The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue."

"I don't drink liquor. I don't like it. It makes me feel good."

"I'm a study of a man in chaos in search of frenzy."

"There is a thin line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line."

"Strip away the phony tinsel of Hollywood and you will find the real tinsel underneath."

"My last picture for Warners was Romance on the High Seas. It was Doris Day's first picture; that was before she became a virgin."

"I once said cynically of a politician, "He'll double-cross that bridge when he comes to it.""

"An epigram is only a wisecrack that's played at Carnegie Hall."

"I heartily approve of her campaign to beautify America. It would be greatly improved if the First Family were kept out of sight."

"Zsa Zsa Gabor not only worships at The Golden Calf, she insists on barbecuing it for lunch."

"Ballet is the fairies' baseball."

"The difference between the Republicans and the Democrats is that the Democrats let the poor be corrupt, too."

"John O'Hara was a terrible bore as a young man—always looking for a fight, and making sure he never found one."

"Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember."

"He writes the kind of music you whistle on the way into the theater."

"If George is around, it will."

"It's an advantage having a limited output. When George Gershwin is asked to play his repertoire, he plays all evening. I just play "Lady Play Your Mandolin" and I'm through."

"I envy people who drink — at least they know what to blame everything on."

"What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left."

"I am no more humble than my talents require."

"I have given up reading books; I find it takes my mind off myself."

"I was once thrown out of a mental hospital for depressing the other patients."

"Once he makes up his mind, he's full of indecision."

"Now that Marilyn Monroe is kosher, Arthur Miller can eat her."

"The other night my daughter Lorna reminisced about the time I regressed to complete infantilism. We were having dinner and tapioca pudding was served. A wild glint came into my eyes and in the presence of my wife and children I shrieked at the top of my voice, “I love this more than anything in the world!” I had to be withdrawn from tapioca pudding slowly. It was one of the few times I wasn’t committed to achieve withdrawal."

"When I used to speak of the lunatic fringe, I didn’t know I was going to be head of it."

"Apropos of nothing, I asked [Truman] Capote, “Are you for integration?” He said, “Yes, are you for integration?” I said, “I’m for disintegration… personal disintegration.”"

"I rated the drug Demerol over sex as the ultimate pleasure at one time. Now I don’t have access to either."

"As a rule I never read bad reviews about myself because my best friends invariably tell me about them."

"A psychiatrist once diagnosed my troubles as “an abdication of will.”"

"Instant unconsciousness had been my greatest passion for ten years."

"I have seizures of momentary sanity."

"In the middle and late 50′s I was in hospitals constantly. I was committed every time I drew a breath or took an extra twelve pills–which never affected me much because I’m not suicidal."

"When I was in my prime, I was an egomaniac and didn’t allow my wife to buy the best sardines–the King Oscars–which bear my name. I felt there should be only one king in my house."

"[Ira Gershwin] said that [P.G.] Wodehouse will address a letter, stamp it and throw it out of his third-story window onto the street trusting in the good nature of passerby to pick it up and mail it."

"The book should be a happy introduction to a character who, if he did not exist, could not be imagined."

"Oscar would have been here at the head table—but he was feeling well."

"I was fond of Oscar, but there was something about our twin natures which made us exchange insults. I told him that I wanted to make a date with him every day so that I would know where he was and could avoid the place."

"I was on Information Please with him and afterward there was a party and idly Oscar sat down at the piano and began to play. I remember how the conversation hushed in the crowded room. The waiters stopped serving and stood, silently listening. Yet, on this TV show, he seems almost a buffoon, as if he is deliberately mocking himself, drawing a caricature of the old Levant."

"I can see him to this day. He was witty and funny, always playing himself in the movies. He smoked so many cigarettes, there was a nicotine streak on his upper lip and on his fingers between the index finger and the second one. He was a wonderful guy—but he played the piano like a sledgehammer."

"It is not always possible to predict the response of a doting Jewish mother. Witness the occasion on which the late piano virtuoso Oscar Levant telephoned his mother with some important news. He had proposed to his beloved and been accepted. Replied Mother Levant: “Good, Oscar, I’m happy to hear it. But did you practice today?”"

"About his neuroses and hypochondria, the 1920s and 1930s wit Alexander Woollcott, a member of the Algonquin Round Table, once said of him: "There isn't anything the matter with Levant that a few miracles wouldn't cure.""

"Don't take any shit from anybody!"

"And in truth, of course, I'm not just 60 - I'm twelve, I'm 23, I'm 37, I'm 42, I'm 18. I'm every age I've ever been. Depending on what day of the week it is and what the situation calls for at the moment."

"She's got a way about her I don't know what it is. But I know that I can't live without her. She's got a way of pleasin' I don't know what it is But there doesn't have to be a reason anyway."

"She comes to me when I'm feelin' down Inspires me without a sound She touches me and I get turned around."

"You can walk away from your mistakes You can turn your back on what you do Just a little smile is all it takes And you can have your cake and eat it too. Loneliness will get to you somehow But ev'rybody loves you now."

"It's nine o' clock on a Saturday Regular crowd shuffles in There's an old man sitting next to me Making love to his tonic and gin."

"Sing us a song you're the piano man Sing us a song tonight. Well we're all in the mood for a melody And you've got us feeling alright."

"And the waitress is practicing politics As the businessmen slowly get stoned Yes they're sharing a drink they call loneliness But it's better than drinking alone."

"If I traveled all my life And I never get to stop and settle down Long as I have you by my side There's a roof above and good walls all around You're my castle, you're my cabin and my instant pleasure dome I need you in my house 'cause you're my home."

"From a town known as Wheeling, West Virginia Rode a boy with a six-gun in his hand And his daring life of crime made him a legend in his time East and west of the Rio Grande. Well, he started with a bank in Colorado In the pocket of his vest a Colt he hid. And his age and his size took the teller by surprise, And the word spread of Billy the Kid."

"So you play your albums and you smoke your pot And you meet your girlfriend in the parking lot Oh, but still you're aching for the things you haven't got, What went wrong? And if you can't understand why your world is so dead And why you've got to keep in style and feed your head Well, you're twenty one and still you mother makes your bed And that's too long."

"Streetlife serenaders Have no obligations Hold no grand illusions Need no stimulation."

"Hiding up in the mountains Laying low in the canyons Goin' nowhere in the streets With the Spanish names Makin' love with the natives In their Hollywood places Making up for all the time gone by Los Angelenos All came from somewhere."

"I am the entertainer and I know just where I stand Another serenader and another long haired band Today I am your champion, I may have won your hearts, But I know the game, you'll forget my name, And I won't be here in another year If I don't stay on the charts."

"I am the entertainer, I've come to do my show You've heard my latest record, it's been on the radio It took me years to write it, they were the best years of my life It was a beautiful song but it ran too long If you're gonna have a hit you gotta make it fit So they cut it down to 3:05."

"I am the entertainer, the idol of my age I make all kinds of money when I go on the stage You see me in the papers, I've been in the magazines But if I go cold, I won't get sold I get put in the back in the discount rack Like another can of beans."

"So many faces in and out of my life Some will last Some will be just now and then. Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes I'm afraid it's time for goodbye again. Say goodbye to Hollywood Say goodbye my baby Say goodbye to Hollywood Say goodbye my baby."

"Now we are forced to recognize our inhumanity Our reason coexists with our insanity And though we choose between reality and madness It's either sadness or euphoria."

"Some folks like to get away Take a holiday from the neighborhood. Hop a flight to Miami Beach Or to Hollywood But I'm talking a Greyhound On the Hudson River Line. I'm in a New York state of mind."

"It was so easy living day by day Out of touch with the rhythm and blues But now I need a little give and take The New York Times, The Daily News."

"There's a place in the world for the angry young man With his working class ties and his radical plans He refuses to bend he refuses to crawl And he's always at home with his back to the wall And he's proud of his scars and the battles he's lost And struggles and bleeds as he hangs on his cross And likes to be known as the angry young man."

"I believe I've passed the age of consciousness and righteous rage I found that just surviving was a noble fight I once believed in causes too I had my pointless point of view And life went on no matter who was wrong or right."

"So before we end and then begin We'll drink a toast to how it's been A few more hours to be complete A few more nights on satin sheets A few more times that I can say I've loved these days."

"Seen the lights go out Broadway I saw the Empire State laid low And life went on beyond the Palisades They all bought Cadillacs And left there long ago."

"You know those lights were bright on Broadway That was so many years ago Before we all lived here in Florida Before the Mafia took over Mexico. There are not many who remember They say a handful still survive To tell the world about The way the lights went out And keep the memory alive."

"It seems such a waste of time If that's what it's all about If that's movin' up then I'm movin' out."

"Well, we all fall in love But we disregard the danger Though we share so many secrets There are some we never tell. Why were you so surprised That you never saw the stranger? Did you ever let your lover see The stranger in yourself?"

"I don't want clever conversation I never want to work that hard. I just want someone that I can talk to I want you just the way you are. I need to know that you will always be The same old someone that I knew What will it take till you believe in me The way that I believe in you."

"I remember those days hanging out At the village green Engineer boots, leather jackets And tight blue jeans Drop a dime in the box play the Song about New Orleans Cold beer, hot lights My sweet romantic teenage nights."

"Brenda and Eddie were the popular steadies And the king and the queen of the prom Riding around with the car top down and the radio on Nobody looked any finer Or was more of a hit at the Parkway Diner We never knew we could want more than that out of life Surely Brenda and Eddie would always know how to survive."

"Brenda and Eddie had had it already By the summer of '75 From the high to the low To the end of the show For the rest of their lives. They couldn't go back to the greasers. The best they could do was pick up the pieces. We always knew they would both find a way to get by. That's all I heard about Brenda and Eddie. Can't tell you more than I told you already. And here we are wavin' Brenda and Eddie goodbye."

"But you know you can't always see when you're right You got your passion you got your pride But don't you know only fools are satisfied? Dream on, but don't imagine they'll all come true When will you realize Vienna waits for you?"

"You might have heard I run with a dangerous crowd We ain't too pretty we ain't too proud We might be laughing a bit too loud But that never hurt no one. Come on Virginia show me a sign Send up a signal I'll throw you the line. The stained-glass curtain you're hiding behind Never lets in the sun. And only the good die young."

"They say there's a heaven for those who will wait Some say it's better but I say it ain't. I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints Sinners are much more fun... And only the good die young."

"She can kill with a smile She can wound with her eyes She can ruin your faith with her casual lies And she only reveals what she wants you to see She hides like a child But she's always a woman to me."

"Oh, she takes care of herself She can wait if she wants She's ahead of her time Oh, and she never gives out And she never gives in She just changes her mind."

"Because you had to be a big shot, didn't you You had to open up your mouth You had to be a big shot, didn't you All your friends were so knocked out You had to have the last word, last night You know what everything's about You had to have a white hot spotlight You had to be a big shot last night."

"Honesty is such a lonely word Everyone is so untrue Honesty is hardly ever heard And mostly what I need from you."

"I can always find someone To say they sympathize If I wear my heart out on my sleeve. But I don't want some pretty face To tell me pretty lies. All I want is someone to believe."

"I don't need you to worry for me cause I'm alright. I don't want you to tell me it's time to come home. I don't care what you say anymore, this is my life. Go ahead with your own life and leave me alone."

"I never said you had to offer me a second chance. I never said I was a victim of circumstance. I still belong, don't get me wrong. And you can speak your mind But not on my time."

"They will tell you, you can't sleep alone in strange place. Then they'll tell you, you can't sleep with somebody else. Ah, but sooner or later you sleep in your own space. Either way, it's okay, you wake with yourself."

"Now think of all the years you tried to Find someone to satisfy you. I might be as crazy as you say. If I'm crazy then it's true That it's all because of you And you wouldn't want me any other way. You may be right I may be crazy. But it just may be a lunatic you're looking for. It's too late to fight It's too late to change me. You may be wrong for all I know But you may be right."

"It's just a fantasy It's not the real thing It's just a fantasy It's not the real thing. But sometimes a fantasy Is all you need."

"All your life you had to stand in line Still you’re standing on your feet. All your choices made you change your mind Now your calendar's complete. Don't wait for answers Just take your chances Don't ask me why."

"Yesterday you were an only child Now your ghosts have gone away. You can kill them in the classic style. Now you, "parlez vous francais" Don't look for answers You took your chances Don't ask my why."

"What's the matter with the crowd I'm seeing? "Don't you know that they're out of touch?" Should I try to be a straight 'A' student? "If you are then you think too much. Don't you know about the new fashion honey? All you need are looks and a whole lotta money." It's the next phase, new wave , dance craze, anyways It's still rock and roll to me. Everybody's talkin' 'bout the new sound Funny, but it's still rock and roll to me."

"Every child had a pretty good shot To get at least as far as their old man got But something happened on the way to that place They threw an American flag in our face."

"Well I'm living here in Allentown And it's hard to keep a good man down But I won't be getting up today."

"You have to learn to pace yourself. Pressure. You're just like everybody else. Pressure. You've only had to run so far, So good. But you will come to a place Where the only thing you feel Are loaded guns in your face. And you'll have to deal with Pressure."

"We held the coastline They held the highlands And they were sharp As sharp as knives They heard the hum of our motors They counted the rotors And waited for us to arrive. And we would all go down together We said we'd all go down together Yes we would all go down together."

"You don't have to start a fight I'm a man who can't say no If you've got a little risky business Just point me where you want to go Take me to the power Take me to the heat Take me to the cleaners If it's open to the street Something's got to pay off Something's got to break Someone's got a fortune that they're begging Me to take."

"Some people stay far away from the door If there's a chance of it opening up They hear a voice in the hall outside And hope that it just passes by. Some people live with the fear of a touch And the anger of having been a fool. They will not listen to anyone So nobody tells them a lie."

"Some people hope for a miracle cure Some people just accept the world as it is. But I'm not willing to lay down and die Because I am an innocent man."

"If you said goodbye to me tonight There would still be music left to write. What else could I do? I'm so inspired by you. That hasn't happened for the longest time."

"I don't care what consequence it brings I have been a fool for lesser things. I want you so bad. I think you ought to know that I intend to hold you for The longest time."

"Didn't I say I wasn't ready for romance? Didn't we promise we would only be friends? And so we danced, though it was only a slow dance. I started breaking my promises right there and then.Didn't I swear there would be no complications? Didn't you want someone who's seen it all before? Now that you're here, it's not the same situation, Suddenly, I don't remember the rules anymore.This night is mine. It's only you and I. Tomorrow is a long time away; This night can last forever."

"Listen boy Don't want to see you let a good thing Slip away. You know I don't like watching Anybody make the same mistakes I made. She's a real nice girl And she's always there for you. But a nice girl wouldn't tell you what you should do."

"Tell her about it Tell her everything you feel Give her every reason to accept That you're for real. Tell her about it. Tell her all your crazy dreams. Let her know you need her Let her know how much she means."

"Tell her about it Let her know how much you care When she can't be with you Tell her you wish you were there. Tell her about it. Every day before you leave Pay her some attention Give her something to believe."

"Uptown girl She's been living in her uptown world. I bet she never had a backstreet guy I bet her mama never told her why. I'm gonna try for an uptown girl. She's been living in her white bread world As long as anyone with hot blood can And now she's looking for a downtown man That's what I am."

"I know the moment isn't right To tell the girl a comical line To keep the conversation light I guess I'm just frightened out of my mind. But if that's how I feel Then it's the best feeling I've ever known It's undeniably real Leave a tender moment alone."

"Learned stickball as a formal education. Lost a lot of fights But it taught me how to lose O.K.. Oh, I heard about sex But not enough. I found you could dance And still look tough anyway. Oh yes I did. I found out a man ain't just being macho. Ate an awful lot of late night drive-in food, drank a lot of take home pay. I thought I was the Duke of Earl When I made it with a red-haired girl In the Chevrolet."

"You can get just so much From a good thing. You can linger too long In your dreams. Say goodbye to the Oldies but goodies. You know the good ole days weren't always good, And tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems."

"I told you my reasons For the whole revival. Now I'm going outside to have An ice cold beer in the shade. Oh, I'm going to listen to my 45's. Ain't it wonderful to be alive When the rock 'n' roll plays, yeah. When the memory stays, yeah. I'm keeping the faith. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Keeping the faith."

"You're having a hard time and lately you don't feel so good; You're getting a bad reputation in your neighborhood. It's alright, it's alright; Sometimes that's what it takes. You're only human, you're allowed to make your share of mistakes."

"Don't forget your second wind; Sooner or later you'll get your second wind. It's not always easy to be living in this world of pain. You're gonna be crashing into stone walls again and again. It's alright, it's alright."

"I'm young enough to still see the passionate boy I used to be. But I'm old enough to say I got a good look at the other side. I know we got to work real hard, maybe even for the rest of our lives. But right now I just want to take what I can Get tonight.While the night is still young, I want to keep making love to you, While the night is still young."

"This is the time to remember 'Cause it will not last forever. These are the days to hold on to 'Cause we won't, although we'll want to. This is the time, But time is gonna change. You've given me the best of you But now I need the rest of you."

"Some love is just a lie of the heart The cold remains of what began with a passionate start. And they may not want it to end But it will, it's just a question of when. I've lived long enough to have learned The closer you get to the fire the more you get burned. But that won't happen to us Because it's always been a matter of trust."

"She's got style and she's got her own money So she's not another honey you can quickly disarm She's got the eyes that make you realize She won't be hypnotized by your usual charm. You've got your plan of attack That won't attract the modern woman When you're an old fashioned man She understands the things you're doin' She's a modern woman."

"Late at night When it's dark and cold I reach out For someone to hold When I'm blue When I'm lonely She comes through She's the only one who can My baby grand Is all I need."

"They say that no one's gonna play this on the radio They said the melancholy blues were dead and gone But only songs like these Played in minor keys Keep those memories holding on."

"I'm so romantic I'm such a passionate man Sometimes I panic What if nobody finds out who I am?"

"We didn't start the fire It was always burning Since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire No we didn't light it But we tried to fight it."

"I've got bills to pay and children who need clothes. I know there's fish out there but where God only knows. They say these waters aren't what they used to be. But I've got people back on land who count on me."

"Sometimes I'm tired, sometimes I'm shot. Sometimes I don't know how much more I've got. Maybe I'm headed over the hill Maybe I've set myself up for the kill. Tell me how much do you think you can take Until the heart in you is starting to break? Sometimes it feels like it will."

"Well I'm shameless when it comes to loving you. I'd do anything you want me to I'd do anything at all. And I'm standing here for all the world to see There ain't that much left of me That has very far to fall."

"And so my child and I came to this place To meet him eye to eye and face to face. He made my daughter laugh, then we embraced. We never knew what friends we had Until we came to Leningrad."

"But darling there you go, slipping away into a state of grace Granted, this world is not a perfect place. Still it's the world that I'm in. Here I am talking while you don't hear a word I say. Knowing you're watching me from far away Somewhere that I've never been."

"And every time I've held a rose It seems I only felt the thorns. And so it goes, and so it goes. And so will you soon I suppose."

"I've seen those big machines come rolling through the quiet pines. Blue suits and bankers with their Volvos and their valentines. Give us this day our daily discount outlet merchandise. Raise up a multiplex and we will make a sacrifice. Now we're gonna get the big business. Now we're gonna get the real thing. Everybody's all excited about it."

"Advice is cheap you can take it from me. It's yours to keep 'cause opinions are free. Nobody knows about the trouble I've seen. Nobody's perfect, mister, nobody's clean. It cost too much and takes too long to find out too late. Some words are not heard 'til after they're spoken. Your role was protective, your soul was too defective. Some people just don't have a heart to be broken."

"We could have gone all the way to the Great Wall of China If you'd only had a little more faith in me. In lieu of diamonds, gold and platinum, reminders will still shine bright. All the king's men and all the king's horses Can't put you together the way you used to be. We could have been standing on the Great Wall of China."

"These days there's a million ways To be pulled and torn, to be misdirected. These times there are sins and crimes On the morning shows for the disconnected. I look and I write my book And I walk away with the wrong impressions. I don't care 'cause I've done my share. And I need some time for my own obsessions It doesn't matter, I've let that life go by. It's been forgotten 'cause all I wanted was you."

"Some days I have to give right in to the blues Despite how I try to keep fightin'. It's a sure shot I'm going to lose. And I'll tell you why. You think I'm crazy. It's such a sad composition. But can you blame me For what's been causing my bad disposition? Ain't nothing new with my blue situation And nothing's fine it's just a minor variation."

"Some things were perfectly clear, seen with the vision of youth. No doubts and nothing to fear, I claimed the corner on truth. These days it's harder to say I know what I'm fighting for. My faith is falling away. I'm not that sure anymore. Shades of grey wherever I go The more I find out the less that I know. Black and white is how it should be But shades of grey are the colors I see."

"She waits for me at night, she waits for me in silence. She gives me all her tenderness and takes away my pain. And so far she hasn't run, though I swear she's had her moments. She still believes in miracles while others cry in vain."

"It's all about soul. It's all about faith and a deeper devotion. It's all about soul. 'Cause under the love is a stronger emotion. She's got to be strong 'Cause so many things getting out of control Should drive her away. So why does she stay? It's all about soul."

"Goodnight, my angel Time to close your eyes. And save these questions for another day. I think I know what you've been asking me. I think you know what I've been trying to say. I promised I would never leave you. And you should always know Wherever you may go No matter where you are I never will be far away."

"Goodnight, my angel Now it's time to dream. And dream how wonderful your life will be. Someday your child may cry And if you sing this lullabye Then in your heart There will always be a part of me. Someday we'll all be gone. But lullabyes go on and on... They never die. That's how you And I Will be."

"In the middle of the night I go walking in my sleep Through the valley of fear To a river so deep. And I've been searching for something Taken out of my soul Something I would never lose Something somebody stole."

"Let me show you how to drive me crazy, Let me show you how to make me feel so good, Let me show you how to take me to the edge of the stars and back again. You've gotta show me how to drive you crazy, You've gotta show me all the things you wanna happen to you, We've gotta tell each other everything, we always wanted someone to do."

"It's all we ever wanted And all we'll ever need And now it's slipping through our fingers Faster than the speed of night."

"I have travelled across the universe through the years to find her. Sometimes going all the way is just a start..."

"I've been called over the top. How silly. If you don't go over the top, you can't see what's on the other side."

"The sirens are screaming and the fires are howling Way down in the valley tonight. There's a man in the shadows with a gun in his eye And a blade shining oh so bright. There's evil in the air And there's thunder in the sky And a killer's on the bloodshot streets."

"Oh baby you're the only thing in this whole world That's pure and good and right And wherever you are and wherever you go There's always gonna be some light."

"Like a bat out of Hell I'll be gone when the morning comes. But when the day is done And the sun goes down And the moonlight's shining through Then like a sinner before the gates of heaven I'll come crawling on back to you."

"Nothing ever grows in this rotten old hole And everything is stunted and lost And nothing really rocks and nothing really rolls And nothing's ever worth the cost. And I know that I'm damned if I never get out And maybe I'm damned if I do But with every other beat I got left in my heart You know I'd rather be damned with you."

"Then I'm dying at the bottom of a pit in the blazing sun All torn and twisted at the foot of a burning bike And I think somebody somewhere must be tolling a bell And the last thing I see is my heart, Still beating, Breaking out of my body And flying away Like a bat out of Hell."

"I never had a girl Looking any better than you did And all the kids at school They were wishing they were me that night."

"It never felt so good, it never felt so right And we're glowing like the metal on the edge of a knife."

"Though it's cold and lonely in the deep dark night I can see paradise by the dashboard light."

"Ain't no doubt about it We were doubly blessed Cause we were barely seventeen And we were barely dressed."

"Stop right there! I gotta know right now! Before we go any further — Do you love me? Will you love me forever?"

"Baby, baby let me sleep on it Let me sleep on it And I'll give you my answer in the morning..."

"So now I'm praying for the end of time To hurry up and arrive Cause if I gotta spend another minute with you I don't think that I can really survive. I'll never break my promise or forget my vow But God only knows what I can do right now. I'm praying for the end of time It's all that I can do Praying for the end of time, so I can end my time with you!"

"Every now and then I get a little bit nervous that the best of all the years have gone by. Turn around Every now and then I get a little bit terrified and then I see the look in your eyes. Turn around bright eyes. Every now and then I fall apart."

"I don't know what to do and I'm always in the dark We're living in a powder keg and giving off sparks. I really need you tonight Forever's gonna start tonight Forever's gonna start tonight."

"Once upon a time I was falling in love But now I'm only falling apart There's nothing I can do A total eclipse of the heart Once upon a time there was light in my life But now there's only love in the dark Nothing I can say A total eclipse of the heart."

"I know just how to fake it And I know just how to scheme I know just when to face the truth And then I know just when to dream. And I know just where to touch you And I know just what to prove I know when to pull you closer And I know when to let you loose. And I know the night is fading And I know the time's gonna fly And I'm never gonna tell you everything I gotta tell you But I know I've got to give it a try. And I know the roads to riches And I know the ways to fame I know all the rules and then I know how to break'em And then I always know the name of the game But I don't know how to leave you And I'll never let you fall And I don't know how you do it Making love out of nothing at all."

"Every time I see you, all the rays of the sun Are streaming through the waves in your hair And every star in the sky is taking aim at your eyes Like a spotlight."

"You can take the darkness from the deep of the night And turn it to a beacon burning endlessly bright I gotta follow it 'cause everything I know Well, it's nothing 'till I give it to you."

"I'm never gonna make it without you Do you really wanna see me crawl ? And I'm never gonna make it like you do Making love out of nothing at all."

"The sea is whipping the sky The sky is whipping the sea You can hide away forever from the storm But you'll never hide away from me."

"The icy cold will cut us like a knife in the dark And we may lose everything in the wind But the Northern Lights are burning And they're giving off sparks."

"I know that I'm gonna be like this forever I'm never gonna be what I should And you think that I'll be bad for just a little while But I know that I'll be bad for good."

"For the good of believing in a life after birth For the good of your body so bright For the good of the search for some heaven on earth For the good of one hell of a night, for the good of one hell of a night."

"I'll never forget the way you feel right now — Oh no — no way — I would do anything for love But I won't do that."

"But it was long ago and it was far away, Oh god, it seems so very far. And if life is just a highway Then the soul is just a car.And objects in the rear view mirror may appear closer than they are."

"And we’ll never be as young as we are right now"

"There is a thin line between passion and gas."

"If you ever plan to motor west, Travel my way, take the highway that is best. Get your kicks on route sixty-six."

"If she walks by, the men folks get engrossed, She can't help it, the girl can't help it, If she winks an eye, the bread slice turn to toast, She can't help it, the girl can't help it, If she got a lot, of what they call the most, She can't help it, the girl can't help it."

"Someone’s been eating my porridge said the daddy bear, Someone’s been eating my porridge said the mama bear, Hey Ba-ba Re-bear said the little wee bear someone has broken my chair!"

"You're Still You (lyrics by Linda Thompson)"

"Per Te (lyrics by Josh Groban)"

"I hoped to sell 50,000 records. My main goals were to sing my heart out, to challenge myself vocally, to find beautiful music that has great stories and to express what I love about the musicality of different languages. And if 10 people bought it, I'd be thrilled that 10 people listened to it. And if it was 10 million, I'd be thrilled that 10 million people listened to it. This is just beyond any dream that I could have possibly had.""

"Las Vegas Sun, 08/13/04"

"I've been fascinated by music for as long as I can remember. I was the kid on the playground in the third grade who would tell other kids about Paul Simon or Depeche Mode.""

"First and foremost, I'd like to continue taking risks with my music. Everything I've done so far has been a gut reaction, honest and real. And that's who I am. That's what I want my music to always be -- honest and real.""

"I'm not crossing over from anything. I think of it as pop music with different influences. "When I walk in the music store, [my] album is under classical/pop/easy listening. It's hard to say what genre it is. It's genreless. I try not to define what it is. I let the audience define it. Because for me, it's just me."

"When I make an album I take a lot of risks. I ignore the trends of the moment and one of the things I have to think of when making an album like this is the honesty of it. To connect. It goes against the grain. It's nice to know I can go against the grain."

"I wanted to experiment with that live energy, to push myself a little. It's very much about having intimacy with the music. I love theater - and I love playing in these old theaters. It's not a Vegas stage show. It's very much just me and the music and a five-piece band and a 20-piece string section from each city."

"It's really tough to make a name for yourself without compromising and without fitting yourself into a real specific mold. When I made the choice that I would be involved in every aspect of music and not necessarily make music for radio or MTV, I was saying, 'OK, this is me. You decide who it is.' ""

"I just have to feel it first. It can't be cerebral at all. I'm big on lyrics, a big lyric person, especially the kind of singing I do. It's hard to sound not cheesy sometimes with the voice I have with English songs.""

"I can only say so much about how I feel. Music is what I always turned to when I was feeling a certain way. It's been my reason for everything.""

"I try to have a real close connection with my fans. That's extremely important. They are the ones that have been there from the beginning and proved everyone else wrong.""

"It's a nice feeling. I was not like the popular guy in high school. This is revenge for all the bullies in high school [laughter]. It's a great feeling. Maybe women sometimes are more open to romantic music.""

"My life is an unfinished product, but instead of just saying, 'How do I top what I've accomplished,' I decided I wanted to move forward, express my growth and take a big step into the next chapter.""

"The shower is my time to open up my operatic chops, because of the enormous echo. You sound five times as big in the shower, so I break into some "Nessun Dorma" [from Puccini's Turandot] or Pearl Jam. You've got to go big when you're in the shower. There's no half-singing in the shower, you're either a rock star or an opera diva."

"I don't have a social life right now. I try to -- it's something that I miss -- but David Foster told me: 'The golden microphone is in front of your mouth. You have to sing into it or it will get passed onto someone else.' It's very lonely, what I'm doing. Even though you have a lot of people around you, they're not experiencing it first-hand. It's hard to name more than five close friends. As much as people want to understand, it's hard when you don't see someone for five months at a time, and they're like, 'C'mon, make time.' But I don't have time. My days are gone. There are a lot of firsts for me. And I'm not going to toss it off. It would be silly to say, 'No, I'd rather go see a movie.' I know there will be time for that later."

"I have to work hard to not look like a nerd all the time. My friends are the only people I know that don't care about my image. I need to have people who treat me just as Josh, not as Josh the singer."

"I was the hopeless romantic. I had so many crushes. But not on the real obvious girls. I was into the quirky ones. I was so shy, though."

"No matter what your age and no matter where you come from, everyone can change the world in some way, whether it's being a mentor to someone younger than you or someone that doesn't have as much experience as you. If you're passionate enough, you can do whatever you want and definitely change the world."

"Females are the most beautiful, gorgeous creatures in the whole world. And I think that we are gorgeous no matter what size we are."

"I've never met him. It was mind-blowing. I couldn't quite believe it. He's a person that's seen so many things and been a part of music for so long. For him to give a shit about me is pretty exciting. I like it."

"It feels so good to know that it’s going to go across the country and this cast, let me tell you, is out of control. They’re so good."

"I love, as an artist, bringing my energy to other artists. That’s really a fulfilling feeling. So, I’ll be fairy godmothering. You never know where you’ll see me."

"It’s strange that we don’t think of women as producers like Quincy [Jones] or Dre or [Swizz Beatz], but female producers have always powered the industry: Patrice Rushen, Missy Elliott, Linda Perry, Grimes, Solange, and so many more."

"To live fully is to recognize the beauty of the now, unburdened by the past or future."

"Can give ourselves flowers and roses at any time. The affirmation is embrace your journey. Your body is evolving with you."

"Our beliefs produce emotions that drive our actions. It's true that you get what you believe. Own your strengths and know your value!"

"Like being in the mother brain of soul music. This is absolute artistic fusion from top to bottom, and I don't think there's anyone else in the world that I could do that with right now."

"There's nothing about that girl I don't like."

"Folks say that you've Found someone new To do the things I used to do for you. Just call my name, I'm not ashamed, I'll come running back to you.Can't sleep at night, I can't eat a bite. When you were mine I didn't treat you right. Just call my name, I know, I know I'm not ashamed. I'll come running back to you."

"All day long they work so hard Till the sun is goin' down. Working on the highways and byways And wearing, wearing a frown. You hear them moanin' their lives away. Then you hear somebody say:"That's the sound of the men working on the chain gang. That's the sound of the men working on the chain gang.""

"Cupid draw back your bow And let your arrow go Straight to my lover's heart for me For me... Cupid please hear my cry And let your arrow fly Straight to my lover's heart for me."

"Let me tell you 'bout a place Somewhere up a New York way, Where the people are so gay, Twistin' the night away...Here they have a lot of fun, Puttin' trouble on the run. Man, you find the old and young, Twistin' the night away.They're twistin', twistin' Everybody's feelin' great. They're twistin', twistin' They're twistin' the night away."

"If you ever change your mind About leaving, leaving me behind Baby, bring it to me, bring your sweet lovin' Bring it on home to me Yeah (yeah) yeah (yeah) yeah (yeah)."

"At first I thought it was infatuation But woo, it's lasted so long. Now I find myself wanting To marry you and take you home. Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh.You, you, you, you send me I know you send me I know you send me Honest you do."

"It's summertime and the living is easy Fish are jumping and the cotton is high Your daddy's rich and your mama's good-looking Hush, little baby don't you cry."

"Don't know much about history, Don't know much Biology. Don't know much about a science book, Don't know much about the French I took. But I do know that I love you, And I know that if you love me, too, What a wonderful world this would be."

"Oh my baby's coming home tomorrow Ain't that good news, man, ain't that news? Baby's coming home tomorrow Ain't that news, man, ain't that news?"

"Yeah, come on & let the good times roll We're gonna stay here till we soothe our souls. If it take all night long."

"Another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody, I have some money 'cause I just got paid. How I wish I had someone to talk to, I'm in an awful way."

"I was born by the river In a little tent. And just like the river, I've been running ever since.It's been a long, long time coming But I know a change is gonna come. Oh, yes it is."

"The moon belongs to everyone The best things in life they're free Stars belong to everyone They cling there for you and for me."

"Well there is a lot of great music out there but sometimes you have to dig a little deeper to find it."

"Saw my reflection, covered in glass. How It reminds me of you."

"Don't say nothing bout the old house. Cos I burned it to the ground. And when the darkness comes, I lie awake. Playing lost and found"

"When he comes around. Do not tell him nothing. Do not make a sound. Cos if he knows we're there he might tear his heart out. And beat us to death with it."

"I was alone, only ‘til you took me away. Waiting for a bottle of truth, I’m just a lonely guy in my youth."

"Hey don't lock and turn away, lose your life today and follow me into the alleyway."

"We were passers on the street, I never thought we'd meet until I said, "How do you do, my love?"

"You know you’re the best thing ever To come out of this place ~ "Strange Condition""

"And it’s a strange condition, And life in prison, It’s got me outta my head And I don’t know what I came for. ~ "Strange Condition""

"So she won’t sleep better alone, And he won’t sleep better alone, No they won’t feel better alone. ~ "Sleep Better""

"Don’t try, don’t try, Don’t try you’ll never win, And you can never be him. ~ "Sleep Better""

"On the street. I was talking to you and you found something better to do. ~ "Carlos (Don't Let It Go To Your Head)"

"And when you're with yourself, oh don't let it go to your head. ~ "Carlos (Don't Let It Go To Your Head)"

"I’m taking what I gave to you again. ~ "EZ""

"It was easy when you were younger, you can put it back together, it was there if you ever wanted it but you closed the door and said goodbye for good. ~ "EZ""

"Can we begin again? Save it for another friend, I was happy in my life I won’t pretend. ~ "EZ""

"I made up that story to change your mind. I could have been somebody else but now I'm me this time. "Intro (Day I Forgot Album)""

"In your life, you can talk about it. Oh in your life, you can live without. Can live without. ~ "Come Back Home""

"Say my name before you disappear. I always thought that you could handle this. ~ "Come Back Home""

"And you know you're hard enough. And you find you're strong enough. Oh yeah you'll find you're hard enough. Oh yeah you'll find you're strong enough. ~ "Come Back Home""

"There was a time. She could never see him and her fault was to always need him."

"And he says “I know about your man” ...and their hearts will broken if you can't decide between them."

"And it's the same sad song coming back again. The same old song, flows back again. ~ "So Much Work""

"It's a lie in the end, you only satisfy your friends. ~ "So Much Work""

"You don't have to walk alone. ~ "So Much Work""

"So I sold the town away, I couldn’t wait to forget you, I was killed in half a day, I hadn’t time to regret you, ~ "Life On A Chain""

"And I was waiting over here for life to begin, I was looking for the new thing And you were the sunshine heading my front line. I was alone you, were just around the corner from me. ~ "Life On A Chain""

"So why'd you say those words to him. If you could start over again. ~ "When You See The Light""

"You will remember (you WILL remember!) Where you could go (you WILL remember!) When you would go Away. ~ "When You See The Light""

"And when you said I could not stay with you. That's not the way you would have wanted to be. ~ "For Nancy ('Cos It Already Is)""

"Convince yourself that everything is alright. 'Cos it already is. ~ "For Nancy ('Cos It Already Is)""

"So take your lessons hard and stay with him. And when your car crash comes, don't be misled. ~ "For Nancy ('Cos It Already Is)""

"You come back and you don't tell the truth to me, no more. ~ "Committed""

"Once you make your plan you follow it just right. ~ "Committed""

"When you come back from your escape. Then I could follow you to hell. ~ "Committed""

"If you hadn’t gone tomorrow, You could have stayed on ‘til June. ~ "June""

"I’m old enough to feel the way I do. And I know that you are true, it’s just a part of my genes. ~ "June""

"And you have stayed, A mile away from me, And you will stay a mile away from me. If you know what’s good for you, You could have stayed until June. ~ "June""

"When I can’t stand. Up in this cage I’m not regretting. ~ "Lose You""

"I don’t need a better thing. I’d settle for less. It’s another thing for me. I just have to wander through this world. Alone. ~ "Lose You""

"'Cause I’m gonna lose you. Yes, I’m gonna lose you. If I’m gonna lose you. I’ll lose you now for good. ~ "Lose You""

"Come on over tonight. Come on over this morning. Momma says, “You only fall in love once.” ~ "Burrito""

"And you think you know that they'll always be there. You never had the time. I want you to be fine. ~ "Burrito""

"Oh Billie I want you so, I'm trying to meet you. Too many things they don’t know, too many repeatings, of beatings. ~ "Closet""

"And he won’t follow. These lines he’s drawn for him and he don’t want to try. Seeing is believing Lord knows what he sees here every night. ~ "Murray""

"And we both know. That people change. When truth’s not part of their lives. I’ve seen the love in their eyes. Don’t say goodbye. Goodbye. ~ "Murray""

"Stay around for me. Out do everyone. Sometimes I catch them. Stay around for me."

"I want you. I know you tried to find."

"The words you never cared to say, “I want to start a family”"

"I'm tired of all the people I'm seeing through"

"Watch me now. Try. Couldn't walk down that line. Just pass me by. Just passing by."

"She called today, Pretending not to care at all, For days and weeks, Now he’s hanging from the ceiling, What a life, Oh what a life, Was it a life? ~ "Sense""

"I’m wide awake, I’ll drop you off for saying that, For days and two weeks, It was you who was defending such a lie, Oh what a lie, Was it a lie? ~ "Sense""

"Something won’t forgive it all ~ "Sense""

"I am on your side. I just want to tell you off. ~ "On Your Side""

"So many lies. Are taking hold. It’s not your fault. There’s many scars. ~ "On Your Side""

"You would never have the time"

"I would love to change your mind"

"You were there"

"And it was good in the beginning"

"You were there. We were good in the beginning."

"Take my hand, come with me"

"I see the lights so brightly"

"And we fall as if we never really mattered"

"You and I, we’re two of a kind, I hate to say it but you’ll never relate, what makes you tick? It makes me smile. ~"

"And I could never see you depart us and you’re my baby, you’re just another girl."

"Too many. Things I do not care for But one thing that I adore. Is a girl like you."

"And even if. I don't know what the day will bring. Still I can tell most anything. To a girl like you."

"I don't miss you, still I will take a car to be with you. I don't know you, of course you think you know me."

"If it's we who choose I'll reach another level To be that one who never lost a day."

"I know you never wanted it this way. I can see, I can see."

"I tried to find out what had happened to you. I Googled you in quotes- got no results."

"Social Development Dance"

"I'm not scared of dying And I, don't really care If it' s peace you find in dying Well then, let the time be near."

"My troubles are many They're deep as a well I swear there ain't no Heaven And I pray there ain't no hell But I'll never know by living only my dying will tell. And when I die and when I'm gone There'll be, one child born And a world to carry on, to carry on."

"Give me my freedom for as long as I be All I ask of livin' is to have no chains on me All I ask of livin' is to have no chains on me And all I ask of dyin' is to go naturally... And when I die, and when I'm gone There'll be one child born, in our world To carry on, to carry on..."

"I was raised on the good book Jesus Till I read between the lines Now I don't believe I ever wanna see the morning"

"You can see the walls roar See your brains on the floor Become God Become cripple Become funky"

"If you love me true And if you love me true I'll spend my life with you And Timer You're a jigsaw, Timer"

"Emily And her love to be Carved in a heart On a berry tree But it's only a little farewell lovespell Time to design a woman"

"So he swears he'll mever marry Says that cuddles are a curse Just tell him plain You're on the next train If love don't get you first"

"I lost my eyes In east wind skies Here's where I've cried Where I've tried Where God and the Tendaberry rise Where Quakers and revolutionaries Join for life"

"He got his mean streak from the gutter Got his kindness from God"

"I saw a man take a needleful of hard drug And die slow"

"She said "I'm young enough I'm old enough In the city machine Where industries Fill the fish full of mercury""

"Sage's light Oh and Edison He made two sparks ignite All you do It's a scientific chain reaction"

"They say a woman's place Is to wait and serve Under the veil Submissive and dear But I think my place Is in a ship from space To carry me The hell out of here."

"Laura Nyro made a choice that has tempted me on many occasions. And that was to lead an ordinary life. She married a carpenter, as I understand, and turned her back on it all. Which is brave and tough in its own way."

"The piano is always true to me. In times of despair, happiness, and joy, its mood is always my own."

"I am a composer first and foremost, and have always believed that being able to write memorable melodies is what sets musicians apart."

"My songs bring images to the listener's mind. The object is to transport my listeners to another place, some place sacred and spiritual that will make them glad they took the ride."

"Basically, I write from a two person standpoint. First, I let the song take hold and I put down the idea as a raw emotional statement. Then I let it breathe and come back, approaching from more of an objective point of view. This allows me to rediscover the true meaning I intended in the beginning, shedding new light on how I can best represent that to the listener."

"Musically I try to connect a common bridge between such exhilarating feelings as performing at the Acropolis, to the emotions each and every one of us feel everyday. In the end, a good melody will always stand the test of time."

"Music allows a person to express their deepest thoughts, thoughts that cannot be expressed with just words. I am often asked how I begin a song or develop a melody from nothing. That is the spiritual aspect of creating. Finding something deep within yourself that can only be created by you."

"Through instrumental music, I’m allowed to come up with musical ideas that allow the listener to create their own impression of my song. If you add lyrics about a girl in the song, the listener doesn’t have a choice of what the song is about, it’s told to them. My musical writings allow me to express anything. It’s easier for me to tell a story of something I’ve encountered this way then to verbalize it. And my feelings are explored more in my compositions compared to what I could ever say in a few sentences."

"All the information you need is available to you to have a successful career in music, if you're paying attention, and not closed off to anything. Remember, Perseverance is King."

"A lot of musicians don’t learn the business. You just have to be well-rounded in both areas. You have to understand publishing. You have to understand how you make money, what’s in demand, what helps you make the most out of your talent."

"Time and persistence has shown me that I can succeed at sharing my art with others as a musician while running my own music business. And that kind of success is as good as I could have ever wished for."

"I write a lot, but it's not all fantastic. There's plenty of terrible crap. We work on a few things at a time, let some things fall away, make changes. We certainly have enough for the next album, which could take at least another year to come out."

"Interviewer Barb H: Your sound is quite refreshing, did it come naturally? AP: As natural as the day you were born, my love."

"It makes me very sad when I find out that people who never hear our music think that we are really about image and not about substance. … I can understand why you might get that impression if you've never heard the band's music and see a photo of a guy and a girl dressed up in crazy costumes and think, "I don't need to pay attention to that — why do they need to wear those crazy clothes?" I think that's why we've constantly toured. Our live show is so intense and so substantive and emotional that it's sort of the price we have to pay for being so flamboyant — we have to prove ourselves as a rock band."

"I'm bisexual, but it's not the sort of thing I spent a lot of time thinking about … I've slept with girls; I've slept with guys, so I guess that's what they call it! I'm not anti trying to use language to simplify our lives."

"Rock needs theater, rock is theater. We just go through different eras of guilty admission about this. Having risen with The Dresden Dolls in the heyday of The Strokes and The White Stripes, everyone was looking at us as completely misfit theater dorks. But it’s really encouraging to see a more theater-dork wave of bands like The Scissor Sisters, Antony & The Johnsons, CocoRosie, Patrick Wolf and even Arcade Fire and Decembrists becoming popular. The dress-up freaks are coming back, and it’s wonderful to watch."

"I really like Neil a whole, whole, whole lot, and I really do not want to marry Kevin Smith, even a little. Do you remember the Trojan War, dude? I’m just saying. Can you imagine what a world war between a Neil Gaiman army and a Kevin Smith army would actually look like? Their fans are serious. I predict there would be lots of very high-fallutin’, toilet-based name-calling, confusing many. And possibly foam swords swinging at hockey sticks. Actually, that’s bullshit. There’s no way anybody would leave their Twitter feeds for long enough to pull out a foam sword or a hockey stick. Maybe it’ll be the world’s first full-on digital war and people will just head over to Second Life to duke it out. I hope Neil’s army wins."

"i am a herd of cats and a drunk shepherd with alzheimer’s all at once. i am the walrus."

"Nothing is crueller than children who come from good homes."

"A turn, a screw, a pull, a twist, the drug that makes you prettiest."

"I'm not gonna live my life on one side of an ampersand."

"you're rich in love you're great bed you'll see the world you'll knock 'em dead and all the thick books that you've read will count for nothing in the end"

"I still get laughed at but it doesn't bother me, I'm just so glad to hear laughter around me."

"What's the last thing a drummer says in a band?"

""Hey guys, why don't we try one of my songs?"

"Masturbation is one of the safest ways to explore your own sexuality."

"Rock stars suck. Man, I'd be so embarrassed at being called a rock star. A lot of those connotations aren't conductive to my lifestyle. I don't do drugs, I don't fuck groupies, I don't spend all my money on limos and mansions and cocaine. I have a car and a small house and I go on tour and go to bed early and wake up and have tea. I'm a worker, man. I don't think many people see me as a rock star; hopefully they see me as a normal person. 'Musician' would be just fine."

"I still dream about Kurt. Every time I see him in a dream, I’ll be amazed and I get this feeling that everyone else thinks he’s dead. It always feels totally real, probably because I’m a very vivid dreamer. But, in my dreams, Kurt’s usually been hiding - we’ll get together and I’ll end up asking him, ‘God, where have you been?’"

"One thing I did before Nirvana became popular was I stopped doing drugs."

"Perez [Hilton]: Are you drunk right now? Grohl: No, I gotta play. Perez: Britney Spears has been getting wasted all the time, hasn't stopped her. Grohl: Yeah, but she doesn't have to sing live."

"Around the time that I recorded the first Foo Fighters tape, I was reading a lot of books on UFO’s. … So, since I had recorded the first record by myself, playing all the instruments, but I wanted people to think that it was a group, I figured that FOO FIGHTERS - WW2 term for UFO’s - might lead people to believe that it was more than just one guy. Silly, huh? Had I actually considered this to be a career, I probably would have called it something else, because it’s the stupidest fucking band name in the world."

"I'd like to imagine I won't end up in hell, but I think I've done too much acid and listened to too much death metal to sit on a cloud next to God with angels floating above my head."

"He did his best to make his riff ideas catchy and rhythmic."

"Why doesn't Dave Grohl run for President? I think he'd be good, he seems a very organised man. He has about 12 fingers in about 50 pies, and they're all great pies, and great fingers. What I'm saying is that we really respect that band, and I fucking love him!"

"I love his voice (Dave) and the song writing is scary; it's phenomenal. He's the most inspirational guy out there for me now."

"The Power. If anyone deserves to battle Animal from The Muppets on the drums, it’s Dave Grohl. In my younger years, it was the coolest thing in the world to be a hard hitter and I drew constant inspiration from not only Dave’s aggressive hitting, but his choice of unique grooves and fills, which twist your mind yet remain spacious and serve the song. There’s no doubt he approaches his drum parts as a songwriter, and that may be the biggest thing I was able to take away from him."

"David Grohl is such a nice guy."

"[When asked how he's keeping his 12-year marriage to wife Jill fresh] Hookers, drugs. We’re playing the field right now."

"I was in such a state while I was recovering from this surgery and the pain medication that I was on sort of took all the inhibitions out that I may have had. I found that I was ordering things online; big boxes of stuff would arrive at my house."

"I started making movies when I was 20. I started playing piano when I was about 3 years old, so I'm probably a musician first. But when I'm working on a movie, as an actor, I'm an actor - 100 percent. And when I'm on tour, I'm a musician 100 percent."

"New Orleans is a city of paradox. Sin, salvation, sex, sanctification, so intertwined yet so separate."

"Harry is a true musician. He has a massive amount of information that he's dealing with, so he is very comfortable wherever a song goes. Great music is like leaping off a cliff, but some musicians will only go to the precipice. Harry just jumps, which is why playing with him is very liberating."

"It's always fun to climb into a dress when you're having a party, right? So we were having a party and I did just that, I poured myself into a dress. When I woke up - and I woke between the kitchen cabinets - I wasn't wearing the dress any longer. No idea where it went. It was a nice dress as well, a little black number. Do I look good in a dress? Always."

"I cry all the time. In fact, I cried when we were at the Islington Academy. I got a bit teary-eyed at the crowd's reaction to our show. We were playing a song called On My Own and the response from the audience just got to me. Sometimes the love in the room is so overwhelming that I just cry. I'm not ashamed of that."

"No matter how many times people try to pick my lyrics apart … nobody will really understand what these songs truly mean to me because I would rather not get into it."

"We definitely didn't want it to be anything like our first or second records. We wanted to experiment more than we ever had and take any new idea and run with it as far as we could."

"Yeah, I'm definitely a completely different person onstage than offstage. It just comes from inside me. Everything that has happened to me up 'til now has everything to do with who I am today. It feels good to just be able to get on stage and release lots of suppressed emotion, things that aren't necessarily on the outside of who I am."

"Whether the color of your skin is black, white, yellow, brown or purple -- the extent of this tragedy is so incredibly devastating that we had to do something."

"So like we say, our weakness is our strength too. It maybe makes it hard as hell on a day-to-day basis. There's (always) some kind of tribulations or trials going on with us, whether it's in our inner camp or just inner demons of our own. It's definitely not an amazingly functioning unit at all times. There's no bull---t with that. Behind the scenes is as interesting as what people are seeing up front."

"I just kind of thought about doing this my whole life. I never doubted myself once. I've always been singing, and I've always wanted to be on tour with a rock band."

"I've rebelled against all types of conformity throughout my life, not just Utah's conservative culture. I rebelled against the Mormon church by going to other churches. I rebelled against my parents by not eating meat. I rebelled against my friends and myself by doing drugs. And I rebelled against everything that was holding me down by playing music with these guys."

"Put your arm around the buddy next to you. And if you don't have any friends, I'll be your best friend in the whole world."

"I'll never be bothered if I don't have a hit because you look at the songs that are hits and they're none of my favourites. Just the fact that we do have fans waiting here, that's exciting enough."

"I'm very self-destructive. I take it way too far most of the time. I'm the type of person who likes to jump into things hard. I do know my limits and I'm continually learning more about myself, as far as being hungover the next day or saying things that I don't mean or ruining other people's good times."

"I would say that I was just as anxious to leave Utah as any other kid in any other part of the world wants to get out of where they're from. It's definitely a hard place, especially if you're an artist. There's not much support for art, especially rock 'n' roll music. It wasn't really about escaping Utah, though. It was about getting out and being able to do what I wanted to do with my whole life. And now I am."

"I think about it sometimes, but it definitely doesn't bother me because genres are meant to last and we're a rock 'n roll band and screamo, emo, grunge, punk, prog … it s still rock 'n roll to me. I think that we're four really talented dudes, and I'm ready to take on the whole world. I'm not afraid."

"I'm going to give you a nice, romantic kiss on the lips."

"I kind of wanted to open it up a little bit more this time and kind of expose a little bit more of my vulnerable side. The most important thing for me was to share exactly how I felt because I'm sure there are thousands and thousands of people who can relate."

"If there is a God, he or she or it or whatever higher power there is is behind us so long as we're using our music in an inspirational way. I'm here for a reason, and I was given a talent, so I'll continue to try to use it."

"When people hear our record, they're not going to be able to put us into the 'New Metal' category or the 'pop-punk' category or the 'aggressive emo' category. I think people will be able to take it for what it is."

"When my body gets so overexerted with energy, I just keep going and going."

"Everything influences you in the way that you present your art to other people and the way that you create your art for yourself. Life is pretty much the influence, so growing up in Orem, Utah, and growing up in the church is obviously a huge factor in it for me. But there's a few others in my band that weren't raised in the church. So it's a combination of a lot of things."

"This is a song about the reason we all came down here today, and that's because we (expletive) love music. This is a crowd-surfing song."

"When I hooked up with them I was still going to Narcotics Anonymous. But they were never into drugs. If it weren't for the band, I think I'd still be getting high."

"My voice does get a little gruffy every once in a while, but I've never lost it 100 percent. I do try to warm up my voice before I go out there, but it's more of a nonchalant approach to taking care of it. Just some scales - deep throat valve sounds and what-not. I never like to stress out about it or worry about teas."

"Classifying rock music is an easy way for kids to identify with it. A band like Finch screams and sings, so they classify that with the Used because I scream and sing. But at the same time, we are worlds different. When I was listening to Nirvana, I never got involved in the fact that they were grunge-rock or whatever people were starting to call it at the time. I was raised listening to many different things. But everything has to be put into a category. That's fine with me. The music says enough."

"Bert is super kind, a super sweetheart, but he's pretty crazy at the same time. He's a little manic, but he definitely has a great heart and a great soul. He's just a little bit hard to hold down. Which is good. It's a great quality for a frontman."

"When I was dating Bert (McCracken), we were like two best friends. And we ended up doing everything together and it was so much fun. It was a really good time. And this (2003) has been such a horrible year for me that I sometimes thought I'd like to go back to that and be with Bert, but then I suddenly realised that's not what I wanted. I don't even know him as a person. And more than that, I don't even like him. It's like they say that you don't know the devil but you know he's evil. I know what that means — I don't know Bert but I know that I don't ever want to see him again."

"We were tired of writing music that sounded like everybody else, and we were stuck in this rut for so long of just trying to emulate our favorite bands. We're just going to write stuff that feels good, sounds good. And if other people don't like it, oh well. Then we remembered Bert from just playing shows with his band. So we gave him a call and he happened to not be in any bands. The timing was like perfect."

"Some say silence is golden, I choose noise."

"I get scared because I regard women as the most beautiful creatures in the world."

"I'm kind of a ninja."

"Now I'm 'Blake Lewis' to the world, but I will always still be Bshorty from Bothell...I've never looked at it like a competition so I think I've won regardless. I won when I got to the top ten; I've already reached my goal."

"I've tried to stay true to myself this whole entire time, and I think I've represented myself as creatively as I could with what I got on the show."

"[Singing] Steve Jobs, send me a brand-new Mac..."

"The song's about coming together as one in an ideal world. And we might not be able to accomplish that, but tonight we can start by making it a better place."

"If you don't take risks in life, you'll never see anything new."

"What is this thing called love? This funny thing called love? Just who can solve this mystery? Why should it make a fool of me?"

"If you want to buy my wares Follow me and climb the stairs … Love for sale."

"There's an, oh such a hungry yearning burning inside of me."

"Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above. Don't fence me in. Let me ride through the wide open country that I love Don't fence me in Let me be by myself in the evenin' breeze And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees Send me off forever but I ask you please Don't fence me in"

"I want to ride to the ridge where the west commences And gaze at the moon till I lose my senses I can't look at hobbles and I can't stand fences Don't fence me in"

"What moments divine, what rapture serene."

"Some Argentines, without means, do it, People say, in Boston, even beans do it. Let's do it, let's fall in love."

"The chimpanzees in the zoos do it, Some courageous kangaroos do it Let's do it, let's fall in love. I'm sure giraffes on the sly do it, Even eagles as they fly do it, Let's do it, let's fall in love."

"In shallow shoals, English soles do it Goldfish in the privacy of bowls do it."

"Electric eels I might add do it, Though it shocks 'em I know..."

"The world admits bears in pits do it, Even Pekingeses at the Ritz do it, Let's do it, let's fall in love."

"If you want a future, darling, Why don't you get a past?"

"They say that spring Means just one thing To little lovebirds. We're not above birds, Let's misbehave."

"They say that bears Have love affairs And even camels, We're merely mammals Let's misbehave."

"I get no kick from champagne. Mere alcohol doesn't thrill me at all, So tell me why it should be true That I get a kick out of you?"

"Some get a kick from cocaine. I'm sure that if I took even one sniff That would bore me terrifically, too, Yet, I get a kick out of you."

"You're the smile On the Mona Lisa."

"In olden days a glimpse of stocking Was looked on as something shocking But now, Heaven knows, Anything goes."

"Good authors, too, who once knew better words Now only use four-letter words Writing prose — Anything goes."

"Too bad, I'm no poet, I happen to know it, But anyway Here's a roundelay I wrote last night about you..."

"You are my fav'rite star, My haven in heaven above, You are ev'rything I love."

"Sad times May follow your tracks, Bad times May bar you from Saks, Add times When Satan in slacks Breaks down your self control..."

"This rule I propose, Always have an ace in the hole. Always try to arrive at Having an ace some place private. Always have an ace in the hole."

"You're the pain in my — The hurricane in my — Supersensitive heart, dear. Still I love you, I know, And the reason is merely because You irritate me so!"

"Relax for a moment my Jerry Come out of your dark monastery While Venus is beaming above. Darling, let's talk about love."

"You'd be so nice to come home to You'd be so nice by the fire..."

"You'd be so nice, You'd be paradise To come home to and love."

"It must be fun to be you And play with love as you do To treat each new romance As merely one more dance Or just another book to glance through It must be fun to acquire Whatever heart you desire, And when you're bored with it To tear it in two, It must be fun to be you."

"Be a clown, be a clown, All the world loves a clown. Act the fool, play the calf, And you'll always have the last laugh."

"Wear the cap and the bells And you'll rate all the great swells. If you become a doctor, folks'll face you with dread. If you become a dentist, they'll be glad when you're dead. You get a bigger hand if you can stand on your head. Be a clown, be a clown, be a clown."

"Be the poor silly ass And you'll always travel first class. Give 'em quips, give 'em fun, And they'll pay to say you're A–1. If you become a farmer, you've the weather to buck. If become a gambler you'll be struck with your luck. But jack you'll never lack if you can quack like a duck. Be a clown, be a clown, be a clown."

"So kiss me Kate, Thou lovely loon, E'er we start on our honeymoon. Oh, kiss me, Kate, Darling devil divine, For now thou shall ever be mine."

"In a way no other songs of the period quite did, Porter's created a world. It was a between–the–wars realm of drop–dead chic and careless name–dropping insouciance. And it was a sexy place to be invited."

"The wit of his words depended on his ability to raise the audience immediately to his own level — and keep it there. The instant happiness that Porter gave his audience is the kind that becomes history."

"Yeah. Cole Porter, but he was taken."

"Last night I was east with them And west within Trying to be for you what you wanna see."

"I feel like a quote out of context, withholding the rest so I can be for you what you want to see."

"Would you look at me I'm crazy But I get the job done Yeah, I'm crazy but I get the job done."

"Now that I have found someone I'm feeling more alone Than I ever have before."

"All this breathing in Never breathing out."

"So much time and so little to say.."

"You have made me smile again In fact, I might be sore from it. It's been a while I know we've been together many times before I'll see you on the other side."

"Who knows why some satellites come by and by while others disappear into the sky."

"This morning I wake to be older than you were Fresh white snow for miles Every footstep will be mine."

"I don't get Many things right the first time In fact, I am told that a lot Now I know all the wrong turns And stumbles and falls Brought me here."

"Good morning, son In twenty years from now Maybe we'll both sit down and have a few beers And I can tell you 'bout today And how I picked you up and everything changed."

"You nodded off in my arms watching tv I won’t move you an inch Even though my arm’s asleep."

"Why you gotta act like you know, if you don't know? It's okay if you don't know everything."

"I refuse to rot like my contemporaries I want to explode in a karaoke supernova I don't wanna grow old Won't you let me, won't you let me explode?"

"There's never gonna be a moment of truth for you While the world is watching All you need is the thing you forgotten And that's to learn to live with what you are."

"When you don't care then You've got nothing to lose And I won't hesitate Because every moment life is slipping away It's okay."

"I stay focused on details It keeps me from feeling the big things But watch the microscope long enough Things that seem still are still changing"

"Notes don't make music until you learn to insert silence between them."

"Gotta kill these pains Or blow out my brains To free me from these chains I'm trapped in this physical hell To walk again I just might sell my soul And I'm only twenty somethin' years old"

"So if you've had enough and are ready for your stand I'll be waiting with the stone that's in my hand."

"Applause is a receipt, not a note of demand."

"The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes – ah, that is where the art resides."

"I am attracted only to music which I consider to be better than it can be performed. Therefore I feel (rightly or wrongly) that unless a piece of music presents a problem to me, a never-ending problem, it doesn't interest me too much."

"Children are given Mozart because of the small quantity of the notes; grown-ups avoid Mozart because of the great quality of the notes."

"I know two kinds of audience only – one coughing, and one not coughing."

"There are two things about Schnabel. I think he was certainly one of the most important influences of the twentieth century, pretty much on all music. But what was most striking was the level of inspiration every time his fingers touched the keyboard. It was a highly moving, almost kind of life-transformative experience. And one of the reasons was there was little caprice in his approach to music. ‘Because I feel it that way’ was never a sufficient reason to do something; that is arbitrary and it had no place in his lessons either. Everything that he did, he could point to the text, and the text - an urtext, an original text - was terribly important to him. His edition of the Beethoven sonatas is so instructive because his ideas and suggestions are in a different print than what Beethoven wrote; you can always distinguish between Beethoven and Schnabel. But that kind of dedication, that kind of musical integrity to the desires and instructions from the composer, gave it an authenticity that was irresistible, and that was combined with his level of inspiration. Very quickly, it became impossible to distinguish between Mozart and Schnabel, Beethoven and Schnabel, or Schubert and Schnabel; he became the musical personification of the composer, which is why it was so irresistible what he did."

"Schnabel himself was an extraordinary composer, and actually thought of himself more as a composer than as a pianist. He wrote absolutely rhapsodic music, and endless pieces. All of his pieces, I think, are 45 minutes long! (laughs) Nothing of the little tidbit variety for him…"

"The European boys have small ideas but they sure know how to dress 'em up."

"I frequently hear music in the heart of noise."

"My people are American, my time is today…music must repeat the thought and aspirations of the times."

"The composer does not sit around and wait for an inspiration to walk up and introduce itself…Making music is actually little else than a matter of invention aided and abetted by emotion. In composing we combine what we know of music with what we feel."

"Jazz I regard as an American folk music; not the only one, but a very powerful one which is probably in the blood and feeling of the American people more than any other style of folk music."

"Modern European composers ... have very largely received their stimulus, their rhythms and impulses from Machine Age America. They have a much older tradition of musical technique which has helped them put into musical terms a little more clearly the thoughts that originated here. They can express themselves more glibly."

"Not many composers have ideas. Far more of them know how to use strange instruments which do not require ideas."

"A skyscraper is at the same time a triumph of the machine and a tremendous emotional experience, almost breath-taking. Not merely its height but its mass and proportions are the result of an emotion, as well as of calculation."

"When jazz is played in another nation, it is called American. When it is played in another country, it sounds false. Jazz is the result of the energy stored up in America."

"An entire composition written in jazz could not live."

"I like to think of music as an emotional science."

"While the doctors were sawing away at Ira's midriff, I submitted a variety of ideas to George. One of the most successful was the title of the best song in the show, "Someone to Watch Over Me." I wrote and was credited with two songs: "Oh, Kay" and "Heaven On Earth." I wrote the verse for the spiritual number "Clap Yo' Hands" and a lyric called "That Certain Something You've Got," but Ira changed the lyrics and called it "Oh, Kay, You're O.K. with Me." It was the title song of the show and the least distinguished. Ira made me a present of the credit for it. It was the opposite of plagiarism; we call it donorism. George, realizing that any sum he paid me would have to come out of Ira's royalties, paid me next to nothing. It was decided that I was to get 1¢ for every copy of sheet music that was sold. When Ira sent me my first paycheck it was for 96¢. Some time shortly thereafter, Ira wrote asking if I minded canceling the arrangement which involved a lot of bookkeeping for such small sums. I said no, I didn't mind. I was proud to work with the great Gershwin. I would've done it for nothing, which I did."

"There is no better way to spend an evening than listening to George Gershwin at the piano. Fortunately for his audience, he seldom was away from it. He played his own tunes to Ira's special lyrics and though his voice was pure gravel it was special entertainment."

"It certainly will be if you are still around."

"Tell me, George, if you had it to do all over, would you fall in love with yourself again?"

"It would have been better if you had died and Gershwin had written the elegy."

"When Sam Harris was preparing a Chicago company of Of Thee I Sing after it won the Pulitzer Prize, George, Ira, Harris and I were on the train to attend the opening. I thought it would be fun to ask Harris, with George sitting there, who his favorite composer was. Without hesitation Harris answered, "George Cohan," and began to sing Cohan songs and tell Cohan stories. George wasn't irritated at all, as anyone else might have been; he was just amused."

"He never raised his voice. When he asked for something, it was usually in an apologetic tone. I know he had this reputation for being brash, but that was just the way his music was. His death was a tragedy. When we were on tour, many times he would complain that he smelled garbage. Today, physicians will tell you that's a clue that you might have a brain tumor, but back then nobody knew. He often would be fighting depression, and when he went out on tour, it wasn't to make money. The whole point was to go out and get some quick adulation to boost himself up."

"Well, if I were thus rationed in this article and could have but one adjective for George Gershwin, that adjective would be "ingenuous." Ingenuous at and about his piano. Once an occasional composer named Oscar Levant stood beside that piano while those sure, sinewy, catlike Gershwin fingers beat their brilliant drum-fire—the tumultuous cascade of the "Rhapsody In Blue," the amorous languor of "The Man I Love," the impish glee of "Fascinating Rhythm," the fine, jaunty, dust-spurning scorn of "Strike Up the Band." If the performer was familiar with the work of any other composer, he gave no evidence of it. Levant (who, by the way, makes a fleeting appearance in the new Dashlell Hammett book, under the guise of Levi Oscant) could be heard mutterIng under his breath, "An evening with Gershwin Is a Gershwln evening." "I wonder," said our young composer dreamily, "if my music will be played a hundred years from now." "It certainly will be," said the bitter Levant,"if you are still around.""

"The Rhapsody is not a composition at all. It's a string of separate paragraphs stuck together – with a thin paste of flour and water… I don’t think there has been such an inspired melodist on this earth since Tchaikovsky…but if you want to speak of a composer, that's another matter."

"Gershwin's tragedy was not that he failed to cross the tracks, but rather that he did, and once there in his new habitat, was deprived of the chance to plunge his roots firmly into the new soil."

"If jazz should threaten to become a hampering stereotype, a "tradition" in its turn, George would go forward to the next fresh impulse that arose in him. You may call him the King of jazz and associate his name with the lifting of jazz into musical artistry. Very well, and his best thanks. But not on that account is he to be thrust into a pigeonhole. George Gershwin did not begin as a jazzer; he will not end as one."

"Gershwin's melodic gift was phenomenal. His songs contain the essence of New York in the 1920s and have deservedly become classics of their kind, part of the 20th-century folk-song tradition in the sense that they are popular music which has been spread by oral tradition (for many must have sung a Gershwin song without having any idea who wrote it)."

"[I]t's only good songs that last, not good rhythm, and in the first six years or so of his composing George was interested mainly in developing new rhythms."

"George died on July 11, 1937, but I don't have to believe that if I don't want to."

"Porgy is…an interesting example of what can be done by talent in spite of a bad setup. With a libretto that should never have been accepted on a subject that should never have been chosen, a man who should never have attempted it has written a work that has a considerable power."

"He was perfect except for the fact that he was an engineer And mothers prefer doctors And lawyers Yet despite this imperfection He was clean-looking and respectable-looking And you'll never find a mother Who doesn't appreciate a natural man"

"Pavlov's Daughter, woke up in the morning, hear the bell ring, and something deep inside of her, makes her want to salivate, so she lays there drooling on her pillow..."

"I'm the king's thirty-second son There's thirty-one others just like me There's thirty-one others on the way There's thirty-one others after that..."

"Thirty-two's still a goddamn number Thirty-two's still counts Gonna make it count"

"Pickle jars are just pickle jars, and pickles are just pickles."

"Ingredients:"

"Water, salt, cucumbers, garlic and"

"Pickling spices"

"Love is the answer to a question I have forgotten, but I know I've been asked. And the answer has got to be love."

"The world's got a nosebleed, it said And we're flooding, but we keep on cutting the trees and the forests! And we keep on paying those freaks on the TV Who claim they will save us, but want to enslave us, and Sweating like demons, they scream through our speakers But we leave the sound on 'cause silence is harder, and No one's the killer and no one's the martyr The world that has made us can no longer contain us And prophets are silent and rotting away."

"On the day that Daniel Cowman stopped existing The world should have ended right then and there At precisely four-fifteen when he stopped existing The world should have ended How could it go on?"

"How could it go on when I don't exist? I don't exist... So now that we've got that straight Doesn't mean that I can fly Doesn't mean I that I can go do whatever I want."

"A man destined to hang Can never drown, A man destined to hang Can never ever drown. A man destined to drown Can never burn..."

"A man destined to fry Can never ever ever die... In any other way but frying. Lucky that I'm dying By hanging and not drowning."

"The flowers you gave me are rotting And still I refuse to throw them away"

"They'll name a city after us And later say it's all our fault…"

"Imagine you go away On a business trip one day And when you come back home Your children have grown And you never made your wife moan"

"People are just people They shouldn't make you nervous The world is everlasting, it's coming and it's going If you don't toss your plastic The streets won't be so plastic And if you kiss somebody then both of you get practice"

"I never loved nobody fully Always one foot on the ground And by protecting my heart truly I got lost in the sounds I hear in my mind All these voices I hear in my mind all these words I hear in my mind all this music And it breaks my heart It breaks my heart..."

"On the radio We heard November Rain That solo's awful long But it's a good refrain"

"This is how it works — You're young until you're not You love until you don't You try until you can't You laugh until you cry You cry until you laugh And everyone must breathe Until their dying breath."

"No, this is how it works — You peer inside yourself You take the things you like And try to love the things you took And then you take that love you made And stick it into some Someone else's heart Pumping someone else's blood And walking arm in arm You hope it don't get harmed But even if it does You'll just do it all again."

"Power to the people We don't want it We want pleasure And the TVs try to rape us And I guess that they're succeeding And we're going to these meetings But we're not doing any meeting And we're trying to be faithful, but we're Cheating, cheating, cheating"

"It's like forgetting the words to your favorite song You can't believe it; you were always singing along It was so easy and the words so sweet You can't remember; you try to move your feet."

"I've got a perfect body But sometimes I forget I've got a perfect body, because my eyelashes catch my sweat Yes they do, they do."

"No one laughs at God in a hospital, No one laughs at God in a war, No one's laughing at God when they're starving or freezing or so very poor..."

"No one laughs at God when the cops knock on their door And they say "We've got some bad news, sir." No one's laughing at God when there's a famine, fire or flood But God can be funny At a cocktail party when listening to a good God-themed joke Or when the crazies say He hates us And they get so red in the head you think they're 'bout to choke God can be funny When told he'll give you money if you just pray the right way And when presented like a genie who does magic like Houdini Or grants wishes like Jiminy Cricket and Santa Claus God can be so hilarious..."

"No one's laughing at God — We're all laughing with God."

"Living in your pre-war apartment Soon to be your post-war apartment"

"Two birds on a wire One tries to fly away And the other watches him close from that wire He says he wants to as well But he is a liar"

"Try it again, breathing's just a rhythm"

"Leaves become most beautiful when they're about to die When they're about to fall from trees When they're about to dry"

"My purpose is to create music not for snobs, but for all people, music which is beautiful and healing. To attempt what old Chinese painters called 'spirit resonance' in melody and sound."

"I propose to create an heroic, monumental style of composition simple enough to inspire all people, completely free from fads, artificial mannerisms and false sophistications, direct, forceful, sincere, always original but never unnatural. Music must be freed from decadence and stagnation. There has been too much emphasis on small things while the great truths have been overlooked. The superficial must be dispensed with. Music must become virile to express big things. It is not my purpose to supply a few pseudo intellectual musicians and critics with more food for brilliant argumentation, but rather to inspire all mankind with new heroism and spiritual nobility. This may appear to be sentimental and impossible to some, but it must be remembered that Palestrina, Handel, and Beethoven would not consider it either sentimental or impossible. In fact, the worthiest creative art has been motivated consciously or unconsciously by the desire for the regeneration of mankind."

"The greater the emotional intensity, the greater the simplicity."

"We are in a very dangerous period. We are in danger of destroying ourselves, and I have a great fear about this…The older generation is ruling ruthlessly. I feel that this is a terrible threat to our civilization. It's the greed of huge companies and huge organizations which control life in a kind of a brutal way…It's gotten worse and worse, somehow, because physical science has given us more and more terrible deadly weapons, and the human spirit has been destroyed in so many cases, so what's the use of having the most powerful country in the world if we have killed the soul. It's of no use."

"I sat reading in these chairs and felt somehow, in an abstract rather than a religious way, that suffering shapes you. Not only my own religious thought, but that of my ancestors, affected me in some way. The thing we have as Jews is that it’s a wonderfully abstract religion. Images are not allowed, so it’s welcome to abstract thought."

"I wouldn’t play it in public — you need different muscles, you can’t use the upper arm, just the fingers. But the sound has a glow, because the strings aren’t damped, as on a piano. I wanted to visit Bach’s sound world, then apply those ideas to the piano."

"In the Bronx, we had three synagogues on one block at 161st Street. My father was Orthodox and we went to the Sephardi one. Further along was the Conservative, the biggest. In between was the Ashkenazi shul. And guess who was their shabbos goy? Colin Powell!"

"I’m deeply grateful to be Jewish. I feel it’s enriched my life and I feel very strongly about Jewishness."

"You sittin' here chained to your rockin' chair."

"It's the story of a very unfortunate colored man Who got arrested down in Old Hong Kong He got twenty years' privilege taken away from him When he kicked old Buddha's gong."

"I'm a Cranky Old Yank in a Clanky Old Tank on the Streets of Yokohama with my Honolulu Mama Doin’ Those Beat-o, Beat-o Flat-On-My-Seat-o, Hirohito Blues"

"I have sinned against you, my Lord, and I would ask that your precious blood would wash and cleanse every stain until it is in the seas of God's forgetfulness, never to be remembered against me anymore."

"I know this from somewhere—it seems as though every time I turn on the radio this seems to slip in; and I've always liked it. It's cute, real cute; and although it's sort of not in my department and I don't know too much about that type of music, I like it an awful lot. Wonderful piano; vibes sound like what's his name, [[w:Terry Gibbs|[Terry] Gibbs]], a little bit; and the alto, if it's not the Bird, he loves Bird. All the solos were wonderful. I've got to give it four stars."

"Contrary to several conflicting stories, I got the name "Count" right in Kansas City in 1936 while at the Reno Club. I was known as Bill Basie at that time. One night, while we were broadcasting, the announcer called me to the microphone for those usual few words of introduction. He commented that Bill Basie was a rather ordinary name, and further that there were a couple of well-known bandleaders named Earl Hines and Duke Ellington. Then he said, "Bill, I think I'll call you Count Basie from now on. Is that all right with you?" I thought he was kidding, shrugged my shoulders and replied, "OK." Well that was the last time I was ever introduced as Bill Basie. From then on, it was Count Basie, and I never did lose that nickname. It's funny the way those things will stick."

"It's the way you play that makes it. What I say is, for Christ's sake, you don't have to kill yourself to sing. Play like you play. Play like you think, and then you got it, if you're going to get it. And whatever you get, that's you, so that's your story."

"Count Basie’s name brings to mind associations that might seem contradictory: a famously minimalist piano style and the celebrated big band he led for 50 years. In fact, the two were perfect complements. The Basie band took much of its character from the subtle way the Count’s pithy, elliptical attack framed his shouting brass and saxes. More crucially, Basie’s touch set the tone for the band’s rhythm section; the light, insistent pulse that generated the irresistible current of swing that lifted soloists and ensemble to heights of inspired excitement."

"The Basie band took much of its character from the subtle way the Count’s pithy, elliptical attack framed his shouting brass and saxophones. More crucially, Basie’s touch set the tone for the band’s rhythm section; the light, insistent pulse that generated the irresistible current of swing that lifted soloists and ensemble to heights of inspired excitement."

"It would be an attempt to define the role, responsibility, and path of the performing musician. Our simple job is to bring beauty and inspiration to others and to do this through the most honest and humble search to find these qualities within our unique selves and then within our unique work; to painstakingly increase our knowledge and to refine and re-refine our results until we are certain that until some new enlightenment falls to us, we have done the best that we possibly can; and that as in any human endeavour which attempts to transcend its mortal bounds, we always know that we still do not know."

"I'm a free person; I feel terribly free. They could put me in chains and I still would be free because my thoughts would be mine - and that's all I want to have."

"Yes, I am very lucky, but I have a little theory about this. I have noticed through experience and observation that providence, nature, God, or what I would call the power of creation seems to favor human beings who accept and love life unconditionally, and I am certainly one who does with all my heart."

"Music is not a hobby, not even a passion with me; music is me. I feel what people get out of me is this outlook on life, which comes out in my music. My music is the last expression of all that."

"We don't know happiness without unhappiness, gaiety without sadness, and happiness can only be felt if you don't set any conditions."

"...In his fingers he has more skill than any of the rest of us."

"God bless him. He will be remembered forever."

"Just meeting Rubinstein was a thrill for any pianist. He was a real link to tradition in western piano music. He was a friend of Rachmaninoff and he knew Debussy. The man was an inspiration to three generations of pianists."

"Rubinstein was wonderful. For three days he spent hours playing the piano in my room, and then asking me what I thought of this and that. After a while he told my mother that I had talent and he thought I should be a musician."

"I liked him [Rubinstein] as a pianist. He was a good musician and had a fantastic repertoire. He never had a great technique, but certain things he played well. I heard him play some of the Chopin etudes, the easier ones with great panache and I told him I had never heard them played better. He said, "Do you mean it?" and I said, "Yes, I do mean it.""

"Rubinstein was jealous of anybody who had a great success. He was jealous of the Beatles and kept on talking about their tremendous success. When Toscanini died there was a big service in St. Patrick's Cathedral presided over by Cardinal Spellman. Then after a month the body was sent to Milan where there was another big funeral. Rubinstein could not get over it. "Like a king!" he told me and Wanda. "He had two funerals!" He didn't like Paderewski, he didn't like Rachmaninoff, he was always criticizing everybody."

"Rubinstein was a marvelous pianist, but entirely different than Horowitz. Rubinstein needed a piano where he would feel some resistance in the action, and which had a much warmer or broader sound, or a deeper, darker sound. A Horowitz piano is much more focused; the sound is much more brilliant."

"My father, good or bad, mistakes or no, had a direct line from his heart to the music to the people, to the audience. He played with logic and his own inner truth."

"Arthur Rubinstein once said to me that he couldn't think when he played, that something else took over. I also don't think when I play - something happens through me, but I am motivated by what I have thought before."

"Others may be regularly more flashy, though few can dazzle so dependably; and none can match him for power and refinement. He plays very loudly and very beautifully, very softly and thoroughly clean, straightforwardly, elegantly, and with a care for both the amenities of musical discourse and the clear transmission of musical thought. He is a master pianist and a master musician. There has not been his like since Busoni."

"I had the naive, simplistic idea that producers and writers and artists of the time helped in a minuscule way to change the mind-set of America."

"The songwriting style, to me, is superior... there was a certain amount of joy in it, no matter how sad the song is. You get joy in listening to these Buddy Holly or Roy Orbison sad lyrics. I'm attracted to songs that have balance between the darks and the lights and giving them all equal opportunity."

"I treat the act of making a record very much like working in a laboratory, experimenting with sounds and ideas... Whoever chooses to latch onto it, great; whoever doesn't, that's fine, too. The reaction always pales in comparison to the weight of the act of production."

"When you're absolute beginners, It's a panoramic view, From Her Majesty, Mt. Zion, And the Kingdom is for you."

"There can be a hundred people in the room and ninety nine don't believe in you and just one person believes in you and it can change everything."

"She’s a nice girl – I just feel very honoured that she wanted to sing my song. I used to scream for her in Times Square and now I work for her. When I was 13 she was the most provocative performer of my time. I love her so much! Britney certainly doesn’t need any freakin’ tips from me! Britney Spears is the queen of pop. I was learning from her."

"Take My Picture, Hollywood! I Wanna Be a Star!"

"I'm not real. I'm theatre."

"God bless pop music and God bless MTV."

"Lake Como? One of my favorite places."

"Lake Como is like Saint-Tropez and Capri."

"Prejudice is a disease. So is fashion. But I will not wear prejudice."

"I think that fashion and music go hand-in-hand, and they always should. It's the artist's job to create imagery that matches the music... I think they're very intertwined."

"In my show I announce, ‘People say Lady Gaga is a lie, and they are right. I am a lie. And every day I kill to make it true.’"

"You listeners, the ones who found me first are, I believe, the future of great art thinkers. Because anyone that's found me now I really think is grabbing on to the ideas that I have, more than anything. It's about the music but it's also about the story. So thank you guys for loving and reading the story and being as into it and as passionate as I am."

"I operate from a place of delusion-that’s what the Fame is all about... I want people to walk around delusional about how great they can be - and then to fight so hard for it every day that the lie becomes the truth."

"I've gone bankrupt about four times now. Every dollar I earn goes on the show."

"You see, if I was a guy, and I was sitting here with a cigarette in my hand, grabbing my crotch and talking about how I make music because I like fast cars and fucking girls, you'd call me a rockstar. But when I do it in my music and in my videos, because I'm a female, because I make pop music, you're judgmental and you say that it is distracting... I'm just a rockstar."

"Grace Jones said this to me when I met her. I washed her feet, and I looked up at her and she said, "No matter what you do in your life, don’t you ever let anybody take your creative people away from you." And what my creative friends always remind me of is they say, "Only value the opinion of those that you respect. And anyone that you don’t respect, pay no mind to their opinion about you or anything else." And that’s how I live my life. If I worried about everything that everyone said, I would not be a good artist."

"That’s the most Warholian thing about what I do... I embrace pop culture. The very thing that everybody says is poisonous and ostentatious and shallow, it’s like my chemistry book... and I make what I believe to be art out of it."

"I don’t consider my own clothing to be outrageous... The truth is that people just don’t have the same references that I do. To me it’s very beautiful and it’s art, and to them it’s outrageous and crazy."

"They bring my music to life."

"Creativity for me is religious."

"Fame for me is not external, it’s internal. So I’ve been famous for a long time."

"I don't care what people think about me, I care what they think about themselves."

"It's always wrong to hate, but it's never wrong to love."

"The whole point of what I do-the Monster Ball, the music, the performance art aspect of it-I want to create a space for my fans where they can feel free and where they can celebrate because I didn't fit in in high school and I felt like a freak. So I like to create this atmosphere for my fans where they feel like they have a freak in me to hang with and they don't feel alone."

"Amidst all of these flashing lights I pray The Fame wont take my life."

"I am a feminist. I reject wholeheartedly the way we are taught to perceive women. The beauty of women, how a woman should act or behave. Women are strong and fragile. Women are beautiful and ugly. We are soft-spoken and loud, all at once. There is something mind-controlling about the way we're taught to view women. My work, both visually and musically, is a rejection of all those things. And most importantly a quest."

"Everybody wants me to show my vagina to the world. And the truth is, I don’t have to."

"It takes time to become myself every morning."

"She reinvents herself from album to album. I reinvent myself week to week. I get quite bored with things and I don't want to let down my fans."

"People think I'm unusual but it's just that we haven't had anyone like this since the Seventies."

"I've learned love is like a brick, you can build a house or sink a dead body."

"'Judas' is a metaphor and an analogy about forgiveness and betrayal and things that haunt you in your life, and how I believe that it's the darkness in your life that ultimately shines and illuminates the greater light that you have upon you. … Someone once said to me, 'If you have no shadows then you're not standing in the light.' So the song is about washing the feet of both good and evil, and understanding and forgiving the demons from your past in order to move into the greatness of your future … I just like really aggressive metaphors — harder, thicker, darker — and my fans do as well. So it is a very challenging and aggressive metaphor, but it is a metaphor.""

"Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you’re wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn't love you anymore."

"I had a boyfriend who told me I’d never succeed, never be nominated for a Grammy, never have a hit song and that he hoped I’d fail,[...] I said to him, ‘Someday, when we’re not together, you won’t be able to order a cup of coffee at the f—ing deli without hearing or seeing me."

"I refused to compromise and allow my talents to be monetized to the point that I don't want to be here anymore. I will quit if I am ever not allowed to be myself. I will be myself until they f—ing close the coffin, so that you can all be yourselves too."

"Talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique, completely not ever been done before, unafraid to reference or not reference, put it in a blender, shit on it, vomit on it, eat it, give birth to it."

"My real fans understand what it is I do, but on another level I have fans who just love my music and don’t know I write it and enjoy it shallowly — and that’s OK too. I think art and music should be just as powerful if you drink it shallow as if you drink it deep."

"You know, I have such an appreciation for where I am in my life because I've struggled and because I couldn't get signed, and because I couldn't get played on the radio, … There are times when it can be a lot to deal with but always when I get up in the morning I try to find that very joyful place that reminds me that I would die if someone took it all away. If someone did that I wouldn't be a person anymore."

"Right now the only thing that I am concerned with in my life is being an artist … I had to suppress it for so many years in high school because I was made fun of but now I'm completely insulated in my box of insanity and I can do whatever I like."

"My ideas about fame and art are not brand new … We could watch Paris is Burning, we could read The Warhol Diaries, we could go to a party in New York in 1973 and these same things would be being talked about. I guess you could say that I'm a bit of a Warholian copycat. Some people say everything has been done before, and to an extent they are right. I think the trick is to honour your vision and reference and put together things that have never been put together before. I like to be unpredictable, and I think it's very unpredictable to promote pop music as a highbrow medium."

"I don't want to see Bowie in a tracksuit. He never let anyone see him that way. The outlet for my work is not just the music and the videos, it's every breathing moment of my life. I'm always saying something about art and music and fame. That's why you don't ever catch me in sweatpants."

"I have found that my work has to be both deep and shallow … All of my songs have meaning, all of my clothing has iconography buried into it. But by the same token, it's just as special if you look at it in its shallowest form. A quick moment of melody, a beautiful dress. People think, "Gaga's so sweet", or "Gaga sucks". The point is that it's memorable. For commercial art to be taken seriously as fine art is a very unusual and difficult task. I think that a lot of people don't get it and a lot of people don't know what to make of me. And, you know what? I'm OK with that."

"I wanna roll with him a hard pair we will be. A little gambling is fun when you're with me (I love it). Russian Roulette is not the same without a gun. And baby when it's love if it's not rough it isn't fun, fun."

"I want your love and I want your revenge You and me could write a bad romance"

"And I know that it's complicated But I'm a loser in love. So baby raise a glass to mend All the broken hearts Of all my wrecked up friends.I'll never talk again. Oh boy you've left me speechless. You've left me speechless, so speechless."

"Just a second, It's my favorite song they're gonna play. And I cannot text you with A drink in my hand, eh. You shoulda made some plans with me, You knew that I was free. And now you won't stop calling me; I'm kinda busy."

"I'm gonna marry the night. I won't give up on my life. I'm a warrior queen, Live passionately tonight.I'm gonna marry the dark, Gonna make love to the stark. I'm a soldier to my own emptiness. I am a winner."

"I'm beautiful in my way 'cause god makes no mistakes. I'm on the right track baby, I was born this way. Don't hide yourself in regret, Just love yourself and you're set. I'm on the right track baby, I was born this way."

"When he comes to me, I am ready. I’ll wash his feet with my hair if he needs, Forgive him when his tongue lies through his brain. Even after three times, he betrays me. I’ll bring him down, bring him down, down, A king with no crown, king with no crown."

"I've had enough, this is my prayer. That I'll die living just as free as my hair."

"When I'm on a mission, I rebuke my condition. If you're a strong female you don't need permission."

"(Something), something about this place (Something), something, ‘bout lonely nights And my lipstick on your face Something, something about My cool Nebraska guy. Yeah, there's something about Baby, you and I."

"It's hard to feel the rush, To push the dangerous. I'm gonna run right to, to the edge with you, Where we can both fall over in love.I'm on the edge of glory, And I'm hanging on a moment of truth. Out on the edge of glory, And I'm hanging on a moment with you."

"I wanna be the girl under you (oh yeah) I wanna be your G.U.Y (yeah) I wanna be the grave and unearth you (oh yeah) Our sexes tell us no lies."

"I stand here waiting for you to bang the gong, to crash the critic saying Is it right or is it wrong? If only fame had an IV, Baby could I bear being away from you? I found the vein, put it in here."

"Tryin' to get control, Pressure's takin' its toll. Stuck in the middle zone, I just want you alone. My guessing game is strong, Way too real to be wrong. Caught up in your show, Yeah, at least now I know.It wasn't love, it wasn't love, It was a perfect illusion (Perfect illusion). Mistaken for love, it wasn't love, It was a perfect illusion (Perfect illusion). You were a perfect illusion."

"You're giving me a million reasons to let you go. You're giving me a million reasons to quit the show. You're givin' me a million reasons, Give me a million reasons, Givin' me a million reasons, About a million reasons.If I had a highway, I would run for the hills. If you could find a dry way, I'd forever be still. But you're giving me a million reasons, Give me a million reasons, Givin' me a million reasons, About a million reasons."

"I've got a hundred million reasons to walk away, But baby, I just need one good one to stay."

"I'm glad that the Bush years are behind us."

"These days I seem to think a lot About the things that I forgot to do For you And all the times I had the chance to."

"Now if I seem to be afraid To live the life that I have made in song Well it's just that I've been losing so long."

"These days I sit on cornerstones And count the time in quarter-tones to ten, my friend Don't confront me with my failures I had not forgotten them."

"The daughter of a captain on the rolling seas, She would stare across the water from the trees. Last time he was home he held her on his knees And said the next time they would sail away just where they pleased."

"Well I'm running down the road Tryin' to loosen my load, I've got seven women on my mind, Four that wanna own me, Two that wanna stone me, One says she's a friend of mine."

"Take it easy, take it easy Don't let the sound of your own wheels Drive you crazy."

"Well, I'm a standing on a corner In Winslow, Arizona And such a fine sight to see, It's a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford Slowin' down to have a look at me."

"Well, just look at that girl With the lights comin' up in her eyes. She's got to be somebody's baby; She must be somebody's baby."

"I try to shut my eyes But I can't get her outta my sight. I know I'm gonna know her, But I gotta get over my fright. Well, I'm just gonna walk up to her, I'm gonna talk to her tonight.Yeah, she's gonna be somebody's only light, Gonna shine tonight. Yeah, she's gonna be somebody's baby tonight."

"Though Adam was a friend of mine, I did not know him well. He was alone into his distance, he was deep into his well. I could guess what he was laughing at, but I couldn't really tell. Now the stories told that Adam jumped, but I'm thinking that he fell."

"Doctor, my eyes have seen the years And the slow parade of fears without crying. Now I want to understand; I have done all that I could To see the evil and the good without hiding. You must help me if you can.Doctor, my eyes Tell me what is wrong. Was I unwise to leave them open for so long?"

"'Cause I have wandered through this world And as each moment has unfurled, I've been waiting to awaken from these dreams. People go just where they will, I never noticed them until I got this feeling That it's later than it seems."

"Oh people, look around you, the signs are everywhere You've left it for somebody other than you to be the one to care You're lost inside your houses,theres no time to find you now"

"It's such a clever innocence with which you do your sorcery As if somehow the years just bow and let that young girl go free I thought I was a child, until you turned and smiled"

"I thought I knew where I was going, until I heard your laughter flowing And came upon the wisdom in your eyes"

"Honey you shake and I'll rattle and we'll roll on down the line And see if we can't get in touch with a very close friend of mine. But let me clue you in, it ain't like him To argue or pretend-- Honey let me introduce you to my redneck friend."

"Someone's gonna have to explain it to me, I'm not sure what it means. My baby's feelin' funny in the morning; She's having trouble getting into her jeans"

"I told her I had always lived alone and I probably always would. And all I wanted was my freedom. And she told me that she understood. But I let her do some of my laundry, And she slipped a few meals in between. And the next thing I remember, she was all moved in. And I was buying her a washing machine."

"Make it on your own if you think you can. If you see somewhere to go, I understand."

"Everybody's just waiting to hear from the one Who can give them the answers And lead them back to that place in the warmth of the sun Where sweet childhood still dances Who'll come along And hold out that strong But gentle fathers hand?"

"You never knew what I loved in you, I don't know what you loved in me. Maybe the picture of somebody you were hoping I might be."

"Looking through some photographs I found inside a drawer, I was taken by a photograph of you. There were one or two I know That you would have liked a little more, But they didn't show your spirit quite as true. You were turning round to see who was behind you And I took your childish laughter by surprise, And at the moment that my camera happened to find you There was just a trace of sorrow in your eyes."

"What I was seeing wasn't what was happening at all."

"When you see through love's illusions, there lies the danger. And your perfect lover just looks like a perfect fool. So you go running off in search of a perfect stranger, While the loneliness seems to spring from your life Like a fountain from a pool."

"Maybe people only ask you how you're doing 'Cos that's easier than letting on how little they could care."

"Keep a fire for the human race; Let your prayers go drifting into space. You never know what will be coming down, Perhaps a better world is drawing near. Just as easily it could all disappear"

"Into a dancer you have grown From a seed somebody else has thrown. Go on ahead and throw some seeds of your own. And somewhere between the time you arrive And the time you go, May lie a reason you were alive That you'll never know."

"I got a thing or two to say Before I walk on by. I'm feeling good today. But if die a little farther along, I'm trusting everyone to carry on."

"And their feathers once so fine grew torn and tattered And in the end they traded their tired wings For the resignation that living brings."

"Let the music keep our spirits high And let the buildings keep our children dry Let creation reveal its secrets by and by."

"I want to know what became of the changes We waited for love to bring. Were they only the fitful dreams Of some greater awakening? I've been aware of the time going by; They say in the end it's the wink of an eye."

"Out into the cool of the evening, Strolls the Pretender. He knows that all his hopes and dreams Begin and end there"

"I'm going to find myself a girl Who can show me what laughter means. And we'll fill in the missing colors In each other's paint-by-number dreams."

"I'm gonna be a happy idiot And struggle for the legal tender. Where the ads take aim and lay their claim To the heart and the soul of the spender. And believe in whatever may lie In those things that money can buy, Though true love could have been a contender."

"Are you there? Say a prayer for the Pretender. Who started out so young and strong Only to surrender."

"Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels. Looking back at the years gone by like so many summer fields. '65, I was 17 and running up 101. I don't know where I'm running now, I'm just running on."

"Running on, running on empty Running on, running blind. Running on, running into the sun But I'm running behind."

"I look around for the friends that I used to turn to to pull me through. Looking into their eyes I see them running too."

"You love the thunder and you love the rain. You know your hunger like you know your name. I know you wonder how you ever came To be a woman in love with a man in search of the flame."

"Now the seats are all empty, Let the roadies take the stage. Pack it up and tear it down. They're the first to come and the last to leave, Working for that minimum wage. They'll set it up in another town."

"Now roll them cases out and lift them amps, Haul them trusses down and get 'em up them ramps. Cause when it comes to moving me, You know you guys are the champs. But when that last guitar's been packed away, You know that I still want to play. So just make sure you got it all set to go Before you come for my piano."

"She was a friend to me when I needed one. Wasn't for her I don't know what I'd done. She gave me back something that was missing in me. She could of turned out to be almost anyone, Almost anyone-- With the possible exception Of who I wanted her to be."

"Talk about celestial bodies, And your angels on the wing. She wasn't much good at stickin' around--but That girl could sing. She could sing...In the dead of night, She could shine a light On some places that you've never been. In that kind of light, You could lose your sight And believe there was something to win."

"You could hold her tight With all your might, But she'd slip through your arms like the wind. And be back in flight, Back into the night, Where you might never see her again."

"Down on the boulevard they take it hard. They look at life with such disregard. They say it can't be won The way the game is run. But if you choose to stay, You end up playing anyway. It's okay."

"In the morning when I closed my eyes, You were sleeping in paradise. And while the room was growing light, I was holding still with all my might."

"Hold a place for the human race. Keep it open wide. Give it time to fall or climb. But let the time decide. Sometimes you wonder what's in this for you. But you wait and you see. 'Cause its all you can do. Just to hold on. Hold on hold out, hold on."

"I can't keep up with what's been going down, I think my heart must just be slowing down. Among the human beings In their designer jeans, Am I the only one who hears the screams And the strangled cries of lawyers in love?"

"Between the darkness on the street And the houses filling up with light. Between the stillness in my heart And the roar of the approaching night. Somebody's calling after somebody, Somebody turns the corner out of sight, Looking for somebody Somewhere in the night.Tender is the night. When you hold your baby tight, Tender are the motions, tender is the night."

"How could she tell, he deceived her so well; Pity, she'll be the last one to know. Silence is golden, but my eyes still see; Silence is golden, golden, But my eyes still see."

"A liberal is a man or a woman or a child who looks forward to a better day, a more tranquil night, and a bright, infinite future."

"The Rhapsody is not a composition at all. It's a string of separate paragraphs stuck together — with a thin paste of flour and water… I don’t think there has been such an inspired melodist on this earth since Tchaikovsky… but if you want to speak of a composer, that's another matter."

"Any great work of art … revives and readapts time and space, and the measure of its success is the extent to which it makes you an inhabitant of that world — the extent to which it invites you in and lets you breathe its strange, special air."

"The trouble with you and me, Ned, is that we want everyone in the world to personally love us, and of course that's impossible; you just don't meet everyone in the world."

"To Bach, notes were not just sounds but the very stuff of creation."

"Callas? She was pure electricity."

"Einstein said that "the most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious." So why do so many of us try to explain the beauty of music, thus depriving it of its mystery?"

"The 20th century has been a badly written drama, from the beginning. The opposite of a Greek drama. Act one: Greed and hypocrisy leading to a genocidal world war, a boom, a crash, totalitarianism. Act two: Greed and hypocrisy leading to a genocidal world war, a boom, a crash, totalitarianism. Act three: Greed and hypocrisy … I don't dare continue."

"Perhaps the chief requirement of [the conductor] is that he be humble before the composer; that he never interpose himself between the music and the audience; that all his efforts, however strenuous or glamorous, be made in the service of the composer's meaning - the music itself, which, after all, is the whole reason for the conductor's existence.""

"Bernstein has been disclosing musical secrets that have been well known for over 400 years."

"Today, he uses music as an accompaniment to his conducting."

"It was hard not to pay attention to Lenny, who made sure that was always the case by always being fascinating."

"Somewhere there's a happy harbor far from the storm. Out where the sun shines there is someone I'm meant to adore, and I know the day I find her, I'll smile once more."

"I knew I was doing things different but at the same time I was doing things that were very natural for me … I wasn’t trying to break any rules. But I wrote the way I heard things."

"Thank you very much. This is Lisa and this is Wendy. Want to hold it? [Gives the Oscar to Wendy] This is very unbelievable. I could've never imagined this in my wildest dreams. And I would like to thank the Academy, Mr. Albert Magnoli, my manager Steven. Bob, Joe, Bobby, Mark and Matt, who couldn't be with us today. And most of all, God. Thank you very much."

"At this point, I wouldn't want to jinx it by meeting him. His arrangements are incredible. I just send him a tape, we talk on the phone, and he sends me the finished orchestra tracks. Hear that? I'm gonna get that chord on the radio!"

"It's a hurtful place, the world, in and of itself. We don't need to add to it. And we're in a place now where we all need one another, and it's going to get rougher."

"Well, the reason why is because I'm one of Jehovah's Witnesses and we've never voted. That's not to say that I don't think Barack Obama - President Obama - is a very smart individual and he seems like he means well. Prophecy is what we all have to go by now."

"The internet's completely over. [...] The internet's like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can't be good for you."

"Chris Rock: I love the story of how you turned down an offer to appear in Michael Jackson's music video for, Bad. Prince: You know that Wesley Snipes character? That would've been me. Now you run that video in your mind. The first line in that song is "your butt is mine." Now I said to Michael, who's gonna sing that to whom? 'Cause you sure ain't singing it to me and I sure ain't singing it to you so right there we got a problem."

"I've been to the mountaintop. There's nothing there."

"Everyone has a rock bottom"

"Love... Thy will be done I can no longer hide, I can no longer run No longer can I resist Your guiding light That gives me the power 2 keep up the fight Oh Lord, Love... Thy will be done Since I have found you, my life has just begun And I see all of Your creations as one perfect complex No one less beautiful or more special than the next We are all blessed and so wise 2 accept Thy will, Love, be done."

"You can live your own life and I'll live mine I will never try to keep you down And even if I only see you some of the time I'm just happy when you come around And even if the sun don't shine I'm warm enough when you're in these arms of mine Just as long as we're together."

"I wanna be your lover I wanna be the only one that makes you come running I wanna be your lover I wanna turn you on, turn you out, all night long, make you shout Oh, lover! Yeah. I wanna be the only one you come for."

"There's some talk going 'round town That you really don't give a damn They say you really put me down When I'm doing the best I can I gave you all of my love I even gave you my body Tell me, baby, ain't that enough?"

"Now where I come from We don't let society Tell us how it's supposed to be Our clothes, our hair We don't care It's all about being there Everybody's going Uptown That's where I wanna be Uptown Set your mind free."

"I just can't believe all the things people say—Controversy Am I black or white? Am I straight or gay? -- Controversy Do I believe in God? Do I believe in me?"

"Do I believe in God? Do I believe in me? Some people wanna die so they can be free (I said) Life is just a game, we're all just the same...do you wanna play?"

"C'mon everybody, yeah, this is your life I'm talking about a revolution we gotta organize We don't need no segregation, we don't need no race New age revelation, I think we got a case.I'm OK as long as u are here with me Sexuality is all we ever need."

"I was dreamin' when I wrote this So sue me if I go 2 fast. But life is just a party, and parties weren't meant 2 last. War is all around us, my mind says prepare 2 fight So if I gotta die I'm gonna listen 2 my body tonight.Yeah, they say two thousand zero zero party over, oops out of time So tonight I'm gonna party like it's 1999."

"I guess I shoulda closed my eyes When U drove me 2 the place Where your horses run free. 'Cuz I felt a little ill When I saw all the pictures Of the jockeys that were there before me.Believe it or not, I started to worry I wondered if I had enough class. But it was Saturday night I guess that makes it all right And U say, "Baby, have U got enough gas?""

"I get delirious whenever you're near Lose all self-control, baby just can't steer Wheels get locked in place Stupid look on my face. It comes 2 makin' a pass, pretty mama I just can't win a race."

"Dearly beloved We are gathered here today 2 get through this thing called life.Electric word life It means forever and that's a mighty long time But I'm here 2 tell U There's something else: The afterworld.A world of never ending happiness U can always see the sun, day or night."

"So when u call up that shrink in Beverly Hills U know the one - Dr Everything'll Be Alright Instead of asking him how much of your time is left Ask him how much of your mind, baby.'Cuz in this life Things are much harder than in the afterworld In this life, You're on your own."

"Dr. Everything'll Be Alright will make everything go wrong Pills and thrills and daffodils will kill Hang tough children."

"I knew a girl named Nikki I guess U could say she was a sex fiend I met her in a hotellobby Masturbating with a magazine. She said "How'd U like 2 waste some time?" And I could not resist when I saw little Nikki grind."

"Dig if U will the picture Of U and I engaged in a kiss. The sweat of your body covers me. Can U my darling, Can U picture this?Dream if U can a courtyard, An ocean of violets in bloom. Animals strike curious poses; They feel the heat, The heat between me and U."

"How can U just leave me standing? Alone in a world that's so cold? (So cold) Maybe I'm just 2 demanding Maybe I'm just like my father, 2 bold Maybe you're just like my mother She's never satisfied (She's never satisfied) Why do we scream at each other? This is what it sounds like When doves cry."

"I'm not a woman; I'm not a man. I am something that U'll never understand. I'll never beat U; I'll never lie. And if U're evil I'll forgive U by and by."

"I never meant 2 cause u any sorrow I never meant 2 cause u any pain I only wanted 2 one time see u laughing I only wanted 2 see u laughing in the purple rain."

"There is a park that is known 4 the face it attracts colorful people whose hair On 1 side is swept back The smile on their faces It speaks of profound inner peace Ask where they're going They'll tell U nowhere They've taken a lifetime lease On Paisley Park."

"I was workin' part-time in a 5-and-dime. My boss was Mr. McGee, huh. He told me several... times That he didn't like my kind cuz I was a bit 2 leisurely. It seems that I was busy doin' somethin' close 2 nothin', But different than the day before That's when I saw her, ooh, I saw her, She walked in through the out door ...out door.She wore a raspberry beret The kind U find in a second hand store Raspberry beret And if it was warm she wouldn't wear much more Raspberry beret I think I love her."

"Pop life Everybody needs a thrill Pop life We all got a space 2 fill Pop life Everybody can't be on top But life it ain't real funky Unless it's got that pop Dig it."

"I want to live life to the ultimate high, Maybe I'll die young like heroes die, Maybe I'll kiss you some wild special way. If nobody kills me or thrills me soon, I'll die in your arms under the cherry moon."

"Happiness in it's uncut form Is the feeling that I get, you're warm, warm Happy's what I get when we do what we do Happiness, mama, is being with u Good lord."

"Women not girls rule my world I said they rule my world Act your age, mama (not your shoe size) Not your shoe size Maybe we could do the twirl U don't have 2 watch Dynasty 2 have an attitude U just leave it all up 2 me My love will be your food Yeah.U don't have 2 be rich 2 be my girl U don't have 2 be cool 2 rule my world Ain't no particular sign I'm more compatible with I just want your extra time and your Kiss."

"Oh yeah In France a skinny man Died of a big disease with a little name By chance his girlfriend came across a needle And soon she did the same At home there are seventeen-year-old boys And their idea of fun Is being in a gang called The Disciples High on crack, totin' a machine gun."

"Here we are folks The dream we all dream of Boy versus girl in the World Series of love Tell me, have U got the look?"

"U walked in (I walked in) I woke up (U woke up) I never seen a pretty girl look so tough' baby (baby) U got that look, yes U do (yes U do) Color U peach and black Color me takin' aback, baby Crucial, I think I wantcha."

"And I said, baby don't waste your time I know what's on your mind U wouldn't be satisfied with a one night stand And I could never take the place of your man."

"I'm going down 2 Alphabet Street I'm gonna crown the first girl that I meet I'm gonna talk so sexy She'll want me from my head 2 my feet."

"This feeling's so good in every single way, I want it morning, noon and night of every day; And if by chance I cannot have it, I can't say But with it I know heaven's just a kiss away."

"I've seen the future and it will be I've seen the future and it works If there's life after, we will see So I can't go like a jerk Systematic overthrow of the underclass Hollywood conjures images of the past New world needs spirituality that will last I've seen the future and it will be."

"Pardon me 4 living, but this is my world 2 I can't help that what's cool to us might be strange to u. Pardon me 4 breathing, can we borrow some of your air? The problem with u and your kind is that u don't know love is there."

"Gett off - 23 positions in a 1 night stand. Gett off - I'll only call u after if u say I can. Gett off - let a woman be a woman and a man be a man. Gett off - if u want 2 baby here I am (Here I am)."

"Could you be The most beautiful girl in the world? Could you be? It's plain to see. You're the reason that God made a girl. Oh, yes, you are."

"It's 2 o'clock in the morning and I just can't sleep Outside the rain is pourin', I'm lonely as can be Maybe 2night'll be different than the nights before I need 2 feel someone beside me, I can't be alone no more"

"I’ve never seen the moon look so lovely as the night I saw it with you. It let me know I’d never seen the moon before. (Never seen the moon before) So many speak of the moon as though it had no flaws. But to compare it to a beauty like yours would give one pause."

"Somebody like Prince, who is so impressive as a human being, it is difficult to not completely canonize him. He is amazing, a gift to humanity. But at the same time, he was a guy we worked with every day and it could get really stressful and annoying. One day he'd come in and be all excited and energetic and happy and want to goof around. The next day he'd walk in really somber with a cloud over his head, mumble into the microphone, and be a dick. Evey show we played, he videotaped and made us watch on the bus afterward. He was charming and funny, but also boring, repetitive and self-absorbed."

"[M]ost of the pop music out today I consider to have become a homogenized product. It gets to the point that so much of what is going on is copying everything else that is out, because there is a businessman that knows what he has just sold millions of records with, and so he keeps trying to get every group that comes in to do it, you know. You know, you approach somebody who is well known as a booker or manager, and the first remark will be, "I love what you do, but you would have to change this to this, and that to that, and this to this, in order for me to be able to sell it." Well, by the time you've changed that, of course, it's like everything else that is out there. And when Prince first started sending me songs, I thought maybe that by the time I had done four arrangements that I would have started getting some sort of a repetitive something or other. I have been extremely surprised to find that each one is as different from the last as the next one is going to be different. Some of them are like little art songs. Some of them have dealt with heavy things like friendship and death. I mean, death of a friend. And yet, some of them are as baudy as..."

"I've talked to him on the phone, received notes through the mail, but I've never seen him face to face. I sent him my last LP and I understand that he turned his head away as he took the disc out, saying, "I don't want to see what he looks like. I have this image and I don't want to destroy it." So there's a certain amount of mystery involved. I suppose if he knew I were a gray-haired, older guy with a big paunch, he might say, "Oh, that ruins it.""

"Prince is intelligent. He never visits the studio when I am working for him; and I have never met him in person. He sends me memos and we talk over the phone. Once I sent him my Grammy-winning CD. I heard from people that were present at the time that while he took out the disc he looked away from the cover, saying, 'I don't want to know what he looks like. It is working just fine as it is.' Prince does not want to meet me because he knows that the minute he walks into a studio he will start interfering. It is uncommon that a person with such a strong ego realizes that I have an ego too."

"Last night I was watching TV. I was watching . And he had Prince on. I wanna— What a character he is! Holy cow! Entertainer. Singer. And he can dance. He's a little bitty guy. He had a weird beard. I tell ya it was— I couldn't explain it."

"The morning of the game, I opened the curtains in my hotel room, and Oh my God — it was like a scene from Moby Dick — it was like the winds were blowing the palm tress, the rains were one of those Miami rainstorms which would just not relent ... were in this truck, sitting behind Don Mischer, and I remember Don said, put me off the phone with Prince. Don says, "I want you to know it's raining" — and Prince, like: "Yes it's raining" — and "Are you OK?" And Prince was like "Can you make it rain harder?" — and I thought Right on! … To me its about one guy in front of a hundred thousand people, and a hundred million people on television, and its your moment to be "Prince — at the Super Bowl", and Mother Nature is dropping thousands and thousands of gallons of rain. I always thought, how cool the guy is — to rise up and to just get stormed upon — and just bring what he brought — that was so special."

"I think Prince was heads, hands and feet about all the rest of them, I thought he left (Michael) Jackson in the dust. Prince was way beyond that. But how pathetic that he killed himself. Don't kid yourself, that's what he did. Slowly, I'll grant you … but that's what drugs and alcohol is: a slow death."

"Isn’t the artist’s characteristic to surprise and often to be where no one expects him? What seems certain in any case is that Prince was no exception to the rule. While he was internationally known as a singer, guitarist and dancer, he took the initiative of playing solo piano on stage at concerts held at his Paisley Park studios in Chanhassen, Minnesota, in the United States and Australia. (…) Prince had no alter ego. Neither in his extravagances, nor in his ultra-sophisticated and perfectionist showman performances. Nor even in his final improvisations on the piano...""

"Look a-here, sweet mama, let's burn off both our shoes Well, my heart's a-beatin' rhythm and my soul is singin' the blues."

"There have been many great performers, but only four great stylists—Al Jolson, Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams, and Jerry Lee Lewis."

"I never set fire to a piano. I'd like to have got away with it, though. I pushed a couple of them in the river. They wasn't any good."

"If I couldn't do it my way, I'd best stay at home."

"I never said I was the greatest. I’m the best."

"I see myself as a traditionalist … I like traditional things. I like things of substance and value that have been proven. Conceptually, as the songs started to come together, I followed that lead, which is the language I work in."

"It doesn't always have a shape, Almost never does it have a name, It maybe has a pitchfork, maybe has a tail, But evil is alive and well."

"When midnight's done, and the day won't start, And all I ever gave you was a broken heart, It's hard to admit but it's easy to tell That evil is alive and well."

"This kind of day Has no night Ain't got much on my mind Ain't got much on my mind 'Cause I know Something good this way comes."

"The trouble, doll Is not moving mountains, but Digging the ground that you're on"

"Got my window open wide Got a good woman by my side I got a good woman by my side 'Cause I know Something good this way comes."

"We're off the script We're off the lease We can't catch any decent sleep We don't live here anymore"

"If God is working I wish He’d say so Maybe He don’t live here anymore"

"I'm here on the blacktop, the sun in my eyes Women and Country on my mind"

"There's only one thing that's certain And that's everybody, everybody's hurting"

"We all do what we can So we can do just one more thing We can all be free Maybe not in words Maybe not with a look But with your mind."

"We won’t have a thing So we’ve got nothing to lose…"

"You’ve got to choose a wish or command At the turn of the tide"

"Cause I was born lonely down by the riverside Learned to spin fortune wheels, and throw dice And I was just thirteen when I had to leave home Knew I couldn't stick around, I had to roam Ain't good looking, but you know I ain't shy Ain't afraid to look it girl, hear me out So if you need some lovin, and you need it right away Take a little time out, and maybe I'll stay."

"All I know is that I'm young and your rules they are old If I've got to kill to live then there's something left untold I'm no statesman I'm no general. I'm no kid I'll never be It's the rules not the soldier that I find the real enemy."

"Cruisin on the grey snakes till my dyin day Checkin all the hen houses out along the way Wastin time and drinkin wine Life is short and I ain't lyin Livin all I can through every day."

"On a long, lonesome highway east of Omaha You can listen to the engine moanin' out its one-note song. You can think about the woman or the girl you knew the night before. But your thoughts will soon be wandering the way they always do, When you're ridin' sixteen hours and there's nothin' much to do. And you don't feel much like ridin', you just wish the trip was through."

"So here I am. On the road again. There I am, Up on the stage. And here I go, Playin' the star again. There I go, Turn the page."

"Out there in the spotlight you're a million miles away. Every ounce of energy you try to give away. As the sweat pours out your body like the music that you play. Later in the evening, as you lie awake in bed. With the echoes from the amplifiers ringin' in your head. You smoke the day's last cigarette, rememberin' what she said."

"He wants to dream like a young man With the wisdom of an old man. He wants his home and security, He wants to live like a sailor at sea. Beautiful loser, where you gonna fall? You realize you just can't have it all."

"That's why I'm going to Katmandu, Up to the mountains where I'm going to. If I ever get out of here, That's what I'm gonna do."

"So you're a little bit older and a lot less bolder Than you used to be. So you used to shake 'em down, But now you stop and think about your dignity. So now sweet sixteen's turned thirty-one, You get to feelin' weary when the work days done. Well all you got to do is get up and into your kicks. If you're in a fix. Come back baby, Rock and roll never forgets."

"Out past the cornfields where the woods got heavy, Out in the back seat of my '60 Chevy. Workin' on mysteries without any clues, Workin' on our night moves. Tryin' to make some front page drive-in news, Workin' on our night moves."

"I woke last night to the sound of thunder, "How far off," I sat and wondered. Started hummin' a song from 1962. Ain't it funny how the night moves, When you just don't seem to have as much to lose. Strange how the night moves, with autumn closin' in."

"Here comes old Rosie she's looking mighty fine Here comes hot Nancy she's steppin' right on time There go the street lights bringin on the night Here come the men faces hidden from the light All through the shadows they come and they go With only one thing in common They got the fire down below."

"In the pool halls, the hustlers and the losers I used to watch 'em through the glass. Well I'd stand outside at closing time Just to watch her walk on past. Unlike all the other ladies, she looked so young and sweet. As she made her way alone down that empty street. Down on Mainstreet."

"She stood there bright as the sun on that California coast. He was a Midwestern boy on his own. She looked at him with those soft eyes, so innocent and blue. He knew right then he was too far from home. He was too far from home."

"You always said the cards would never do you wrong. The trick you said was never play the game too long. A gambler's share. The only risk that you would take. The only loss you could forsake The only bluff you couldn't fake."

"I know it's late, I know you're weary I know your plans don't include me Still here we are, both of us lonely Longing for shelter from all that we see Why should we worry, no one will care girl Look at the stars so far away We've got tonight, who needs tomorrow? We've got tonight babe, Why don't you stay?"

"Some people say that love's a losin' game. You start with fire but you lose the flame. The ashes smolder but the warmth's soon gone. You end up cold and lonely on your own.I'll take my chances babe, I'll risk it all. I'll win your love or I'll take the fall. I've made my mind up girl it's meant to be. Someday lady you'll accomp'ny me. Someday lady you'll accomp'ny me."

"And I remember what she said to me How she swore that it never would end I remember how she held me oh so tight Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then."

"Moving eight miles a minute for months at a time Breaking all of the rules that would bend I began to find myself searchin' Searching for shelter again and again.Against the wind A little something against the wind I found myself seeking shelter Against the wind."

"Who wants to brave those bronze beauties Lying in the sun. With their long soft hair falling Flying as they run. Oh they smile so shy And they flirt so well And they lay you down so fast Till you look straight up and say Oh lord, am I really here at last?"

"Roll, roll me away, Won't you roll me away tonight? I too am lost, I feel double-crossed. And I'm sick of what's wrong and what's right. We never even said a word, We just walked out and got on that bike. And we rolled. And we rolled clean out of sight."

"My hands were steady, My eyes were clear and bright. My walk had purpose, My steps were quick and light. And I held firm to what I felt was right. Like a rock."

"And I stood arrow straight Unencumbered by the weight Of all these hustlers and their schemes. I stood proud, I stood tall High above it all. I still believed in my dreams."

"Love when you can Cry when you have to... Be who you must That's a part of the plan Await your arrival With simple survival And one day we'll all understand... Your conscience awakes and you see your mistakes And you wish someone would buy your confession The days miss their mark and the night gets so dark"

"Dusty day dawning Three hours late Open the curtains And let the rest wait My mind goes running Three thousand miles east I may miss the harvest But I won't miss the feast... And it looks like you're gonna Have to see me again... Cause I've got a woman Who waits for me there And I need a breath of that Sweet country air"

"Changing horses in the middle of a stream Gets you wet and sometimes cold"

"I can see you in the distance And you're heading for a fall Sinking deeper by the minute You're about to lose it all... You better change Before the sun goes down You better leave Before you are the last in town You better raise Your fortresses or tear them down... Tear them down!"

"As the Raven Flies Lyrics I see the raven's made Her nest in your eyes She's got you thinking that Her love is a prize And you'll go under from The weight of her lies"

"Now the wind is still In a moment it will be raging Now my soul is young In a moment it will be aging And high above the pines I wrote several lines And left them in a bottle For you to find"

"Someone's been telling you stories Someone's been telling you stories And they just ain't true No, they just ain't true They just ain't true Someone's been telling you stories]]."

"There's a place in the world For a gambler There's a burden that only he can bear... And he sees. Oh, yes he sees... There's a light in the depths Of your darkness There's a calm at the eye Of every storm There's a light in the depths Of your [[blindness|darkness}} Let it shine Oh, let it shine"

"Gonna pull in the shutters on this heart of mine Roll up the carpets and pull in the blinds And retreat to the chambers that I left behind In hopes there still may be love left to find Still may be love left to find."

"Longer than there've been fishes in the ocean Higher than any bird ever flew. Longer than there've been stars up in the heavens, I've been in love with you."

"Along the road your steps may stumble Your thoughts may start to stray But through it all a heart held humble Levels and lights your way."

"And it's run for the roses As fast as you can Your fate is delivered Your moment's at hand It's the chance of a lifetime In a lifetime of chance And it's high time you joined In the dance It's high time you joined In the dance."

"An only child alone and wild A cabinet maker's son. His hands were meant for different work And his heart was known to none -- He left his home and went his lone and solitary way And he gave to me a gift I know I never can repay."

"The leader of the band is tired And his eyes are growing old But his blood runs through my instrument And his song is in my soul -- My life has been a poor attempt To imitate the man. I'm just a living legacy To the leader of the band."

"We drank a toast to innocence We drank a toast to now. And tried to reach beyond the emptiness But neither one knew how."

"The beer was empty and our tongues were tired And running out of things to say. She gave a kiss to me as I got out And I watched her drive away.Just for a moment I was back at school And felt that old familiar pain And as I turned to make my way back home The snow turned into rain."

"She says no When she means yes And what she wants You know that I can't guess. When we want more You know we ask for less Such is the language of love..."

"Too many hearts have been broken Failing to trust what they feel. But trust isn't something that's spoken And love's never wrong when it's real."

"Looking back now toward the start You said you thought I'd lost my path And I asked if you still considered love an art And you said "No, I think it's more a craft" And I just turned and laughed I just had to turn and laugh."

"Venturing further than the length of your sight Out past the reach of your beginnings There is a gamble in each proud act of flight But the losses pale before the winnings Circling and diving with this freedom you’ve found Illusion blows apart and scatters There is no darkness in this place that we're bound Love is the only thing that matters"

"My love, There's only you in my life The only thing that's right. My first love, (yeah) You're every breath that I take You're every step I make."

"Your eyes, your eyes They tell me how much you care Ooh yes, you will always be My endless love."

"Two hearts, Two hearts that beat as one Our lives have just begun."

"And love and, love I'll be a fool For you, I'm sure. You know I don't mind..."

"You mean the world to me Oh I know I've found in you My endless love."

"I wanna be high, so high. I wanna be free to know The things I do are right. I wanna be free, Just me, babe! That's why I'm easy. I'm easy like Sunday morning."

"Thanks for the times That you've given me. The memories are all in my mind. And now that we've come To the end of our rainbow, There's something I must say out loud. You're once, twice Three times a lady."

"Sail on down the line, About half a mile or so. And I don't really wanna know ah Where you're going. Maybe once or twice you see Time after time I tried Hold on to what we got. But now you're going And I don't mind."

"We played the games that people play We made our mistakes along the way. Somehow I know deep in my heart You needed me."

"I've been through so many changes in my life woman It's a wonder I ain't lost my mind And I ain't never said how much I need you sugar But I sho' need you by my side.My love, just thinking about you baby Just blows my mind."

"Girl, tell me only this: That I'll have your heart for always. And you want me by your side, Whispering the words "I'll always love you.""

"I need you, and with your love I'm free And truly, you know you're alright with me."

"You are the sun, You are the rain That makes my life this foolish game. You need to know I love you so. And I'd do it all again and again."

"Well, my friends, the time has come To raise the roof and have some fun. Throw away the work to be done. Let the music play on."

"People dancing all in the street See the rhythm all in their feet Life is good, wild and sweet. Let the music play on (play on, play on) Feel it in your heart And feel it in your soul Let the music take control."

"Honey you came along and captured my heart Now my love is somewhere lost in your kiss When I'm all alone it's you that I miss Girl, a love like yours is hard to resist."

"Stuck on you. I've got this feeling down Deep in my soul That I just can't lose. Guess, I'm on my way. Needed a friend And the way I feel now I guess I'll be with you till the end Guess I'm on my way Mighty glad you stayed."

"We were running with the night; Playing in the shadows. Just you and I, Till the morning light."

"Hello! Is it me you're looking for? I can see it in your eyes. I can see it in your smile. You're all I've ever wanted And my arms are open wide. 'Cause you know just what to say. And you know just what to do. And I want to tell you so much; I love you."

"What is happening here? Something is going on That's not quite clear. Somebody turn on the light, We're gonna have a party. It's starting tonight.Oh, what a feeling! When we're dancing on the ceiling."

"You know sometimes I sit and wonder Just how this world would be If we had all the people laughing And everybody living in harmony. We'd have to say se la se la. Talking to the people se la, se la."

"You are more than now; You are for always. I can see in you My dreams come true. Don't you ever go away.You make me feel like There's nothing I can't do. And when I hold you, I only want to say I love you."

"Here we are out here, me and you. Reaching out to each other Is all that we can do. Here we stand trying not to fall. There's no need to worry, Love will conquer all."

"I had a dream I had an awesome dream: People in the park playing games in the dark. And what they played was a masquerade. And from behind of walls of doubt a voice was crying out.Say you, say me. Say it for always, that's the way it should be. Say you, say me. Say it together, naturally."

"It's time to start believing — Oh yes. Believing who you are: You are a shining star."

"Hey, hey, what I'm sayin' is - Do it to me one more time. Oh, give you one more chance, This heart of mine. Do it to me one more time, baby. Can't get enough of your love!"

"The laughter came When the tears stopped falling. Now all I do is just call your name (When I say lover) You walked in and my heart discovered That my life would never be the same. Oh, you are my destiny. You are my one and only. You gave that joy to me When my whole life was lonely."

"Someone's gonna get hurt before you're through. Someone's gonna pay for the things you do. How many hearts must break, how many will it take? To satisfy you, just to satisfy you?"

"She's a good-hearted woman in love with a good-timin' man. She loves him in spite of his ways she don't understand. With teardrops and laughter they pass through this world hand in hand, A good-hearted woman, lovin' a good-timin' man."

"Let the world call me a fool, But if things are right with me and you, That's all that matters. And I'll do anything you asked me to."

"This time if you want me to come back, it's up to you. But remember I won't allow the things you used to do. You're gonna have to toe the mark and walk the line; This time will be the last time."

"Oh rainy day woman, I've never seem to see you for the good times or the sunshine. You have been a friend of mine, rainy day woman."

"It's the same old tune, fiddle and guitar. Where do we take it from here? Rhinestone suits and new shiny cars; We've been the same way for years. We need to change."

"They oughtta give me the Wurlitzer Prize For all the silver I let slide down the slot. Playin' those songs sung blue That help me remember you. I don't wanna get over you."

"I've always been crazy and the trouble that it's put me through; I've been busted for things that I did, and I didn't do. I can't say I’m proud of all of the things that I’ve done, But I can say I’ve never intentionally hurt anyone."

"Don't you think this outlaw bit has done got out of hand? What started out to be a joke, the law don't understand. Was it singing through my nose that got me busted by the man? Maybe this here outlaw bit has done got out of hand."

"Just some good ol' boys, Never meaning no harm. Beats all you never saw Been in trouble with the law Since the day they were born."

"Jennings was an integral part of outlaw country’s development and has released some of the most best country albums of all time. He’s often cited by alt-country singers like recent Grammy nominee Sturgill Simpson and Jamey Johnson as a major influence."

"A powerful singer, versatile guitarist and phenomenally successful songwriter, he favored several 1953 Telecasters outfitted in black-and-white leather with an oak-and-floral motif. His tribute Fender Telecaster, a Custom Shop model introduced in 1996, is based on his original 1953 guitar."

"Mowing your lawn is against nature."

"When I was very young I was Judy. On good days I was Dorothy, on bad days I was the Wicked Witch. The interesting thing about it, too, is that I’ve always related to it mainly because I don’t relate much to Frank Sinatra. I appreciate Frank, but there are so many Frank Sinatra imitators, whether it’s Harry Connick Jr. or Michael Bublé—the kind of guys who [Snaps his fingers in quick succession] basically want to get laid. And there’s nobody being the flip side of that, which is the hungry, lonely, desperate, crazy-person singer [Laughs]. So I wanted to pick up that mantle and try to be a little less cool."

"Yes, I'm a homosexual and I like to shock people with glamour."

"When I first came up with the lines, I don't know what it is, but you got to do it/ I don't know where to go but you got to be there, I was at this party for The Strokes in New York. There was this prevailing sense of, 'We're not quite sure what's happening or what is cool, but we know that it's somewhere around here, in this room.' It was this vague confusion, with everybody kind of sniffing for blood. It wasn't that it was a bad party, or that I don't like The Strokes; I just think there's a lot of confusion right now in the music business. Then, later on, I realized the song was really personal. I didn't know where I was, and I didn't know I was actually lost. It wasn't about the party at all; it's about searching but not knowing what you're searching for. There's the train motif, being on this train heading for either oblivion or salvation – and just holding on for dear life. That song came down from some mountain somewhere, because it was right after I wrote it that I sort of packed it in."

"The song is about knowing the end result of every situation you're in, and being able to play it out in your mind and see it before it happens. It's about addiction, really, about knowing how it's all going to end up. In that sense, you're watching a movie of yourself all the time – and then you want out of that movie."

"'Evil Angel' is an interesting song. It's actually to do with a journalist who, uh... I was in France at the time and quite delicate... and this guy basically seduced me in Strasbourg... he gave me a tour of the town and it was very romantic, and we did actually make out in the middle of this town square... and then I went and did the show and I never heard from him again. And I just felt incredibly used. I think a lot of it has to do with, once you get into this business, you do have to become some kind of a machine. You do have to be heartless at times and be able to plough through certain situations. I don't want to totally become that person, but it's good that I'm thinking about it."

"Nothing eviscerates the ego like becoming a parent. For a pop star, that’s not the easiest thing. But it’s led to a complete realignment of priorities for me. Now what happens to my daughter is far more important than what happens to me. And these days it’s not even just my child who is more important than me – it’s all children."

"I’ve always been an old soul. I started drinking when I was very young. I got into opera when I was 13. I sought out older musicians. It’s as if I have always been trying to accelerate my life. It’s not that I found people my own age unstimulating. There was just something about always being the youngest kid in the room when I was growing up."

"Grief is unexplainable. My mother has now been dead for 10 years. I only put my grief for her on the shelf when about five years had gone by. I felt as if I’d passed my exams. I had grieved enough, it was time to live again. And it felt like that for the next five years. But this Christmas I got the worst whiplash. It all came back out. I’m doing better now, but it was horrific. Leonard Cohen warned me it would be hard. He told me that, despite his mother having passed away many years previously, in his late 70s she was almost more present than ever."

"I don't want to hold you and feel so helpless I don't want to smell you and lose my senses And smile in slow motion With eyes in love."

"You broke my heart, Danny boy Not your fault, Danny boy I was had at the doorstep Played, like a two to a four-set Had, like poor Job in the bible by God."

"And you will believe in love And all that it's supposed to be But just until the fish start to smell And you're struck down by a hammer."

"Cigarettes and chocolate milk These are just a couple of my cravings Everything it seems I like's a little bit stronger A little bit thicker A little bit harmful for me."

"I really do fear that I'm dying I really do fear that I'm dead I saw it in your eyes what I'm looking for I saw it in your eyes what will make me live."

"I did go from wanting to be someone now I'm drunk and wearing flip-flops on Fifth Avenue."

"Why am I always on a plane or a fast train? Oh what a world my parents gave me Always Travelin' but not in love.Still I think I'm doin' fine Wouldn't it be a lovely headline? Life is Beautiful on a New York Times."

"Putting all of my time In learning to care And a bucket of rhymes I threw up somewhere Want a locket of who Made me lose my perfunctory view Of all that is around And of all that I do."

"The mind has so many pictures Why can't I sleep with my eyes open? The mind has so many memories Can you remember what it looks like when I cry?I'm trying, trying to tell you All that I can in a sweet and velvet tongue But no words ever could sell you Sell you on me after all that I have done."

"I really need to know I may just never see you again, or might as well You took advantage of a world that loved you well I'm going to a town that has already been burnt down I'm so tired of you, America."

"Even if the sun, it is blazing Even if the snow, it is raging All the elements, we must conquer To get to the other side of town."

"These are just the rules and regulations Of the birds, and the bees The earth, and the trees, Not to mention the gods, not to mention the gods."

"Who will be at Sanssouci tonight? It's only when you're outside that you notice Only through the window you can see them Once the door is open, all will vanish."

"Guess the world needs both sun And the moon too Sad with what I have except for you."

"And I am left behind Corrupted crushed and blind All for a dream That in truth was never really mine."

"I believe in freedom Freedom's apparently all I need But who's ever been free in this world? Who has never had to bleed in this world?"

"But I don’t even think you hear me at all Under your medieval ceiling behind your biblical wall"

"One day you will come to Montauk and see your dad playing the piano And see your other dad wearing glasses Hope that you will want to stay for a while Don’t worry I know you’ll have to go"

"Somebody curse the light And take me far away from myself"

"Rufus seemed to come out of the womb completely musical. I'm convinced that when the doctor bashed him on the bum he sang a few bars of Nessun Dorma."

"Rufus might sing with that beautiful voice, and the entire world seems to melt and stop; but it's his hair, after all, that I'm jealous of."

"Rufus is one of those singular musical talents who both transcends and makes a mockery of fashion. It would not matter in which musical era he chose to materialise, but that his voice and his sensibility would be recognised as unique, timeless and without peer."

"His songs are obviously drawn from his own experience, but he's mastered the art of making them emotionally universal."

"The Greatest songwriter on the planet."

"Rufus Wainwright has as true a voice as you can hear and as sweet and acute a sensibility as you can imagine. His musicianship combined with his poetic, intelligent and humane outlook on life make for one of the great performers of our day. I adore his singing, his song-writing, everything about him…"

"He's got a phenomenal voice."

"Rufus is extraordinary, so musically gifted in many diverse fields. He is a prince in shining armour, a true star in these days of dull and boring, pissy little pop stars."

"For one minute, think of the last guy. Nobody's got it worse than that guy. Nobody in the whole world. He's so alone in the world, that he doesn't even have a street to lay in for a truck to run him over."

"Be serious. Folk songs are serious. That's what Pete Seeger told me. "Arlo, I only wanna tell you one thing. Folk songs are serious." And I said "Right.""

"It's about the time I was riding my Motorcycle, going down a mountain road at 150 miles an hour, playing my guitar."

"Back around 1971, I was playing in a bar in Chicago one night, and after the show, I was packing up my guitar and stuff, and I was walking out the door, and a little guy stopped me. And he said, "Arlo, before you leave, I wanna sing you a song." I said "Come on man, I don't wanna hear no songs. I hate songs. I don't even like my songs! Why should I like your songs?" I was just tired, I wanted to get out of there, I was being a butt-head. He said, "Arlo, I just wanna sing you one song." I said, "Tell you what. Buy me beer. I'll sit here and drink it. As long as it lasts, you can do whatever you want." He said, "That sounds like a good deal." I said "It does?" It turned out to be one of the finer beers of my entire life."

"[My mother] said, "Arlo, I was out in the middle of China. And they brought out these school kids, and they started singing us songs, and they started singing 'This Land is Your Land', and I said 'STOP! Stop the song! My husband wrote that song!" She must have drove them nuts! She was driving me nuts about it! It was weeks after she had got back she hadn't slowed down about it one little bit! And I just looked at her and I said, "You know, mom...California.....to the New York Island. What are they singing it for over there anyhow?" She just looked with one of those Mom kind of looks. She said, "Oh Arlo..." She walked away. I was left standing there feeling like my usual self. I knew she was right, but I just didn't know why. After a while though, it come to me. I could see it, just because it said "California to the New York Island", didn't mean it had to go the short way! I could see it going around back! Redwood Forests, Gulf stream waters, around that way! Then the whole world could be singing that song! Except America."

"We went back, afterward, after the show was over that night, I took my kids backstage and said, "You know what? I know my dad's songs...""

"I froze in time! And I thought "My God......I'm free!""

"I'm thinking that somewhere around the world, I remember after this 9/11 event back home, people didn't feel much like playing, singing, people didn't feel like going out. But then I thought you know, that somewhere in the world, somebody's hiding behind a rock or a tree, or a wall, or something, and somebody else has been shooting at them for quite some time. Somebody's dreaming, somebody's hoping that somewhere, somebody's singing. Somebody's smiling, and laughing, and life is good, and it's fun to be a human being, and it's all right. And I thought man we got to keep that spirit going, you know, and so we got back out on the road. But I think of that every time that we play now. It would be nice to go anywhere in the world to go and do these kind of things and have fun and live right and not be worried about stuff like that. That's my hope, that everywhere in the world that will happen soon."

"You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant Walk right in, it's around the back Just a half a mile from the railroad track You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant"

"This song is called "Alice's Restaurant". It's about Alice. And the Restaurant. But Alice's Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant, that's just the name of the song. That's why I called this song "Alice's Restaurant.""

"Alice doesn't live in the restaurant, she lives in the church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and Fasha the dog. And living in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of room downstairs where the pews used to be in. Having all that room, seeing as how they took out all the pews, they decided that they didn't have to take out their garbage for a long time."

"We came to a side road, and off the side of the side road there was another fifteen foot cliff and at the bottom of the cliff there was another pile of garbage. And we decided that one big pile is better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up we decided to throw ours down."

"Now friends, there was only one or two things that Obie coulda done at the police station, and the first was he could have given us a medal for being so brave and honest on the telephone, which wasn't very likely, and we didn't expect it, and the other thing was he could have bawled us out and told us never to be see driving garbage around the vicinity again, which is what we expected, but when we got to the police officer's station, there was a third possibility that we hadn't even counted upon, and we was both immediately arrested. Handcuffed. And I said "Obie, I don't think I can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on." He said, "Shut up, kid. Get in the back of the patrol car.""

"I want tell you about the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where this happened here, they got three stop signs, two police officers, and one police car, but when we got to the scene of the crime, there was five police officers and three police cars, being the biggest crime of the last fifty years, and everybody wanted to get in the newspaper story about it."

"And they took twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. Took pictures of the approach, the getaway, the northwest corner the southwest corner and that's not to mention the aerial photography."

"...And it was about four or five hours later that Alice — Remember Alice? It's a song about Alice."

"They got a building down New York City, it's called Whitehall Street, where you walk in, you get injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected. I went down to get my physical examination one day, and I walked in, I sat down, got good and drunk the night before, so I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning."

"And I walked in and sat down and they gave me a piece of paper, said, "Kid, see the psychiatrist, room 604." And I went up there, I said, "Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL." And I started jumping up and down yelling, "KILL, KILL," and he started jumping up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down yelling, "KILL, KILL." And the Sargent came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said, "You're our boy.""

"Group W's where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father rapers!"

"And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean 'n' ugly 'n' nasty 'n' horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me and said, "Kid, whad'ya get?" I said, "I didn't get nothing, I had to pay $50 and pick up the garbage." He said, "What were you arrested for, kid?" And I said, "Littering." And they all moved away from me on the bench there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I said, "And creating a nuisance." And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench."

"I went over to the Sargent, said, "Sargent, you got a lot a damn gall to ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I'm sitting here on the bench, I mean I'm sitting here on the Group W bench 'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after being a litterbug.""

"If you're in a situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into the shrink wherever you are, just walk in say "Shrink, You can get anything you want, at Alice's restaurant." And walk out. You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement. And that's what it is, the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on the guitar!"

"It seems to me I've heard that song before. It's from an old familiar score. I know it well, that melody."

"Till you're walking beside me, I'll walk alone."

"I fall in love too easily I fall in love too fast I fall in love too terribly hard For love to ever last My heart should be well-schooled Cause I've been fooled in the past But still I fall in love so easily I fall in love too fast"

"Three coins in a fountain Each one seeking happiness Thrown by three hopeful lovers Which one will the fountain bless?"

"When somebody loves you It's no good unless he loves you - all the way Happy to be near you When you need someone to cheer you - all the way."

"Just what makes that little old ant Think he’ll move that rubber tree plant? Anyone knows an ant, can’t Move a rubber tree plant. But he’s got high hopes, he’s got high hopes He’s got high apple pie, in the sky hopes."

"Call me irresponsible Yes, I'm unreliable But it's undeniably true That I'm irresponsibly mad for you."

"R-E-S-P-E-C-T Find out what it means to me R-E-S-P-E-C-T Take care … TCB Sock it to me, Sock it to me, Sock it to me."

"Speak your name And I'll feel a thrill. You said I do, And I said I will.I tell you that I'll stay true, And give you just a little time. Wait on me baby, I want you to be all mine. I just get so blue.Since you've been gone, baby (why'd you do it? why'd you have to do it?)"

"People walkin' around everyday, Playin' games and takin' scores. Tryin' to make other people lose their minds. Well be careful you don't lose yours.Oh think (think) Think about what you're tryin' to do to me. Woo-hoo think (think) Let your mind go let yourself be free.You need me (need me) And I need you (don't cha know) Without each other There ain't nothin' we two can do."

"I want to be what he wants when he wants it, and whenever he needs it And when he's lonesome and feelin' love starved I'll be there to feed it I'm givin' him a little bit for each day He turns me right on when I hear him say(Hey baby let's get away, let's go somewhere far) (Baby can we?) Well I don't care."

"Step n' move your hips With a feelin' from side to side Sit yourself down in your car And take a ride.And while you're movin' Rock steady Rock steady baby. Let's call this song exactly what it is (What it is -what it is - what it is)"

"You walked in on the sly Scopin' for love In the crowd, I caught your eye You can't hide your stuff.You came to catch You thought I'd be naive and tame You met your match I beat you at your own game."

"In order to become Aretha Franklin you really have to be able to assess an inheritance and find yourself able to use it."

"What made her talent so great was her capacity to live what she sang. Her music was deepened by her connection to the struggles and the triumphs of the African American experience growing up in her father’s church, the community of Detroit, and her awareness of the turmoil of the South. She had a lifelong, unwavering commitment to civil rights and was one of the strongest supporters of the movement. She was our sister and our friend. Whenever I would see her, from time to time, she would always inquire about the well-being of people she met and worked with during the sixties.When she sang, she embodied what we were fighting for, and her music strengthened us. It revived us. When we would be released from jail after a non-violent protest, we might go to a late night club and let the music of Aretha Franklin fill our hearts. She was like a muse whose songs whispered the strength to continue on. Her music gave us a greater sense of determination to never give up or give in, and to keep the faith. She was a wonderful, talented human being. We mourn for Aretha Franklin. We have lost the Queen of Soul."

"Hopefully, these characters bring us closer to a sense of self: honest and honored. Icons: Toussaint Louverture to José Martí to lesser known heroes, Atahualpa and Denmark Vesey. We lace our visions with Celia Cruz and Aretha Franklin."

"People may say I can't sing, but no one can ever say I didn't sing."

"Mrs. Jenkins could dream if she could not sing."

"Critics have long wondered whether Coloratura Jenkins' art can be described as singing at all. But she will intrepidly attack any aria, scale its altitudes in great swoops and hoots, assaying its descending trills with the vigor of a maudlin cuckoo."

"She never knew how bad she was."

"That’s who I am. I don’t look much like him now with my foot wrapped up and all that kind of business."

"Boy, when I'm dead twenty-five years, people are going to begin to recognize me."

"Syncopations are no indication of light or trashy music, and to shy bricks at "hateful ragtime" no longer passes for musical culture."

"What is scurrilously called ragtime is an invention that is here to stay. That is now conceded by all classes of musicians."

"Never play ragtime fast at any time."

"Panic in Wall Street, brokers feeling melancholy."

"Good times coming. Good times have come."

"Listening to the strains of genuine negro ragtime, brokers forget their cares."

"As friends and as musical collaborators we had traveled, toured and written — together and apart — the events of our lives as if they were songs, and I guess they were. When news of Jacques’ death came I stayed locked in my bedroom and drank for a week. That kind of self pity was something he wouldn’t have approved of, but all I could do was replay our songs (our children) and ruminate over our unfinished life together."

"Jean, Jean, roses are red All the leaves have gone green And the clouds are so low You can touch them, and so Come out to the meadow, Jean."

"Jean, Jean, you're young and alive Come out of your half-dreamed dream And run, if you will, to the top of the hill Open your arms, bonnie Jean."

"Till the sheep in the valley come home my way Till the stars fall around me and find me alone When the sun comes a-singin' I'll still be waitin' For Jean, Jean, roses are red And all of the leaves have gone green While the hills are ablaze with the moon's yellow haze Come into my arms, bonnie Jean."

"Adieu, Francoise, my trusted wife; Without you I'd have had a lonely life. You cheated lots of times but then, I forgave you in the end Though your lover was my friend.Adieu, Francoise, it's hard to die When all the birds are singing in the sky. Now that spring is in the air With your lovers ev'rywhere, Just be careful; I'll be there."

"We have only love, to offer as a prayer, for all the wrongs in the world. So... like singing troubadours we’ll go, singing love wherever we go."

"We have only love, to help us find our way, as we go out into the world. So... like laughing children we’ll go singing love wherever we go."

"If we only have love Then tomorrow will dawn And the days of our years Will rise on that morn."

"If we only have love We can reach those in pain We can heal all our wounds We can use our own names."

"If we only have love We can melt all the guns And then give the new world To our daughters and sons.If we only have love Then Jerusalem stands And then death has no shadow There are no foreign lands."

"If we only have love We will never bow down We'll be tall as the pines Neither heroes nor clowns. If we only have love Then we'll only be men And we'll drink from the Grail To be born once again Then with nothing at all But the little we are We'll have conquered all time All space, the sun, and the stars."

"He asked her, "please stop quoting Rod McKuen in your postcards""

"The bestselling poet of 1968 was Rod McKuen, who penned rhythmic little bon mots that he read in a raspy voice suggestive either of emotion or bronchitis. A Hollywood songwriter, clean-shaven with V-neck sweaters, McKuen was a long way from the beats. But by early 1968 he had already sold 250,000 volumes of his unabashedly sentimental verse. His two books, Stanyan Street and Other Sorrows and Listen to the Warm, were selling more than any book on The New York Times fiction bestseller list, although they were not listed, because poetry was not included on bestseller lists. With characteristic self-effacing candor, he said in a 1968 interview, “I’m not a poet; I’m a stringer of words.” When he came down with hepatitis, fans by the hundreds sent him stuffed animals. To many, he and his fans seemed unbearable."

"Set me free Leave me be I dont wanna fall another moment into your gravity"

"Here I am And I stand So tall Just the way I'm supposed to be But you're on to me And all over me"

"The time that I've taken I pray is not wasted Have I already tasted My piece of one sweet love"

"I don't care For your fairytales You're so worried about the maiden Oh, you know she's only waiting on the next best thing"

"I'm going down Follow if you want I won't just hang around Like you'll show me where to go I'm already out Of foolproof ideas So don't ask me how To get started It's all uncharted"

"Ooh, how'm I gonna get over you? I'll be alright Just not tonight But someday"

"I'll be alright Once I find the other side Of someday"

"Who cares if you disagree? You are not me Who made you king of anything? So you dare Tell me who to be Who died and made you king of anything?"

"I wanna darken in the skies Open the floodgates up I wanna change my mind I wanna be enough I want the water in my eyes I wanna cry until the end of time I wanna let the rain come down Make a brand new ground"

"Maybe nobody loved you when you were young Maybe, boy, when you cry nobody ever comes Will you try it once? Give up the machine gun"

"They may be lies But say that we'll be alright If we stay tonight"

"A tongue like yours should be burned and branded So I can see you lie to me I wish the air would color red when you breathed it Oh, so I could've seen it coming Look in my eyes when you say you love me So I can see you lie to me"

"Mean songs are still better than going postal"

"I say what I think Because it's more economic than drugs or a drink"

"I wonder what would happen if you Say what you want to say And let the words fall out Honestly, I want to see you be brave"

"You said Remember that life is Not meant to be wasted We can always be chasing the sun So fill up your lungs and just—run! We can always be chasing the sun"

"So how do you do it? With just words and just music Capture the feeling That my earth is somebody's ceiling Can I deliver in sound The weight of the ground of a cemetery in the center of Queens"

"You can have Manhattan I know it's for the best Gather up the avenues and leave them on your doorstep"

"You are all just perfect little satellites Spinning round and round this broken Earthy life"

"I've got my little black dress on And if I tell myself that nothing's wrong This doesn't have to be a sad song Not with my little black dress on."

"I would die to make you mine Bleed me dry almost every time But I don't mind, no I don't mind it I would come back 1000 times"

"Tell the world that we finally got it all right I choose you I will become yours and you will become mine I choose you."

"There's no way to make the pain play fair It doesn't disappear just because you say it isn't there"

"It can't be a mistake If I just call it change"

"The frustration was with the philosophy of the instrument."

"When it broke down, I would break down. I had to wean myself from it just to survive. I had to have interventions. People would say, ‘You’ve got to do something else.’ So that was part of it—being too dependent on this thing I couldn’t count on."

"It had to go all the way out to the west coast and come all the way back to the east coast every time it needed to be fixed."

"And if it made it one trip, it wouldn’t make the other. Then somebody stole half of it. I found out about that 20 years later, when someone sent me a photograph and said, ‘Does this look familiar to you?’ I nearly fainted."

"Now my ears are awakening again, just because I’m part of the zeitgeist of contemporary whatever. Even though I’m in this remote place, I get it."

"I never wanted to be put on a pedestal. I just wanted to make music. And believe me, many times I have thought I was going to quit. It's too much energy to pretend it's fun. You can call me a baby if you'd like, but life is too short to spend it being miserable."

"Turn it inside out, so I can see. The part of you, that's drifting over me. Because when I wake you're, you're never there. But, when I sleep? You're? You're everywhere, you're everywhere. Just tell me how I got this far? Just tell me why you're here, and who you are. Because every time I look, you're never there. And every time I sleep, you're always there. Because you're everywhere to me, and when I close my eyes? It's you I see, you're everything I know. That makes me believe, I'm not alone. I'm not alone."

"I wanted, to be like you. I wanted, everything. So, I tried. To be like you, and I got swept away. I didn't know that it was so cold and, you needed someone to show you the way. So I took your hand and we figured out, that when the time comes? I'd take you away. If you want to? I can save you; I can take you away from here. So lonely inside; so busy out there. And all you wanted, was somebody who cares."

"Of all the things I've believed in? I just want to get it over with. Tears form behind my eyes, but I do not cry. Counting the days that pass me by. I've been searching deep down in my soul. Words that I'm hearing? Are starting to get old. It feels like I'm starting, all over again. The last three years were just pretend. And I said, goodbye to you; goodbye to everything that I knew. You were the one I loved; the one thing I that I tried to hold on to."

"Now, don't just walk away. Pretending everything's okay, and you don't care about me. And I know there's just no use, when all your lies become your truths and I don't care. Could you look me in the eye? And tell me that you're happy now? Would you tell it to my face? Or have I been erased? Are you happy now? Are you happy now?"

"Love me or leave me, baby. Don't lead me on, with loving like yours? Believe me, I'm better off. I"m better off alone."

"There was something, about the way you looked at me. Made me think for a moment, that maybe we were meant to be. Living our lives separately, and it's strange that things change. But not me, wanting you so desperately. Oh, why can't I ignore it? I keep giving in, but I should know better. Because there was something about the way you looked at me, and it's strange that things change. But not me, wanting you so desperately."

"I've been driving for an hour; just talking to the rain. You say I've been driving you crazy, and it's keeping you away. So, just give me one good reason. Tell me why, I should stay. Because I don't want to waste another moment, saying things we never meant to say. And I? Take it, just a little bit. I? Hold my breath and count to ten, I? I've been waiting for a chance, to let you in. If I just, breathe? Let it fill the space between? I'll know, everything is alright. Breathe, every little piece of me. You'll see, everything is alright. If I just, breathe."

"The game of love is whatever you make it to be."

"Monday comes like a loaded gun and I'm trying to escape. Want to run. Want to chase the sun; let it wash the world away. Looking out on an empty street, thinking change is what I need. I feel slow. There's an open road and I need some sweet release. I want to get away, got to get away. Going where the road meets the sky, because I need a change. Yeah, I need a change."

"Everybody was telling me where to be and what to do; all I wanted was create this nest of security, have a normal life. At least I think that's what a therapist would have told me."

"Must have counted twenty thousand cold county lines; nothing here will get my weary soul to ignite. Hold me, hold me. Put me back together, baby. Show me that you love me; feels so good together. Every single fire, started with a spark. We could feel it burn, when we're dancing in the dark. Take me in your arms, before I fall apart. Baby, we're a fire that started with a spark."

"The reason why I'm successful is because Dan and I have been given the opportunity to fail so that we could sort things out on our own. But she has some dumbass with a Communications degree from Purdue or whatever telling her what to do. If Michelle was a guy, all this shit would not have happened to her."

"I’m nothing but a conduit. The music goes though my ears, my fingers... Composer is a god. Composer creates music. We’re performers. We’re just passing it on."

"If the question [about if there were only one composer in the world I could play] is purely ‘original’ works, no transcriptions, then Beethoven."

"Memorising notes as one memorises a speech in foreign language is bound to lead to memory lapses. YouTube is an invaluable tool; you can get to study your repertory with the best pianists of all times. Use it. If you are learning a piece, don’t hesitate to put your headphones on and just play along with your favourite recording. No matter how many times you hear the playing you will not grasp all the finer points if not directly measuring your inner hearing of music with the an interpretation you like."

"Would-be musicians are starving themselves emotionally and intellectually just to be perfect."

"It’s only when you stop trying to find faults and start doing something constructive that you will survive … It’s just good for you as a human not to dwell on your disasters."

"... ongoing accusations of deeply offensive language by Ukrainian media outlets"

"Valentina Lisitsa in conversation with Melanie Spanswick (Nov 4, 2012) on Youtube 80,802 views"

"The eventual survival of the tradition is ultimately not at stake."

"Our freedom is hemmed in on every side. We must be grateful for what remains."

"Understanding music simply means not being irritated or puzzled by it."

"More positively, taking pleasure in music is the most obvious sign of comprehension, the proof that we understand it, and we may extend that to sympathy with other listeners' enjoyment ..."

"It is not, however, the unfamiliarity or strangeness of a work or of a composer's manner that is a bar to understanding, but rather the disappearance of the familiar, the ongoing disappointment of the expectations and hopes fostered by the musical tradition in which we have grown up."

"We can, in fact, relive the history of taste in our own lives, the way embryos are supposed to go through the history of the evolution of a species."

"If getting used to music is the essential condition for understanding, it is hard to see just what purpose is served by writing about it. A few experiences of listening to a symphony or nocturne are worth more than any essay or analysis. The work of art itself teaches us how to understand it, and makes the critic not merely parasitical but strictly superfluous."

"Critical evaluation was transformed into understanding, and criticism became not an act of judgment but of comprehension."

"Our sensuous appreciation of the world and of the works created by man has, no doubt, a biological foundation, one shared by all human beings, but that is no use to us when we try to evaluate a Bach fugue or a Dostoevsky novel-or even the simple experience of a landscape, as our delight in the view of a mountain or a waterfall is also determined by the traditions of our culture. The coexistence of different criteria of judgment is, in any case, by now a fact of life. Beethoven cannot be judged or even understood by the standards of Mozart, however much he may have continued them, nor Berg by the standards of Wagner or Richard Strauss, nor Elliott Carter by the values of Ives and Stravinsky."

"Normally, misprints are either easily corrected or else so trivial that it makes no difference whether we play the correct or the faulty version. ... Nevertheless, on rare occasions, a misprint or slip of the pen may challenge our view of the musical language. These extreme cases may help us understand a little more about the way music acquires meaning, or what it means to say that the music makes sense."

"By this time Mozart had been dead for almost fourteen years and Haydn was too weak to compose. Beethoven was unchallenged throughout Europe as the greatest living composer of instrumental music. Even more, he was generally recognized as having surpassed his famous predecessors. This, of course, did not prevent critics from greeting each new work as a disappointment after his by then acceptable achievements of the previous years."

"When I was a small child, The New York Times received every new creation of Igor Stravinsky with hostility, but even then I knew, like everybody else, that he was the greatest living composer-and I knew it even without having heard much Stravinsky or even any of the more recent works at all. It is a mistake of music historians to rely too much on journalists and music critics to assess a composer's reputation, as we generally find a certain delay in their transmission of the more influential professional judgments."

"There is a revealing sardonic comment by Leopold Godowsky on a well-known statement of Paderewski, who once boasted, "When I don't practice for one day, my fingers know it; for two days, and my friends know it; for three days and the whole world knows it." Godowsky added: "On the fourth day, the critics hear about it." In any case, poets and novelists are generally better reporters of the general state of musical opinion than music journalists, who most often have an ax to grind, or, quite reasonably and justifiably, a more limited set of prejudices to broadcast."

"We can see that canonic status is accorded to the works of a composer not by posterity, or at least not by a posterity as distant in time as is sometimes thought; nor does it depend very much on whether the works are frequently performed for the public in every important musical center. To a certain extent, canonic status is actually built into some new works, partly by the way they impose themselves on an already substantial musical tradition. This may explain why it is so difficult to alter a firmly installed canon in any radical way, or to dislodge works that have been an integral part of it for some time."

"I do not mean that it is not worthwhile to attempt a revision of the canon or that no success is possible. A few valuable minor changes have been made to our sense of the basic material of the history of music, and other alterations are still waiting to take hold. Gesualdo has not displaced Monteverdi or Palestrina but has won a permanent place; on the other hand, the attempt to convince us that Telemann is a major composer appears to have been abandoned. Alkan has not had the breakthrough his admirers had hoped for. Attacks on Tchaikovsky have not had much success in removing his music from the repertory; his credit with performers has not changed a bit."

"I have never believed that the historian should seek to perpetuate the misapprehensions of the past, and it is true that we understand Beethoven today better than his contemporaries did, better, above all, than the generation that immediately followed him, including his own most important pupil, Karl Czerny."

"Mathematicians tells us that it is easy to invent mathematical theorems which are true, but that it is hard to find interesting ones. In analyzing music or writing its history, we meet the same difficulty, and it is compounded by another. For whom is it interesting? To paraphrase a famous remark of Barnett Newman, musicology is for musicians what ornithology is for the birds."

"Music has its existence on the borderline between meaning and nonsense. That is why most attempts to attribute a specific meaning to a piece of music seem to be beside the point—even when the attribution is authoritative, even when it is made by the composer himself."

"Nevertheless, music will not acknowledge a context greater than itself—social, cultural, or biographical—to which it is conveniently subservient. To paraphrase Goethe's grandiose warning to the scientist: do not look behind the notes, they themselves are the doctrine."

"Inaudible music may seem an odd notion, even a foolishly Romantic one—although it is partly the Romantic prejudice in favor of sensuous experience that makes it seem odd. Still, there are details of music which cannot be heard but only imagined, and even certain aspects of musical form which cannot be realized in sound even by the imagination."

"It is fitting that a discourse on Romantic music should commence with a meditation on the art of Bach. The Bach revival is still sometimes considered an early nineteenth-century phenomenon, although this is hardly tenable: in the 1780s Mozart was deeply affected by Bach, and at the same time Beethoven was being brought up on the Well-Tempered Keyboard. Bach was well known to European musicians as a composer of keyboard music through manuscript copies of this work long before systematic publication began in 1800. The "revival" of Bach in the Romantic period was basically a rediscovery of his choral works and a new evaluation of his technique: his art was no longer simply a model for the fugue, as it had been in the eyes of Mozart, but for the art of music as a whole. The new approach to Bach and to Baroque music in general, however, did not extend to the sound of that music on the original instruments. Few musicians in the 1820s and '30s 'had the slightest interest in the sonority of old harpsichords or Baroque organs (Ignaz Moscheles was an engaging exception). What they saw, and needed to see, in Bach was the achievement of an ideal."

"The absolutely inaudible is rejected from music during the period of Viennese Classicism in which every musical line is potentially or imaginatively audible, but it makes a dramatic reappearance in the music of Schumann. The most striking of many examples is one of the episodes in the Humoresk, the last of the great piano works of Schumann's early years. ... There are three staves: the uppermost for the right hand; the lowest for the left; the middle, which contains the melody, is not to be played. Note that the melody is no more to be imagined as a specific sound than it is to be played: nothing tells us that the melody is to be heard as vocal or instrumental. This melody, however, is embodied in the upper and lower parts as a kind of after-resonance-out of phase, delicate, and shadowy."

"Here, in the last pages of the "Abegg" Variations, Schumann plays the motto theme A-B-E-G-G (B in German notation is the English Bb) not by sounding the last four notes but by taking them away, one by one, from, the chord of Bb-E-G. This is the first time in history that a melody is signified not by the attack but by the release of a series of notes. The motto, however, ends with a repeated final G. If the motto is played by releasing each successive note, we are faced with a paradox: when the G is released once on the piano, it is no longer there to be released again-the motto is not only unplayable as conceived but unimaginable. Schumann signifies as much by another paradox: he adds accents to the sustained notes."

"Schumann's humor is rarely either witty or light: the unrealizable musical structure, the musical motto hidden and partly inaudible, must have stirred his musical fantasy."

"In the piano writing of the Romantic generation of the 1830s, in fact, a fully pedalled sonority becomes the norm: the piano is expected to vibrate fairly constantly, and an unpedalled sonority is an exception, almost a special effect. Furthermore, the phrase is now shaped at least partially by changes in this full vibration. The change of pedal is crucial to the conception of rhythmic movement and to the sustaining of the melodic line over the bass."

"For Beethoven, music was still shape, realized and inflected by instrumental sonority: other realizations may be as absurd as arrangements of the Hammerklavier, for example, always are, but the musical conception takes precedence over its realization in sound. The sonority serves the music. For Schumann, however, as for Chopin and Liszt, the conception was worked out directly within the sonority as a sculptor works directly in clay or marble. The instrumental sound is shaped into music."

"The extraordinary stylistic changes of late eighteenth-century music may have provided much of the inspiration for the literature of the turn of the century, but the literary forms that resulted were deeply eccentric. It was these works—paradoxical, anticlassical, often with startlingly unbalanced proportions—which in turn influenced the music of the generation of composers that followed. The most clearly affected by literature and art were Schumann, Berlioz, and Liszt, but neither Mendelssohn nor Chopin remained untouched by literary developments, like the revival of Celtic and medieval poetry, as the overtures of Mendelssohn and the Ballades of Chopin explicitly demonstrate."

"It is typical of Schumann's musical thinking to construct this complex network of references outside his music-to quote Beethoven, and then to have Beethoven's distant beloved refer to Clara. But this should give a clue to the nature of Schumann's achievement. It is not Schumann's music that, refers to Clara but Beethoven's melody, the "secret tone.""

"It is above all through landscape that music joins Romantic art and literature."

"Visual delight, sentiment, and exploration become one in the new appreciation of landscape and Nature."

"Beethoven is the first composer to represent the complex process of memory-not merely the sense of loss and regret that accompanies visions of the past, but the physical experience of calling up the past within the present."

"The most signal triumphs of the Romantic portrayal of memory are not those which recall past happiness, but remembrances of those moments when future happiness still seemed possible, when hopes were not yet frustrated."

"The song cycle is the most original musical form created in the first half of the nineteenth century. It most clearly embodies the Romantic conception of experience as a gradual unfolding and illumination of reality in place of the Classical insistence on an initial clarity. The form of Schubert's song cycle is not less precise than that of a Classical sonata, but its precision is only gradually comprehended as it unfolds."

"The relation of tonic to dominant is the foundation of Western triadic tonality. The attempt of the early nineteenth century to substitute third or mediant relationships for the classical dominant amounted to a frontal attack on the principles of tonality, and it eventually contributed to the ruin of triadic tonality. This ruin was accomplished from within the system, however, as mediant relationships were essential to tonality as conceived in the eighteenth century."

"The secret of avoiding monotony with the four-bar module was to vary the accent and the weight of the bars to avoid giving a similar emphatic accent on the first bar of every group, as if one were accenting a downbeat. After Beethoven and before Brahms, perhaps the greatest master of the technique was Chopin, as one can see from the opening of the Nocturne in D flat Major, Op. 27, no. 2, of 1836 ..."

"In almost every edition (and consequently most performances) of Chopin's Sonata in B flat Minor, Op. 35, there is a serious error that makes awkward nonsense of an important moment in the first movement. The repeat of the exposition begins in the wrong place."

"Above all, Chopin was the greatest master of counterpoint since Mozart. This will appear paradoxical only if we equate counterpoint with strict fugue, and Chopin wrote no formal fugues except as an academic exercise. His chief training, in both composition and keyboard playing, however, came from a study of Bach, and it was a study that engaged him all his life and which he always recommended to his pupils."

"There is a paradox at the heart of Chopin's style, in its unlikely combination of a rich chromatic web of polyphony, based on a profound experience of J. S. Bach, with a sense of melody and a way of sustaining the melodic line derived directly from Italian opera. The paradox is only apparent, and it is never felt as such when one hears the music. The two influences are perfectly synthesized, and they give each other a new kind of power."

"Only once in Chopin's music is there a direct reference to Bach, and that is, appropriately, at the beginning of his only educational work, the two sets of Etudes, Op. 10 and 25, and the three Nouvelles Etudes for Moscheles. In the first Etude, Op. 10, in C major, we find a modernized version of the Prelude no. 1 of the Well-Tempered Keyboard..."

"By the late eighteenth century, there is a sad and permanent decline in the quality of music written for young performers or beginners: one has only to compare Bach's Album for Anna Magdalena Bach and the Two-Part Inventions with anything that came later. No composer of importance between Bach and Schumann turned his hand to writing for children, and Schumann's essays came after his years of greatest inspiration for piano writing had gone. (Mozart is the odd exception, but then he was, in fact, almost incapable of writing really easy pieces: he no doubt believed that his Sonata in D Major, K.576, was easy, perhaps because all the hard passages in the first movement were in simple two-part counterpoint, one voice in each hand, but he was wrong.)"

"Chopin is the true inventor of the concert etude, at least in the sense of being the first to give it complete artistic form—a form in which musical substance and technical difficulty coincide."

"The etude is a Romantic idea. It appeared in the early nineteenth century as a new genre: a short piece in which the musical interest is derived almost entirely from a single technical problem. A mechanical difficulty directly produces the music, its charm, and its pathos. Beauty and technique are united, but the creative stimulus is the hand, with its arrangement of muscles and tendons, its idiosyncratic shape."

"Some of the Etudes in the first set, opus 10, were written by the time Chopin was twenty. It is with these pieces that Chopin's style was fully revealed in all its power and subtlety. Later works are sometimes more ambitious and, in a few cases, more audacious, but there were no radical changes of style, nothing to compare to the later revolutions we find in the careers of Haydn and Beethoven, or even in the shorter lives of Mozart and Schubert. Chopin's mastery was proven with the twelve Etudes of opus 10."

"Chopin's exquisite ear saved him from the ugly repetition of thick chords in the bass that frequently disfigure the work of Mendelssohn, Weber, and Hummel—and even of Field."

"Technical display in Chopin, after the early works, is transmuted into tone color or dramatic gesture-we may say, to accept the prejudices of Chopin's own generation, that it has been ennobled. This is the source of much of the poetry in Chopin's music: it comes from the transformation of the vulgar into something aristocratic."

"Folk music is always considered a good thing. There is a catch, however: it has to be "real" folk music, anonymous, evoking not an individual but a communal personality, expressive of the soil."

"Chopin's mazurkas stand apart from the rest of the considerable production inspired by folk music which reaches into all forms of Romantic music; they cannot conveniently be classified with any of the other manifestations. They are not arrangements of popular folk tunes, ... He uses only fragments of melody, Polish formulas, typical national rhythms, and he combines them in his own way with great originality. From early on, Chopin's mazurkas are much more elaborate than the few modest pieces employing mazurka rhythms by Chopin's Polish predecessors, and they soon became the occasion for some of the most complex and pretentious of Chopin's forms."

"The mazurka provided him with a repertoire of motifs, rhythms, and sonorities outside the main Italian, French, and German traditions of European music: he used it to create a series of works within this tradition which are absolutely personal—marginal works which challenge the center. They are the most eccentric and original of Chopin's works. We shall never know exactly what and how much Chopin took directly from the popular folk tradition and how much he invented, but it does not matter: his originality is revealed as much in what he selected as in what he imagined. The folk dances gave him the possibility of exploring new harmonies, of exploiting the emotional effect of obsessive repetition, and of developing a new form of rubato."

"None of Chopin's contemporaries could rival him for the variety and effectiveness of his treatment of the return."

"The opposition between structure and sonority in music is almost as misleading as that between line and color in the visual arts. Baudelaire insisted, correctly, that Delacroix was one of the three greatest draftsmen of the century, and emphasized his mastery of line. In the same way, a study of Chopin demonstrates the intimate relation between line and color in music."

"This is the true paradox of Chopin: he is most original in his use of the most fundamental and traditional technique. That is what made him at the same time the most conservative and the most radical composer of his generation."

"Liszt has never needed revival; his music has always been an important part of the concert repertoire. Nevertheless, he has appeared to need rehabilitation."

"It was this indifference to the quality of his material that earned Liszt the contempt of his most distinguished contemporaries and of many of the most respectable critics and historians of posterity. It was, nevertheless, his greatest strength. It made it possible for him to manipulate the material ruthlessly, to concentrate on effects of realization with unprecedented intensity, and to integrate styles and techniques of performance into composition in a new way. His invention of novel keyboard effects and his mastery of musical gesture have always been undervalued, especially by pianists of the German school who prefer the kind of music that can be executed while soulfully regarding the ceiling. On the whole, the most genuine understanding of his music has been displayed by musicians of eastern Europe, and he may almost be considered as the founder of Russian pianism."

"Mendelssohn was the greatest child prodigy the history of Western music has ever known. Not even Mozart or Chopin before the age of nineteen could equal the mastery that Mendelssohn already possessed when he was only sixteen. Most astonishing is the nature of Mendelssohn's precocious talent: not only a gift for lyrical melodic lines and delicate, transparent textures, but, above all, a control of large-scale structure unsurpassed by any composer of his generation."

"For Mendelssohn, Beethoven was the new point of departure, and a German composer could not afford to ignore him, as Chopin and Verdi were able to do."

"Mendelssohn is the inventor of religious kitsch in music. His first essay in this genre is a masterpiece, the Fugue in E Minor, published in 1837 but written ten years earlier, when the composer was eighteen ..."

"Meyerbeer's approach to opera may seem cynical. His music is not, like Donizetti's, an immediate expression of the sentiments of his characters but a calculated manipulation of the audience."

"Schumann is the most representative musical figure of central European Romanticism as much because of his limitations as because of his genius: in his finest works, indeed, he exploited these limitations in such a way that they gave a force to his genius that no other contemporary could attain."

"The musical language which made the classical style possible is that of tonality, which was not a massive, immobile system but a living, gradually changing language from its beginning. It had reached a new and important turning point just before the style of Haydn and Mozart took shape."

"Sonata form could not be defined until it was dead. Czerny claimed with pride around 1840 that he was the first to describe it, but then it was already part of history."

"The creation of a classical style was not so much the achievement of an ideal as the reconciliation of conflicting ideals-the striking of an optimum balance between them."

"The buffoonery of Haydn, Beethoven, and Mozart is only an exaggeration of an essential quality of the classical style. This style was, in its origins, basically a comic one."

"Everything depends, of course, on the shape of the hand, and it must be stressed that there is no type of hand which is more suited to the piano than another. One of the greatest pianists that I ever heard—certainly the most remarkable in his control of the widest possible range and variety of tone color—was Josef Hoffman, who had a hand so small that he could reach no more than an octave; Steinway built him a special piano in which the ivories were slightly narrower so that he could reach a ninth. His friend Sergei Rachmaninov had a very large hand, as did Rudolf Serkin, and Sviatoslav Richter could not only reach a twelfth but could play the last chord of the Schumann Toccata without arpeggiation—an effect which would certainly have astonished the composer. My teacher, Moriz Rosenthal, famous for his technique, had a small hand with stubby fingers; Vladimir Horowitz's fingers were exceptionally long, while Robert Casadesus had fingers so thick that he had trouble fitting them in between the black keys. There is no such thing as an ideal pianist's hand."

"The relation of the performance of music to sound is complex and ambiguous: this is what makes possible Mark Twain's joke that Wagner is better than he sounds."

"The piano is the only keyboard instrument in which one can grandly vary the effects of the harmonics or overtones of a chord at will by balancing the sonority in different ways."

"One of the pupils of Artur Schnabel told me that he never heard his teacher practice a difficult passage slowly, but he was struck by the way Schnabel would play one chord of a slow movement over and over, measuring and remeasuring the different components of the harmony."

"The world of Debussy is a seductive oasis, and it is hard to leave it after spending many days immersed in its atmosphere. Playing Debussy-or any other composer with a strong and idiosyncratic personality-affects not only one's cast of mind but the physical disposition as well, the way the muscles work and the fingers come into contact with the ivories."

"I do not think that any composer has ever asked for octave glissandi on the black keys, but there is a recording by Moriz Rosenthal of Chopin's Black-Key Etude in which he plays the short octave passage in both hands glissando: it hurts my hands just to think about it."

"In Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, act V, scene 1, we find this exchange between the two young lovers: JESSICA: I am never merry when I hear sweet music LORENZO: The reason is, your spirits are attentiveThe opening of the finale of Beethoven' s 'Emperor' Concerto provides a splendid example of the kind of theme that is the inspiration for this book. A completely unified theme that hangs together beautifully, it nevertheless portrays vividly a series of contrasting sentiments in a succession that amounts to a small narrative ..."

"I've never had any other loving heartfelt desire. From the minute I heard music I knew why I was born. To make music to play to listen to music, and for some reason I have been lucky enough to llive this beautiful life as a musicisan. I don't know. I love all things "nature". I'm an animal lover, but I don't have the smarts to be a vet, or the heart to have been a vet cause I cry over any wounded animal. … I might have been maybe a zoo keeper helping feed the animals. Feeding or petting the big cats or whatever. I don't know what else I would have done, because I love music too much. For anyone who has that calling and is trying also to make a living at it, it is really hard. Getting gigs and getting listened to. Getting respect, it's hard. Its what bonds us all because we have been so rejected and dejected. Yet we know in our hearts why we are here."

"From a distance, there is harmony And it echoes through the land It's the voice of hope, it's the voice of peace It's the voice of every man."

"From a distance we are instruments Marching in a common band Playing songs of hope, playing songs of peace They're the songs of every man."

"From a distance you look like my friend Even though we are at war From a distance I just cannot comprehend What all this war is for."

"From a distance there is harmony And it echoes through the land And it's the hope of hopes, it's the love of loves It's the heart of every man (Every man). It's the hope of hopes, it's the love of loves This is the song of every man."

"French music is really very sensory, and appeals to sense of smell, taste, touch. It can be languorous, and almost erotic. Russian music is very subjective, sometimes whiny, breast-beating 'Look how I suffer, look how I suffer!'. German music is, to use your word, metaphysical. It really asks those existential questions of 'How do I relate to the Universe?', 'Is there a heaven?', 'How am I like a brook, or a leaf on a tree?'. I know this was the music that most challenged Schnabel. He said Mozart was the most inaccessible of the great masters, because with the fewest number of notes, he accesses the deepest levels of human awareness and experience."

"There are certain devices that one uses in Romantic music that are appropriate only for Romantic or subsequent music. If you take those devices and apply them to earlier music, then it’s totally inappropriate, and it makes the Classical music sound silly. However, if you were to use what you might call ‘Classical devices’ on Romantic music, historically, that would be correct! It very often benefits Romantic music, which is sometimes rather disjunctive, rather shapeless in comparison with Classical symphonic or sonata form. Romantic music very often benefits from that tighter organization that you get from Classical music."

"Speaking involves inflection, it involves an understanding of the language. Too many young people today play their instruments most wonderfully – they have such command of their instrument – but it’s as though they’re speaking a foreign language, phonetically. They pronounce all the words, but they have no idea of what they’re saying. And I think that’s one of the big differences between the great artists of the time and this level of expertise that is constantly expanding and rising. As I’ve said for a long time, the level of mediocrity is constantly rising."

"First of all, when you enter a conservatory, it’s already too late. The kind of connection that has to be made with an instrument, be it a piano, strings, a wind instrument, it really has to start much younger – five, six, seven - eight years-old is already getting late. The instrument must really become an extension of yourself. That neuromuscular connection between intention and realization is something that really has to be started very young. And the years between nine or ten and twenty, that’s when one should learn the whole repertoire."

"I heard Edwin Fischer, who did not mean much to me. I heard another pianist in Berlin who had a big success and I thought he was awful — Mischa Levitzki. Just fingers, and you cannot listen only to fingers. There is a difference between artist and artisan. Levitzki was an artisan."

"I heard his Emperor and it was terrible. He plays so slow, ugh. Also the Waldstein. So slow."

"Serkin is the exponent of the Austro-German tradition. Arrau, also German-trained, is more eclectic—a pianist who seems to play everything from Bach to Prokofieff (he has looked at atonal and serial music as avant-garde as Boulez but has not felt impelled to play it in public)."

"Arrau is a hard pianist to categorize. Possessing a stupendous technique, he nevertheless has never used it for display purposes. He is a literalist, in that he closely examines all the texts of the music he plays and scrupulously adheres to the printed note once he has made up his mind about the version he will use. Yet he avoids the curse of literalism by putting a strong mind and a decidedly romantic piano sound into his interpretations. Perhaps he can best be described as an eclectic of the German school."

"If we all, as a society, did go vegan, and we moved away from eating animal foods and toward a plant-based diet, what would happen? If we didn’t kill all these cows and eat them, then we wouldn’t have to breed all these cows because we’re breeding cows, and chickens, and pigs, and fish. We’re breeding them over and over again, relentlessly. So if we didn’t breed them, then we wouldn’t have to feed them. If we didn’t have to feed them, then we wouldn’t have to devote all this land to growing grains, and legumes, and so forth to feed to them. And so then the forests could come back. Wildlife could come back. The oceans would come back. The rivers would run clean again. The air would come back. Our health would return."

"I believe that until we are willing and able to make the connections between what we are eating and what was required to get it on our plate, and how it affects us to buy, serve, and eat it, we will be unable to make the connections that will allow us to live wisely and harmoniously on this earth."

"In order to confine and kill animals for food, we must repress our natural compassion, warping us away from intuition and toward materialism, violence, and disconnectedness."

"Our deep urge to evolve to a more spiritually mature level of understanding and living, and to create a social order that promotes more justice, peace, freedom, health, sanity, prosperity, sustainability, and happiness, absolutely requires us to stop viewing animals as food objects to be consumed and to shift to a plant-based way of eating."

"The word “vegan,” newer and more challenging than “vegetarian” because it includes every sentient being in its circle of concern and addresses all forms of unnecessary cruelty from an essentially ethical perspective, with a motivation of compassion rather than health or purity, points to an ancient idea that has been articulated for many centuries, especially in the world's spiritual traditions."

"The contemporary vegan movement is founded on loving-kindness and mindfulness of our effects on others. It is revolutionary because it transcends and renounces the violent core of the herding culture in which we live."

"The good news is that our bodies thrive on a conscious plant-based diet, and that this diet is infinitely more compassionate to animals and people and more environmentally sustainable than eating animal foods."

"While there are thus many “former vegetarians,” it's unlikely that “former vegans” were ever actually vegans; it seems doubtful that compassion authentically attained is ever lost."

"There is something about veganism that is not easy, but the difficulty is not inherent in veganism, but in our culture."

"Within the vast, virtually limitless piano repertoire, the piano sonatas of Sergei Prokofiev occupy a special place. Apart from Alexander Scriabin early in the century, Prokofiev was the only major twentieth-century composer to pay such consistent attention to the form, … They are a constant presence in concert programs and are considered an indispensable part of the repertoire by almost every serious concert pianist."

"Prokofiev had a lifelong love of the sonata form. Ever since learning the basic rules during his childhood years, he strove to master them; … In 1941, describing his Sonatinas op. 54 (1931), he remarked, “I liked the idea of writing a simple work in such a superior form as sonata.” One can learn a lot about the composer’s growth by tracing his progress from the early sonatas, which cautiously dare to bend the textbook rules, to the masterful treatment of the form in his late works."

"In spite of the many valuable books available today, the state of Prokofiev scholarship cannot be considered adequate: suffice it to say that the detailed catalogue of his works has not been updated since it was published in 1961. At present, there is no edition of the Prokofiev sonatas free of errors. I have tried to do my best in pointing out some obvious mistakes, as well as certain doubtful readings. Many questions cannot be answered with certainty, as the manuscripts for some of the sonatas have been lost; those that have survived are not easily available for inspection. To get to some of them, I was fortunate to have the help of Russian colleagues in overcoming the restrictions of the current gatekeepers in Russia."

"Prokofiev’s creative path traversed many countries and was affected by wars and revolutions. Life brought him into contact with some of the most prominent and influential artistic figures of his time. Observing the magnificent panorama of Prokofiev’s oeuvre, one sees that the composer’s musical style evolved significantly over the course of his creative life. The reasons for the changes of direction have been much discussed and debated."

"Young Prokofiev was attentive to new musical trends. We can find traces of various influences in his early compositions. Some of the piano works from the set Visions fugitives,op. 22 (1915–17), are reminiscent of Debussy; the Andante assai section of the First Piano Concerto, op. 10 (1911–12), sounds like Rachmaninov; and the harmonies of the symphonic poem Osen neye(Autumnor Autumnal Sketch), op. 8 (1910), harken back to Scriabin. These, however, were rather passing influences. Others proved to be more enduring. One of them was the fairy-tale streak in Russian music. Russians have always been fond of fairy tales, which to this day continue to be an important part of every child’s upbringing. ... Another significant influence was the Classical style."

"Prokofiev was not alone among the leading composers of the twentieth century in changing his style repeatedly in the course of his career: Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Bartók, and others modified their musical language drastically at various stages of their creative lives. In Prokofiev’s case, he always maintained certain stylistic facets throughout the transformations of his musical language."

"Examining the musical language of Prokofiev in a more detailed way, we must acknowledge that for him melody was always the most important element of music, one that determined the quality of the composition"

"Prokofiev’s music is usually based on a firm sense of tonality. Whatever tonal uncertainty and ambiguity one experiences, mainly in developmental passages, they are mostly short-lived."

"The piano plays a central role in Prokofiev’s oeuvre. Not only are his works for piano solo or piano with orchestra numerous, but they also rank among his more important compositions. The piano was the first instrument Prokofiev heard and the only one he mastered."

"Many pages of Prokofiev’s oeuvre continue the important tradition of Russian music based on fairy tale–inspired imagery."

"Prokofiev was especially active as a pianist during his years in the United States. The titles of numerous reviews seem to refer as much to his compositions as to his performances: “A titan of a pianist,” “Volcanic eruption at the keyboard,” “Russian chaos in music,” among others."

"Prokofiev’s playing of lyrical music is especially noteworthy. His phrasing can be exquisitely beautiful in its dynamic molding (second theme of the Andante assaifrom Sonata No. 4; the middle section of Vision fugitive,op. 22, no. 11), and his polyphonic voicing can be clear and expressive (Sonatina pastorale, op. 59, no. 3)."

"The playing of Soviet pianists of the younger generation differed significantly from the composer’s performing style, as discussed above. (Here I am referring to the generation of Richter and Gilels or younger, as opposed to Prokofiev’s coevals such as Neuhaus and Samuil Feinberg, who also had Prokofiev’s works in their repertoires.) Since we know that Prokofiev appreciated their playing, does it mean that he accepted their approach? Should we regard the new generation’s playing as a distortion of the composer’s intentions or as a natural evolution of interpretive style? I believe that Prokofiev, having been exposed to the new performing style of the Soviet pianists, accepted at least some of its qualities. We can mention assertive muscular playing, open expressivity, and a gripping commitment to the music among those traits that brought recognition to Soviet pianists and assured their success in the international arena. These characteristics were concordant with the evolving compositional style of Prokofiev, whose later works became both more virile (often heroic) and expressive in a warmer and more open way."

"It is essential that a pianist meticulously observe the composer’s indications regarding tempo, dynamics, and articulation. These are all crucial in creating full characterizations of individual themes and passages. Far too often one hears unidiomatic performances of Prokofiev’s music in which speed and loudness seem to be the only parameters that matter to the pianist."

"Prokofiev had a particular talent for creating a fully identifiable mood within the first notes of a piece, passage, or theme."

"One of the most winning characteristics of Prokofiev’s music is its indomitable energy. In expressing this quality, stability of tempo is particularly important."

"His playing is stunning, with absolutely no smudging."

"His style on it was one of the phenomena of twentieth-century pianism. Above all he had tone: a magical tone, never hard even at moments of greatest stress; a shimmering, tinted, pellucid tone. His playing had a degree of spontaneity, of "lift," of dash, daring and subtle rhythm, that was unparalleled. Perhaps only his close friend Rachmaninoff was titan enough to stand by his side as an equal. But even Rachmaninoff never had Hofmann's poetry, color and vitality. Nobody so made the piano sing. When he played, there was the feeling of a tremendous and original musical personality. His rubato was carefully measured, yet it flowed freely and naturally. His playing always had breathing space, and his basses exceptional clarity. (Hofmann used to despise what he scornfully called "right-hand pianists.") Never did the playing sag, never were there dead spots, never did the tensile quality slacken. A strong classic element was represented in the purity of his pianistic approach. And his interpretations, romantic but not exaggerated, had a measure of classicism."

"When I first heard the songs of Mario Ruiz Armengol I responded in awe at the totality of their musical expression. Mario's harmonic sense was one that I had never encountered in most Latin music; melodies which in themselves were distinctive and lingered in your mind after only one hearing; profound emotional content without being hyper-romantic in conception. Some of them seemed almost brooding in character, filled with a feeling of melancholia and reflecting the depth of his personality."

"First of all, this is Duke's band, and this is Tchaikovsky. Knowing things in their original sources, I abhor taking a concert thing and trying to treat it in a jazz light. In the beginning they have a very nice orchestral usage, but the minute they start going into Johnny Hodges and 4/4, it just doesn't fit. It comes out neither fowl nor fish. The orchestration is enjoyable because, for one reason, they've done a nice job of getting nice, legitimate, straight-sounding things. The melodies are very lovely, but, of course, Duke is the master in this type of thing. But over-all, from a jazz standpoint, I don't appreciate it at all. If I didn't know it was Tchaikovsky, for instance, with the tambourine bit and all, I would feel it was straight out of an MGM Arabian movie. The harmonies he used, particularly some of the background things, interested me more than the melodies, probably because the harmonic part of music interests me more than any. From an orchestrational standpoint I would give this somewhere around 3½ stars; but from a jazz standpoint, none."

"I have no idea who that is. It's a terrible performance, the band is horribly out of tune—is that Maynard Ferguson? It starts off at a dynamic peak and never deviates from it. It also starts out with what is supposed to be jazz musicians trying to play some sort of a Latin bag, which is not making it, because there's no solidity of rhythms. Latin rhythm sections being based on the constant contrast of instruments, and it never moves any place. And then that thing on the end—what's that supposed to be? An adaptation of Porgy and Bess of some sort? I guess it was some sort of an allusion toward Porgy and Bess. But then if it is, it's completely escaped all the rest of it. It's like giving a paragraph of reference out of a two-page article and then saying, Well, this is about this." That's one star for me."

"Of course that's Bud and Laurindo. I liked Laurindo very much, and I love some of the tunes he does. In fact, I've been doing some piano transcriptions of some guitar things of his, and we recently recorded a tune of his. This particular thing again—how are you going to equate it? As jazz? As Brazilian music or what? I would much rather hear Laurindo in his native habitat. I know he and Bud have been associated this way before, yet I don't feel that a real good rapport goes on between them. The constant mixing—half-jazz, half-Brazilian—I don't think it's good. You lose certain features of the one when you try to come out with the other. Let's give that three stars."

"That's five stars to start with. That's five stars to start with. That's Gil Evans, isn't it? The only thing that disturbed me about this—the whole thing, in its entirety, was tremendously satisfying: performance, orchestration is good, the harmonic usage is beautiful, the contrasting texture of orchestra, the whole thing is just great—but there are certain sections there when the background was so lovely it just seemed like the alto saxophone was out of place. Now this is the type of thing that just makes me smile. I enjoy every minute of it. I don't have to go for a "peak" and then think about something else while I'm listening. Gil Evans' writing, to me, is such a boon that when he came along with the Miles Ahead album, I was thankful, because since about the Stan Kenton Orchestra of 1952, where the writing had been very good, between Mulligan and Rugolo and the whole works, between those periods there had been a void, a retrogression back to the roots, and this took writing back to a standpoint which just wasn't interesting. So when Evans came along, I just flipped."

"I really don't know what to say about this without sounding hypercritical. First of all, the style of playing is so tremendously behind the beat, it gets to the point that I feel he's in opposition to his rhythm section, and I can't get a nice swing out of the thing. The pianist is tremendously heavy-handed, which I think gets in the way of what he's trying to do, so I feel that in some spots he's stumbling, instead of having the feeling that the man is executing what he wants to play. The whole thing strikes me as a sort of comme-ci-comme-ca performance of a like tune. Two stars."

"Now that to me is lovely music. Really, that type of thing really moves me. This, of course, is Bill Evans, Scott LaFaro, and Paul Motian.... Even Scott's playing on this particular album should disprove all the "naughty" things people said about him, about his being too active, getting in people's way; because the one thing about Scotty, with all his technique, was that he had a perceptivity, which let him use it judiciously. He started this record by playing on the first beat of every bar. He wasn't even playing in two, and any man who has that much technique, who knows where to limit himself, to me, is just great. And of course Bill plays lovely on the thing. That's another five-star."

"The subtlety of Brazilian rhythms comes from the type of instruments used. Afro-Cuban music has a scraper called the güiro which is played with a solid stick producing a loud scraping noise. This same instrument is paralleled in Braziliam music with the reco-reco, the difference being that the reco-reco is much smaller, less resonant, and played with something like a brush. The cabasa is a gourd wrapped in beads that is incapable of extremely loud noise. The same is true of the chocalho or cylinder, and the tambourine. A regular set of drums contrasts this. The result is a light rhythm that, unlike the conga, bongos and timbales of Afro-Cuban music, does not engulf the listener but permeates him. To this is usually added the guitar (unamplified) played finger-style, which completes the subtlety."

"I firmly believe that the more one is exposed to bossa nova, the less one is interested in how he can fit it to his jazz concept and the more he becomes interested in what his improvisation can do for bossa nova."

"My God, I heard this guy's albums for ages and finally to be able to look at him and see how he does it!""

"Johnny has never written a tune – at least none I've ever heard – that wasn't melodically and harmonically perfect."

"I'm gonna take a wild guess—I think that was Buddy DeFranco, and possibly the Glenn Miller Orchestra. The band strikes me as an enigma, in that, first of all, some interesting harmonic things are happening as far as the individual voicings are concerned, but yet it's played in an older, tighter fashion. For instance, the bass player, if there are chord changes happening every two beats, plays the root for two beats, then the next root for two beats—that type of sound. The harmony, especially in the opening part where the theme is established, is a lot more modern than that kind of band would normally sound. I think that they're playing that way to keep that Miller identity, with that rhythmic tightness"

"When I asked Sergio Mendes why he still called his group Brasil '66 in 1967, he said "'66 was a very good year!" That's his group and the French song from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. It's not one of their better tracks. Some of the things they've done I have enjoyed tremendously, though it's getting to the point where he's had commercial success doing what he's doing, so it's now somewhere in between strong Brazilian music and quasi-rock. Joao Palma is an excellent drummer. Here they have John Pisano of the Tijuana Brass playing an amplified guitar. He is one of the few people who, on the regular amplified guitar, has really got the Brazilian thing down. He can play in the Baden Powell style, which is so compelling and so dynamic. Sergio is usually a much more melodic pianist, but here he's trying to give a hardness and vitality to the over-all commercial sound, and he comes out lacking what he usually has—his lines are usually very smoothly melodic. This has nothing to do with jazz, but I find it pleasant; on the other hand, some of the things they do, like O Pato [from Mendes' previous album], or some of the faster things, I enjoy much more. Two stars."

"That's wild! I'll start off with five stars and work backwards from there. Now there, to me, is the most perfect band in existence, whether you're thinking of it orchestrationally or in terms of Duke's immensely creative writing. I can't think of anybody I admire more than this man; nobody could even be compared with him, except Billy Strayhorn. Duke does something with this old, tired instrumentation of trumpets, trombones and saxophones, and he has a perfect way of utilizing the men's specific sounds. Anything he plays is a work of art. The band is out of tune, for instance, and it doesn't even matter. They almost have their own brand of intonation. Duke can take an exotic-sounding idea and create something – you might call it sophisticated crudity. It gives both the qualities that I look for – an earthy quality and the sophisticated quality."

"I had a chance to play that instrument for six days. Hearing German spoken around me made me think of my father, who died in 1960, and whom I hadn't thought much about in recent years. And I remembered what he meant to me. I played "Du, du liegst mir im Herzen" because my father used to sing it to me. So I sat there, thinking of my father, and weeping."

"Crassness of youth Concluding only half of the truth, Exuding only one small percent Of what I surely felt for you. And then one morning That brought a day so gently We set apart Things of the heart And lost love long ago."

"Bill and I were pretty much the same age bracket, and strangely enough, we both went through the same influences, starting with Nat Cole, going into Bud Powell during the bebop period, and then getting into the Lennie Tristano school orienta—in my particular case, Lee Konitz more than Lennie. I mean, in an era when everybody else was playing funky piano, we... I suppose, in a general category, that made us both the same. Whereby [sic] to my mind, we were both radically different. But after I put out that first album, the reviews started off by saying, "Clare Fischer owes much to Bill Evans." And then, when I would write an album, they would say "Clare Fischer owes much to Gil Evans." And I would call that my Evans brothers syndrome."

"My main orientation is harmonic. Bill, besides having the harmonic structures that he did, had a control of the dynamic level of the piano and pedaling, which is ridiculously fantastic. I never saw a man make so many gradations from pianissimo to piano in my life. I can't do that. On the other hand, I think that what I do harmonically is somewhere other than where he was."

"[M]ost of the pop music out today I consider to have become a homogenized product. It gets to the point that so much of what is going on is copying everything else that is out, because there is a businessman that knows what he has just sold millions of records with, and so he keeps trying to get every group that comes in to do it, you know. You know, you approach somebody who is well known as a booker or manager, and the first remark will be, "I love what you do, but you would have to change this to this, and that to that, and this to this, in order for me to be able to sell it." Well, by the time you've changed that, of course, it's like everything else that is out there. And when Prince first started sending me songs, I thought maybe that by the time I had done four arrangements that I would have started getting some sort of a repetitive something or other. I have been extremely surprised to find that each one is as different from the last as the next one is going to be different. Some of them are like little art songs. Some of them have dealt with heavy things like friendship and death. I mean, death of a friend. And yet, some of them are as baudy as..."

"Because of the limited keyboard. This is a very strange thing. When I play the piano, I get clear down to the left edge of the piano. Now, unlike Art Tatum, I don't take runs that go up, that always end up on the extreme high "C". But I really do like the low end. Even as an organist, it has bothered me that the keyboards are five octaves and stop at "C". I've always wished that my pedal board went down to "F". My harmonic thinking gets involved clear down to that "F" and to be cut off at the "C". I can't explain it. It's as if somebody were standing right next to you while you were playing and you just kept having the feeling like: "I can't go there; I can't go there." It does something to me. Whereby [sic] having the full keyboard just opens up a world of things to me."

"I'm about as Nordic and Germanic looking as they come. It doesn't matter whther I'm skinny or fat. I'm just that way. So, there have been dates: for instance, the date that I first met Alex Acuna, Luis Conte, Alfredo Rey, Sr., Alfredo Rey, Jr., Cachao, the Cuban bass player. I mean, all of these people. The night I met them, on a recording date, I was there with a bunch of Cubans and I walked in, and at first, before we recorded the music, they were all standing around, hanging out. And of course I wanted to join, so I went over and started joining in. Now my Spanish certainly is not street Spanish, it's book-learned Spanish. And Cubans speak a patois all their own, and I could tell, when I first was speaking there, you know, they kept saying, "Well, he's speaking our language, but he certainly doesn't sound like us; he's still an outsider. Maybe not as much an outsider as he was before." And yet, what really happens is that, by the time we start playing, then I felt like somebody gives my visa a stamp. You know, on the passport. Because at that point, suddenly I start getting smiles from people, and different things, and that's an experience which happens over and over and over."

"To me, there are two different types of musicians. Those who are display oriented and those who are content oriented, Bill Evans being a prime example of the content orientation. I am not interested in the displayers—guys who want to be playing a lot of notes to try to impress you that they got a lot of things that they can lay in there. I'm more interested in somebody picking something that has some really great feeling and laying it in, in a really good time concept. Jimmy Rowles is a perfectly good example of that. His choice of notes may not be uncommon, but boy where he lays them down is so individual that I will go for that every time. The same thing applies with composers. When you're a young composer and you first have a chance—and this goes with everybody—you write your most complex works when you're a young man. And then, as you get a little bit older, you find that you can lot simpler things [sic] and still enjoy the devil out of what you're doing."

"I've talked to him on the phone, received notes through the mail, but I've never seen him face to face. I sent him my last LP and I understand that he turned his head away as he took the disc out, saying, "I don't want to see what he looks like. I have this image and I don't want to destroy it." So there's a certain amount of mystery involved. I suppose if he knew I were a gray-haired, older guy with a big paunch, he might say, "Oh, that ruins it.""

"Playing that music delivered me from the pressures of my life. I played with my eyes closed and found that my backaches ceased and my headaches would go. The response to that rhythm was "My God, this makes me feel good." I never really remembered having that much fun with it before or thought about jazz making me feel good. But, at 46, it suddenly dawned on me that my body had priorities that my mind didn't allow, and I decided to (play Latin/jazz)✱ for myself and started having a helluva fine time."

"You don't ever get a chance to play what you really do; and if you do, you notice that you can't play, because you haven't been. And often I'd be asked to play like somebody else, like Joe Sample. I'd say, "I can't play like him. He's an original." I'd be asked to try and the producers would love it, but I'd feel rotten. Then one time I ran into Joe and he told me, "Man, I'm tired of people asking me to play like you." My jaw dropped. Then I found out this is a common practice."

"They disenfranchised me. It's like giving an award to Woody Herman's sax section, but not Woody, for "Early Autumn.""

"I relate to everything. I'm not just jazz, Latin or classical. I really am a fusion of all of those; not today's fusion, but my fusion."

"I'm two people. One is a teddy bear who is soft and cuddly. And the other is this guy who says, "Don't push me.""

"I pointed to the side of the road and then I pulled over and parked. When the guy got out of the car he was stripped to the waist. A typical young macho stud. He put his face within two inches of mine, and he was telling me what I was and what he was going to do to me. So I did the natural thing. I reached in and got a headlock on him, and I had him very firmly while he thrashed around. I felt I was doing just fine because I had stopped what was going on, but his girlfriend decided that he wasn't doing very well. So she ran and jumped on us. They both fell on top of me and my head crashed into the pavement. I landed on my left ear, got a hairline fracture and concussion. [...] It was like some kind of nether world. Most of the time I didn't know where I was. Like I'd wake up and find I.V. units in my arm, and I'd rip 'em out and say, "What kind of a hotel is this? You tell them I'm never coming here again." [...] When I came home from the hospital I was having terrible nightmares every night, sometimes to the point where I started not wanting to go to sleep. And I still have occasional migraines, dry eyes and short-term memory loss. [...] If I discovered anything in that strange, 10-month period of recovery, it's that music is the one thing that makes me sane."

"It's funny. People come to my house because I was recommended to them to do some writing. They've never heard of me, and you can see the reticence written all over their faces. Then they look at the walls and see the platinum and gold albums and they say, "Oh. That one's from Prince! That's from Robert Palmer! Oh my God, Paul McCartney!" And then they say, "You're a really fine composer"--without having heard any of my music."

"In 1992 by chance I witnessed a drum and bugle corps competition on television and became aware of three-valve bugles. A year later my wife, Donna, and I attended a performance in La Mirada of the previous year's winner. I have experienced fine concert band performances and also good symphonies in my life, but what was not prepared for what I experienced that day. The entire bugle corps was turned away from us playing softly and suddenly they turned toward us and projected a very thick chord. Every hair on my body stood up (and I have a lot of it) and I decided at that moment to buy some of these instruments. In the next year I purchased approximately $14,000 worth of bugles. After having completed an orchestrational family all the way down to the contrabass bugle, I began writing. This album is the result of this particular interest in my sixth decade in music."

"Since suffering a concussion eight years ago, I find my inside emotions are right to the front and as such, when I heard that Antonio Carlos Jobim had died in December of 1994 I was much affected, I experienced happenings like no other time in my life. While sleeping one night, I dreamed that I was conducting a recording session with strings in Brazil and we were performing Jobim's "Corcovado," except that besides thje melody and harmony, there was polyharmonic bass line. As I awakened from this dream, I went to my piano and wrote down what I had dreamed."

"Sometime 30 years ago I wrote a piece for the Stan Kenton Neophonic Band. The night of the concert at the Music Center Auditorium in Los Angeles Stan counted it off much too fast. When it came to the recapitulation at the end, the woodwind instrumentation had changed to mixtures of piccolos, flutes and saxes; and being too fast, it turned into a woodwind knuckle-buster. I was hiding on the floor between the seats. Later, when this was recorded, Stan counted too slowly. That recording was released without my piece. Years later when Stan created his "The Creative World of Stan Kenton" record company, Capitol was so angry that he had left them and released everything they had in the can to jeopardize his market. My piece was released with the first third cut off. I rewrote this for my present instrumentation and when we first went through it, while conducting, I was in tears to finally hear what I had written 30 years ago."

"As a teenager I had already arranged pieces for the school band in exchange for music lessons. I also played cello, clarinet, and some other instruments regularly. Thanks to that experience, as an arranger I was able to understand the specific sound and tuning of an instrument and to work intuitively."

"Nepotism. My brother’s son, André Fischer, was the drummer in the band Rufus, with Chaka Khan. Apparently, the arrangements I made for their early records were appreciated, so in the following years I was hired almost exclusively by black artists. I am surprised that my arrangements are now considered one of the prerequisites for a hit album. People feel that they make a song sound almost classical."

"Prince is intelligent. He never visits the studio when I am working for him; and I have never met him in person. He sends me memos and we talk over the phone. Once I sent him my Grammy-winning CD. I heard from people that were present at the time that while he took out the disc he looked away from the cover, saying, 'I don't want to know what he looks like. It is working just fine as it is.' Prince does not want to meet me because he knows that the minute he walks into a studio he will start interfering. It is uncommon that a person with such a strong ego realizes that I have an ego too."

"I am one of the best kept secrets in jazz history. Many of my early records are hard to find and it is still difficult to release new ones."

"For my whole life I can’t remember not doing what I’m doing now, and I’m seventy. I was picking out four-part harmony at eight and nine years of age on the piano. Why? I don’t know. I don’t care. All I know is it’s there and harmony is something that really stimulates the hell out of me. I just saw each thing as a logical exposure to something which I developed further."

"I had a concussion nine years ago, and that changed things. I had always been sensitive musically, but now, since the concussion, I find the emotion is there immediately. There is no build. I hear several chord changes — it could be three or four chord changes from a string orchestra — and, man, I’m just gushing tears. I don’t take it as a weakness. Sometimes it might get slightly embarrassing to observers. On the other hand, I’m not putting it on. I’m in no way trying to exaggerate feeling. My feelings are exactly the opposite. Sometimes I wish I wouldn’t be quite as sensitive because then I wouldn’t have to go through this thing when I write."

"You have to recognize those writers who are artists in the same sense as the musicians. “Catching colds and missing trains.” Man, I wish I could say something that clever. Johnny Mercer was a wonderful lyric writer. You have to appreciate those. And then you get into the other thing where the lyricist says, “It’s not the composer, it’s what the lyricist did that’s important.” Come on. When I find a song that is equal parts of both, that’s a damn good song, and that’ll be one of the songs I use all the time."

"In 1964, my first steady job in the studios in this city was with the NBC Orchestra playing for the Andy Williams Show. So who comes on that show but Antonio Carlos Jobim. And he comes over to the orchestra, doesn’t say a word to me. He sits down to the piano and starts playing a bossa I had written that the Hi-Lo’s recorded. I mean, he’s heard of me?"

"I found, once I passed the age of forty, that I have a good sense of humor. It’s only through that I can keep stuff off and go through my life. If you sit and try to take on everything that is going on out there, you’re going to end up with problems. That’s where I feel music. And music becomes the way in which I express feelings. And, because it allows me to have contact with my emotions, it’s a constant catharsis, not just playing and writing. By doing that, you alleviate something inside of you. And who knows where that comes from?"

"I had gone to hear the winner of that year's drum and bugle corps competition. That band played a chord that made every hair on my body stand up. I've been in front of great symphony orchestras, and the greatest bands, but I've never had my hair stand up quite like that. That's when I decided to write for the bugles."

"You get tired of dealing with how other people think of what you're doing. It finally gets to the point where you realize that if you're going to do it the way you want, you have to do it yourself. That might mean putting up the money to do it yourself."

"I'm a writer who plays the piano. As I write, I find new things I like. I make them into what I call principles, and they become part of my playing vocabulary. That's the secret of what you get from composing. You get to discover things that you wouldn't ordinarily do. Much like a speech pattern, your improvisation patterns can get stale if you don't keep building your vocabulary. Each time you re voice something, you change the sound. When you do this enough, you get used to those sounds, and they start to come out as you play. You end up using voicings that aren't common, which gives you an auditory identity."

"Prince either uses or doesn't use what I have. When he gets it, I understand he listens to the strings separately, he'll listen to the brass separately and the woodwinds separately and then he'll put it all together and listen to it. So when we got to his movie, Cherry Moon, most of the music that was what you might refer to as the 'underscore' was the backgrounds that I had written for certain songs of his, that he took the voices and his part out. Now I would have preferred to write the individual sections, but on the other hand, it worked out just fine."

"How did I get to Lee Konitz, when everybody else was doing Charlie Parker? The sound, for one thing, the notes that he played—man, it just knocked me off my feet! When Lee was first playing, God he was inventive! I worked out so many solos of his off the records, from when he began recording with Tristano and Warne Marsh in 1949. I listened to Charlie Parker but I was not a fan—he was repeating himself too much."

"Tristano was too contrived for me; he sounded terribly planned. Lee is very intuitive. One of my proudest achievements was when I finally got to play the saxophone well enough that I could improvise on it. I aimed to have a tone like Lee Konitz—but I don't necessarily think I got there!"

"When I had a big band in the late 1960s, though, Warne and I were working quite a lot together. Warne would be turning time around, and dealing with cross-the-bar structures, and starting phrases in odd places—his intuition was really far out! He was one of the greatest players ever."

"Scotty and I became good friends. We had an immediate musical rapport that was sensational. We did a lot of listening and talking. Besides technique, he had governing, control. I think he was the first bass player who was fleet-footed in the musical sense. [...] What a trauma! It struck me right down—that someone I was developing such a relationship with would suddenly not be there."

"Wow Factors: Absolute integrity is a must, but it's also the emotional content that will get the listener. A Memorable Performance: Taking my children to see Duke Ellington perform live in L.A. with his big band around 1970. His sax section is irreplaceable. Advice for Achieving "Wow": There is only one level and that is professional. You must do whatever is required to achieve that in every performance. Audition Tips: Anybody can show off with flashy displays, but when a performance exudes maturity, that can only come as a result of deep, heartfelt contemplation. That person will stand out. Sensing Something Extraordinary: When you are reduced to tears by the sheer beauty of what you are hearing. Who Would You Like to Hear? To be able to hear J.S. Bach take a melody and improvise what amounts to a spontaneous composition is the most amazing thing I can think of. Have Wow Factors Changed? Audiences tend to be fickle. I've been lucky enough in that many musicians attend my concerts, so that I can just be myself."

"His chord voicings, whether in the left hand alone or in the frequent two-handed block chording, are simply extraordinary. When the inner voices shift while the bass note stays the same, it can be difficult to tell just what the chord is and how it’s functioning in the phrase, but the sense of movement, of progression if you will, remains clear. This dense harmonic interplay reaches an apogee in “Du, Du, Liegst Mir Im Herzen,” a traditional tune that Fischer makes very affecting by keeping the melody virtually intact while the chords quietly tie themselves into knots."

"Rule #2: In general, the higher notes of the basic chord structure (the 9th 11th, and 13th) should be placed somewhat higher in the voicing than the root, 3rd, 5th, and 7th. There are many exceptions to this rule, and at least one highly respected jazz pianist, Clare Fischer, develops his unusual harmonic colors specifically by violating it."

"My “super idol” (since the time in the early ‘50s when we played together in dance bands in Northern Indiana at various summer resorts) is Clare Fischer. The consistent, high quality of his work sets him apart. For me, his command of melody, harmony, rhythm, instrumentation and “LINE” is unequaled – he is my present-day Bach!"

"When I met Clare Fischer I was 27, and I was very impressed with his beautiful harmonies. At that moment it was very important to me because I was more into jazz than commercial music. And in that sense it changed my harmonic concept and opened up a wide spectrum of possibilities. Later, when I started working more in pop and jazz and in conducting and arrangement, that remained forever, even though those harmonic concepts don't apply to everything. But everything is always there."

"Clare Fischer is my friend. He’s not only a great musician and an exciting performer, but is an excellent composer and arranger. He’s bi-lingual and can bore you to tears on any subject from medicine and astronomy to politics and world history. I try to avoid all of these in favor of theology (about which he knows more than some preachers in my acquaintance). Since Clare assists me in my choir clinics, we travel by plane together a lot, so we talk about theology a lot (and occasionally disagree a lot)."

"Clare’s harmonic concepts are not limited to intriguing sonorities created by harmonic appoggiaturas and illusions. He also stretches the limits of the chord structures themselves, structures that remain unresolved, creating entirely new, stationary chord sounds. Read, for example, "Coker’s Blues" (from Extension), and "Quiet Dawn," where you’ll find many examples of new vertical sonorities."

"He is a master of thematic development. Like some of the masters of the Classical and Romantic periods of music history, I’ve seen Clare ask for a theme from an audience, then proceed to spontaneously render endless variations on that theme, at the piano, in the manner of a performance. Listen, for example, to his awesome nine and one-half minute performance of Yesterdays (from the album, Alone Together at the Brunner-Schwer Steinway), treated like a theme and variations form, taking it through several keys, in 4/4 and in 3/4, changes of tempo, and several different styles."

"I visited Clare’s home in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1952 (before he moved to the West Coast). He had to respond to a last-minute gig offer, and so I had the opportunity to speak with his mother in the meantime. She told me that Clare used to run home from public school each day to sit at the piano and improvise music that closely reflected his mood of that day. When he was happy, inspired, thoughtful, or at peace, she would hover in a nearby room to hear and love the beauty that would emanate from the piano. But she said that on those occasions when he returned from school depressed or in a foul mood, the resulting musical pathos would force her to run out into the back yard to escape being affected by the highly-disturbing, heart-wrenching sounds. Clare feels very deeply about his music, never writing or playing anything that doesn’t agree with his true feelings (at the emotional level) and his unwavering sense of musical integrity."

"What the chord symbols [B(flat)13#11 and A(flat)13#11] of the final two bars don't reveal is that the right-hand voicings are generated from two rising chromatic lines in a rather Clare-Fischer-like way(three names now?). In fact, the problem with this tune, now as when I wprote it, is that the chord symbosl alone don't tell the whole story. [...] As I discovered in my own version of "Wayne's World" - now, why didn't 1 think of that? - certain sounds can fit in between the counterpoint of melody and bass without reference to "proper" chord symbols. This was reinforced as I learned more about classical composers and the music of jazz pianist/arranger Clare Fischer in particular."

"The harmonic style of Clare Fischer is more chromatic than that of Bill Evans. Like Ellington, he uses several independent lines to develop a rich harmonic texture. His arrangements during the 1950s for the vocal group, the Hi-Lo's, were an important harmonic influence on Herbie Hancock. An essential aspect of his style is that the harmony is rarely resolved completely. There's often new or lingering dissonance, even at the end of a phrase, which gives the music a constant feeling of forward motion. Clare combines elements from Ellington, Konitz, Alban Berg, and Shostakovich to develop a fresh and personal style."

"If I had to make a list of the ten most important solo jazz piano recordings of all time, this recording would definitely be on the list."

""Quiet Dawn" is somewhat reminiscent of certain aspects of the work of Alban Berg, especially the stacking of either augmented or diminished chords in a manner which stretches tonality to it limits, while always retaining at least a hint of tonal gravity. In measures 10, 12, 13 and 14 Clare uses an interesting combination of conventional 4-3 suspension resolutions combined with tritone relationships in the bass. Measure 10, for example, combines the 4-3 suspension resolution of a Bb seventh chord with an E natural in the bass. The 4-3 suspension voice is also colored here with parallel major second intervals (Db-Eb to C-D natural). Clare has many varieties of this suspension variation in his vocabulary, and he traces them to such diverse sources as bebop chord substitutions and slow movements from Shostakovich symphonies."

"Playing the organ would be the renowned Clare Fischer, a brilliant keyboardist and jazz composer in his own right. [...] I saw Clare in the back of the room by himself, and now that I was feeling a bit more confident, I walked over to introduce myself to this jazz legend. As I approached, I stuck my hand out and began to introduce myself as the arranger and conductor of the upcoming session. Before I could get a word out, he looked up and said, "You're standing on my fucking wires!" Okay, then... nice meeting you too, buddy. Lenny Roberts, the engineer, was standing nearby, setting a microphone. He looked at me in shock before we both started laughing uncontrollably. We laughed for the next few hours during the session, and for the next fifteen years whenever it came up. Clare truly was magnificent and tasteful player, and contributed greatly to the sound of any album he played on. I suppose he was just having a tough day with those wires."

"I'm working with Natalie Cole this afternoon. We've been working on vocals lately, and we had an incredible string date yesterday down at Ocean Way. Clare Fischer did the string arrangements for a couple of tunes, and I arranged some others. Clare is a genius. The way he hears internal string parts is just incredible."

"Although many musicians have claimed a major role in the importation of bossa nova, Fischer is one of the few who can back up such assertions. In March 1962, he wrote the first bossa nova orchestrations created in this country, as part of an album he scored for Cal Tjader."

"On a recent evening, the bandstand at Donte's was occupied by what appeared to be three tall, sleek refrigerators, surrounded by a portion of the interior of a spaceship. These were in fact the amplifiers and main body of the Yamaha EX-42, an electronic organ allegedly as revolutionary in the keyboard world as the SST in aviation. This monster, which carries a five-figure price tag, is as yet almost unknown in the United States. On this occasion the owner and performer was Clare Fischer. During the set he allowed some of the rare experiments at his disposal to come into play. The EX-42 is capable of a violin-like vibrato; its sforzandos are like no other organ I have heard; and it has a piano stop that actually sounds like a piano, or at least one with thumb tacks. The pitch is adjustable from 432 to 455 cycles. It is touch-responsive, i.e. the quality and quantity of sound can vary according to how you hit the keys. The question that arises is how much better can the music be with all these aids to nature? The verdict is not yet in, but anyone as resourceful as Fischer will soon produce a favorable answer. Surrounded by Victor Feldman on vibes and percussion, Gary Foster on saxes, Larry Bunker on drums and Andy Simpkins on bass, Fischer played a charming Brazilian waltz and several beguiling pieces by Tom Scott and others. It is to his credit that he did not try to show the total sonic potential of the EX-42, which must be awesome."

"Because Clare Fischer and Terry Trotter, who co-led a quintet Tuesday at Le Cafe, are both pianists, it was logical to expect a piano duo performance. That, however, was not exactly what transpired. Trotter, who has racked up a long series of pop and jazz credits, played piano, sometimes opening entirely alone before the rhythm section joined in. Fischer's medium was an electric keyboard--fortunately one of the cleaner sounding, non-distorting models. The interaction between the leaders was secondary; much of the time, one would solo while the other comped. Fischer displayed his always acute harmonic ear in "Two for the Road," "Nobody Else but Me," his own rhythmically engaging "Coco B" and a blues. Trotter soloed with sensitivity on "I Never Told You," dedicated to its composer Johnny Mandel, who was in the room. Fischer's backup work during Trotter's solos, and also when guitarist John Pisano had the lead, consisted of rhythmic punctuations so incisive and attractive that he sometimes came close to stealing the attention; but not close enough to spoil the mutual feeling of pleasure in this totally unprepared, ad hoc quintet."

"[W]e liked to ask them to send us something that's as close to what the final mix is going to be, minus having the orchestra on there... They'd send us a tape, and I would take down everything, note for note – the vocal lines, the guitar solos, bass lines, drum beats; if there was a drum fill in there, he wanted me to write it out. The idea is that... he likens what he's doing to fitting the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together. So if I point out to him every little part that's happening, every little line in the background, then he can see where the spaces are, and fit the puzzle pieces together. And that way he doesn't step on a vocalist with one of his string or woodwind lines."

"Now, we decided to start a little early to honor my father. You see, I find it highly ironic that one of the most punctual men in the history of civilization is now being referred to as the late Clare Fischer. He used to tell me a story so many times about when he was working with Freddie Hubbard, the trumpeter. Freddie called him one day. He said, "Clare, I'd like to talk to you about a new project. Can you show at my manager's office tomorrow morning at about 11?" And dad said, "Sure." So, naturally, he was there for the 11 o'clock meeting at 10:40, and proceeded to converse cordially with the manager for forty minutes. And then he got up and he said, "It's 11:20. I'm leaving. I'm out." And that was that. Months later, he saw Freddie at a gig somewhere, and Freddie said, "Clare, what happened?" And he explained to him about the importance of punctuality. And Freddie looked at him, and he said, "Are you German?""

"I'm glad I had the presence of mind to think, "You know, these performances aren't going to last forever, so I should enjoy every one while we're doing it, right now." And I'm so glad that I did that, because then, once I had my own instrumental parts down, I could just sit and enjoy what everybody else was doing, and absorb the music my father was writing. And along the way, I discovered that there are basically two distinguishing hallmarks to the music of Clare Fischer. One is an unconventional harmonic vocabulary. I liken this to a fine author. While most of us will go through life with a running vocabulary of about two or three thousand words out of the six hundred thousand in the English language, some gifted writers may know around ten or fifteen thousand. And it's not just that they know the words; it's how they use them. They don't just decide, "I'm going to be abstruse and vituperous." They put these words in a specific place at a specific time for emotional impact. And so it is with my father and his use of harmony. The second hallmark is his use of interesting instrumental colorings. He knew how to combine instruments and how to write for them because he had played almost every single one of them. And his favorites were the ones that, of course, no one else was using, like the ones you just saw up here – alto clarinet, contrabass sax."

"We first met Francis the day Clare played at the 'Manhattan Jazz Club' in Euro-Disneyland Paris. It was in February of 1995 and Francis was in South America. He flew home the day Clare performed because he didn't want to miss the opportunity to hear him play. He and Bernard Maury were in the audience and after the performance came up to Clare, introduced themselves and talked for quite a while. Then in February, 1997 we were in France again and again Francis attended a performance of Clare's in a nightclub in the Hotel Alliance in the St. Germain section of Paris. That night he invited us to join him the next day for lunch. He came to our hotel (He lived about 3 hours from Paris) and he and his son, Stephane took us to a delightful restaurant. The restaurant walls were covered with autographs and pictures of musicians who had at one time or another eaten there. We had a late lunch, the restaurant closed, but the owner kept us there to talk and sip wine and spend time together most of the afternoon. It was really quite delightful. Francis asked if we would ever consider returning to Paris and spend a lengthy visit with him in his home in Antigny. We were so pleased and told him we would love to. We received a letter soon after we returned home to affirm the plan, but heard nothing further.""

"So this is the man who loved animals with such intensity that he named far too many songs after every critter he ever encountered. The man who's written countless songs for his loves, his children, his friends, living and deceased. The man who, in countless pictures sifted through for this occasion, could be seen feeding birds at the drop of a hat, petting a stray cat, letting a dog sit on his lap; who loved children so much, took such delight in them, that he had to move right across the street from an elementary school so he could watch them play. My father, who brought me lunches at my grade school, and my friends lunches too. Whose laughter could fill a room. Who paid for my first professional recording and came to my debut gig at the Troubadour when I was fifteen. Whom I spent endless hours in conversation with, about history and philosophy and comparative religion. Who stole my Greek History books off my bookshelf. (I stole his books too.) This is the man I love fiercely, and I know that he loved me and my family fiercely in kind, and I'm forever grateful for that. And there's one more thing—well, two more things I'm grateful for: one is that the love of his life came to him, and for the last twenty years, transformed it in a manner I cannot even put words to, and I'm so deeply grateful to have her as my mother, and unspeakably grateful that my dad had that in his life. And again, I thank you all for being here, celebrating my father's life."

"I've been up past midnight all week, woodshedding [...] playing compositions by the great jazzman Clare Fischer."

"Hearing Clare's music that evening in 1962, was for me like experiencing a powerful earthquake. The blending of Ellington, Stravinsky and Shostakovich that we heard in Clare's improvisation and compositions altered everything for me. Later, in many generous sessions of instruction and encouragement, Clare said that, in his early teens, he had heard and transcribed parts of Ellington's ""Black, Brown and Beige Suite," Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring," and the Shostakovich 1st Symphony. That was a staggering thought for a floundering saxophone player, and I often wondered then if plumbing might not have been a better chosen field for me. What came of Clare's youthful encounters with such diverse music was the creation of Clare Fischer, a composer, pianist and arranger whose music is at once a combining of every moment of beauty and life experience he encountered. Perhaps a favorite quote is proper here. This is from George Bernard Shaw. "The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them.""

"And on , that depth and skill, stimulated by a change in the stale Gillespie repertoire and complemented by rich, radically imaginative arrangements by, I am told, Clare Fischer, result in a really classic album. Fischer, a young conservatory graduate, is a new name to be reckoned with."

"The most amazing thing, though, is that Fischer is theatrical. That is, all his tricks are just bright enough to keep the arrangements fresh without taking away from the sentimentality of Arlen's songs. He never gets solemn or super complex like Russo. If Arlen says the mood is "Bluesy," Fischer doesn't try to correct him. Fischer's overriding purpose, I believe, is to entertain. Conservatory-trained, he is rationing out language that must seem common currency to him, and trying to get it into the common currency of the public at large. I hope he succeeds. I hope that the Broadway boys will listen to him. I hope the jazz-band boys will listen to him. A half-century of the same voicings is enough."

"The vocal group, the Hi-Lo's's, were the greatest aid to me in harmony. I loved the harmonies they were using, especially Clare Fischer's arrangements, which I used to take off the record. By the time I studied theory in college, I breezed through it."

"Clare Fischer was a major influence on my harmonic concept. He and Bill Evans, and Ravel and Gil Evans, finally. You know, that’s where it really came from. Almost all of the harmony that I play can be traced to one of those four people and whoever their influences were. And, of course, Miles."

"Most of my harmonic stuff comes from listening, for example, to the Hi-Lo's, and in particular, Clare Fischer's arrangements, which I heard in college. I learned about harmony from Clare's arrangements. Also I used to listen to one particular mood music orchestra--Robert Farnon's. His harmonic sense was incredible, even though it was only background music."

"[W]hen I was in high school, I formed a vocal group that was at first more like Four Freshmen harmonies—just this side of barbershop quartet. But then when I heard the Hi-Lo’s and Clare’s arrangements, I started writing more like that, and would write it down trying to figure out what they were doing. That was a big lesson for me on developing more advanced harmonies, and I took that with me to New York and all that. If you listen to Speak Like a Child, his influence is huge on that record, in the voicings and the harmonic devices."

"[I]t was many years later that I met Clare—maybe 15 or 20 years ago, in the A&M Studios in Los Angeles. I wasn’t working with him, I just found out he was in the building and I jumped up: “Clare Fischer?! Aw, man, I gotta tell him what he’s done for me!” And when I met him, he had no idea that I even knew him, much less that he was a big influence on me. I explained the whole thing to him and it tripped him out, because he told me I influenced him! It was really pretty cool. We just bonded right away; I could feel it, and I knew that he could feel it, too. There weren’t that many more encounters, but when I got to meet Clare and talk to him just those few more times it was always special. I wouldn’t be me if it wasn’t for Clare Fischer."

"An interesting modulating example is the jazz piece Excerpt from Canonic Passacaglia by Clare Fischer (issued on Alone Together in 1997). The chord progression, the bass line, and also melodic details are reminiscent of Benny Golson's Whisper Not (1956). Clare Fischer turns this model into a continuously modulating pattern d: i – ♯vi / a: ii – V – i which traverses the entire circle of fifths. The five bass tones D – C – B – A combine the descending line C – C – B – A with the zig-zag D – B – E – A in the m3/P5 lattice. The title Passacaglia is most likely a reference to the descending fourth-line (such as D – C – B – A). The deviation from the more typical descend (D – C – B♭ – A) with B♭ instead of B is in solidarity with the constitution of the fundamental bass pattern with B being a minor third below D. Despite the obvious similarities with Whisper Not, the Canonic Passacaglia by Clare Fischer (see Fig. 15) does not show the same kind of hierarchical organization. It is a chain of modulating 2nd modes through all twelve tonal centers, each of which provides a clear tonal anchor."

"Verve released an album by Dizzy Gillespie titled A Portrait of Duke Ellington. The orchestral writing was nothing less than brilliant, but, alas, the album gave no arranger's credit. The writing sounded like Ellington and yet not like Ellington; like Gil Evans, yet not like Gil Evans. It was in fact apparent that the arranger had studied everything and everyone and then developed his own highly personal approach to writing. Unable to reach Dizzy by phone, I set out to find out who had done this remarkable writing. It turned out to be the young man about whom Dizzy was so wildly enthusiastic, and this time I did not forget the name: Clare Fischer. Clare was at that time chiefly known as the pianist for the Hi-Lo's, the superb vocal group out of which the even more brilliant Singers Unlimited group developed. The Gillespie-Ellington album provided convincing evidence that he had one of the most original and advanced compositional minds in jazz."

"According to Shipton, "It is one of the least successful of Dizzy's big band ventures, lacking the authentic stamp of Ellington's own personality." I don't think it was meant to reflect Ellington as much as the broader instrumental palette that Gil Evans had explored. If, as Shipton suggests, Dizzy wanted a setting comparable to that Miles Davis had found with Gil Evans in Porgy and Bess and Miles Ahead, he had found the right arranger. But when Fischer arrived in New York from California, charts completed, he found that Dizzy, with the out-to-lunch carelessness of which he was capable, hadn't bothered to book an orchestra. Fischer had to do it at the last minute. Most of the best jazz players in New York were already engaged, and Fischer had to fill in the instrumentation with symphony players. They didn't grasp the idiom, and the album is stiff. In a word, it just doesn't swing. But the writing in that album is gorgeous; its failure is Dizzy's fault."

"Thinking back to the time, I didn't want to just make an Elvis Costello album. There were other things I was interested in. I also wanted to work with this fabulous arranger, Clare Fischer, which may not have happened if I had been working with Elvis."

"Producer David Z (brother of Revolution drummer Bobby Z) welds the tracks magnificently and Clare Fischer's inspired string arrangements give the album a conceptual feel."

"Clare Fisher, talk about a muse. He was my inspiration for getting the strings on the record. Clare had done work with my father—my father being the arranger and Clare being the string arranger. So, I had that “in,” although that was not how I was thinking about it at the time. Prince and I were listening to a bunch of Rufus records back in the day—and this was before we thought about doing strings on the first record. We were talking about how brilliant the strings were on those albums. I had also been listening to a lot of Claus Ogerman and Bill Evans. There's one record they did called Symbiosis and it's just one of the most beautifully arranged records. Ogerman's string arrangement, and Evans playing the piano over it, is some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard. The only thing that's ever come close to feeling as perfectly arranged in terms of the strings was on the Rufusized record. I just said, “Prince, why don't we get Clare to do the strings on our record?” He said, “Yeah.” I said, “My dad knows him.” I called my dad and said “Pop, you gotta call Clare and see if he's up for it.” He was. We sent him the 24 track. He got back to us right away and said “Absolutely.” Within a month we had all the lead sheets and we had the entire score for the record. We went in and cut it and I couldn't have been happier."

"When Clare was sending something, Prince would get very excited. When's the tape coming? And when it would get there and first thing, he'd get in the car and listen to it."

"When he won a Grammy in 1984 for Best Latin Jazz Album,✱ he delighted his fans by giving his acceptance speech in Spanish."

"The string arrangement is Clare Fischer. I'd been waiting both for the material and the opportunity to work with him. And on this song "It Could Happen to You," which ends up just strings and vocals, I was at home writing, and I'd written this piece—[hums a couple of measures]—and my mother heard it. And she says, "Oh, that's the bridge..." And I said, "No! That's not the bridge for anything. I've just written it." She says, "No, no; wait a minute." So she phoned back 15 minutes later: "Found it! Here, listen to this," and played me Peggy Lee singing "It Could Happen to You." I'd even written the bridge in the same key. So, I must've heard this when I was six or something. So I made the arrangement for an acoustic quartet, and sent it to Clare for the string arrangement. And when I got there, he ran through the string arrangement. And I was just in awe of how accurate he'd taken the flavor I was trying to re-illuminate from the song. And I just dumped everything I had on tape, and left it as spare as that, because it was just... poifect."

"I'm a very big fan of this Brazilian singer-guitarist called João Gilberto. And this next song... um... his music inspired me to write it, three or four years ago. Turns out that he heard it in Brazil, and liked the string arrangements on it, which were done by the same arranger, Clare Fischer, who arranged the music for me this evening. So it's nice when something that inspires you goes round and comes back, and you're full circle.✱"

"[Stan Kenton] gave composers carte blanche to write anything they wanted to. The main problem was there was no money for rehearsals so all I remember is an unbelievable mass of notes going in front of my face and us trying to make a halfway decent performance out of it. There were some good compositions that came out of that: Bill Holman, John Williams. And Clare Fischer, one of my all-time heroes, albeit a bit difficult to get along with sometimes, wrote some magnificent music for that band."

"With special thanks 2 Clare Fischer 4 Making Brighter the Colors Black and White"

"Therese [Stoulil]: Please send 2 Claire Fisher 4 Orchestration. Tell him I'd like a full orchestra. There are 12 open tracks. Tell him 2 go 4 broke and play something thruout the whole song. I'll edit what I can't use. If he is unable 2 do the date ask him 4 recommendations of other people. Tell him I hope he's in good health & spirits. Thanks."

"At this point, I wouldn't want to jinx it by meeting him. His arrangements are incredible. I just send him a tape, we talk on the phone, and he sends me the finished orchestra tracks. Hear that? I'm gonna get that chord on the radio, baby!"

"Palmer comprehends (by dint of predatory maleness, I suppose) that this music is ultimately about seduction rather than romance. Clare Fisher's [sic] arrangements have the kind of brassy swagger and classy, stylish sweep that a ladies' man needs."

"Other losses that took a bite out of the music world: the swinging jazz piano of the incomparable Dave Brubeck, the lush arrangements of classical and jazz composer Richard Rodney Bennett, and Judy Garland’s musical director Mort Lindsey, who arranged her celebrated comeback at Carnegie Hall in 1961. And there was nobody more brilliantly talented than Mr. Clare Fischer, one of the finest composer-arranger-conductors in jazz for 60 years. He was the sound behind the Hi-Los, the sensational vocal quartet that revolutionized jazz singing in the 1950s, but he also enhanced the work of Dizzy Gillespie, Bill Evans ✱ and Cal Tjader."

"When it would come back, it was always, "Oh my God, this is so exciting." He'd get the FedEx package and inside would be the multi-track tape and on the stereo pair of tracks would be this orchestral mix that Clare had done. He'd push up the faders and there it is. I mean, there's something brand new. It was thrilling and really, really exciting. Those were breathless moments. Prince loved what Clare did."

"Well, voicings, I learned a valuable lesson once when I was in a piano club with Clare Fischer and George Shearing.✱ And it was Shearing's club. And it existed, I'd say, from '62 to '63; and then, unfortunately, he had to let it go, because certain members in the club went into the business side of the club as a political force. But that one year we were in his organization, I learned a lot from Clare and George Shearing about the technique of voicing. I was taught to just take any chord and, all of a sudden, just take it through every single key, every single imaginable voicing that I could come up with. Just runnin' through every single key. And Clare Fischer told me; he said, "Joe, you will get to that point, once you run everything through every, every single key," he said, "you will reach that point that you could just throw your hands on the keyboard and play blindly, and you gonna play a chord. you gonna play some kind of voicing." And that was something I worked on for years."

"By the time "Sonando" came around, I had already had a few friendly arguments with Clare Fischer about "Poncho" and "Straight Ahead," regarding my approach and style. Clare Fischer is a genius, a wonderful musician, but he overpowered me and my ideas. He had a different approach. I was always leaning more toward a typical style. I was coming from bebop and an authentic Latin style, whereas he would like a lot of electronic influences. By the time I signed with Concord, my other band was ready to record, so me and Clare split up in a friendly way."

"We went down and got a six-pack of beer, and we're coming back in the van – back to the concert site – and all of a sudden, Clare said, "Oh, look! There's a Jack in the Box! And we went... "So?... We just ate prime rib, dessert and all; and you say, 'There's a Jack in the Box'??!!!" Well, Rob was drivin', I was ridin' shotgun, and Clare was sittin' in the middle... and he said--he said "Pull in there quick! Pull in there." You gotta be kidding! We pulled in there. He got into the Jack in the Box line. "What do you want from here?" He goes, "I want.." Oh no, first he goes, "Do you guys want anything? You want anything?" We said, "Clare, we just ate a prime rib dinner! We just want our beer, ya know? And he goes, "OK... Give me seven apple turnovers." Seven apple turnovers from Jack in the box! They gave him seven apple turnovers. We took off, and there's a bag down here, and I'm shaking my head. "This guy wants seven apple turnovers!" We took off, and he immediately started eating two of them, fast. I'm lookin' at 'im, and sayin', "Damn!" And then Rob Fisher looks at me and says, "What the heck. I guess I'll get one." As soon as he put his hand in the bag, Clare grabbed his hand! He said, "Those are mine! I asked you guys if you wanted anything. I would buy you anything! Those are MINE. Stay away from them!""

"One of the things I liked about Los Angeles was that Clare Fischer, the arranger, used to organize something called the piano club.✱ It was an informal group of pianists, and we would meet at someone's house and discuss what was going on in the world of jazz piano. It became a good meeting point for all types of pianists, and as well as Clare, I remember meeting other players such as Joe Sample at those get-togethers. It was felt by some of those who attended that Clare had originally organized it as something of a shopwindow for his own talents as a player and arranger, but in fact the diversity of those who showed up took the spotlight off any one individual and we could really home in on pianistic ideas."

"Pianist-arranger Clare Fischer is a unique and complex musician who is both a modernist and a traditionalist, a purist and a radical explorer who has always gone his own way and, at the same time, held strictly to the rules of the road. For example, there is a remarkable moment at the end of our conversation where he brings together Latin, bebop, rock and roll and boogie-woogie in a way that summarizes fifty years of music in under a hundred words; that is typical of this man's unique insight and approach."

"I suspect your ability to hear into the heart of the Latin feel is not unrelated to your ability to converse fluently in the Spanish language, and to emotionally identify with where it comes from. I must relate a story to you. I was talking to Paquito D'Rivera, and he told me that he spent two hours conversing in Spanish with a gentleman at Disneyland about all sorts of things, politics and culture. A Nordic gringo, he said, and then he said, "I must excuse myself, I must go find this man, Clare Fischer. I've always wanted to meet him." And it was you; you said, "But I am Clare Fischer." And he had no idea who he was talking to. And he was startled at your fluency in the language and your ability to understand the culture."

"Walter Wanderley was very talented and very good with arrangements. I remember that there was a famous jazz organ player and arranger, Clare Fischer, and when we arrived, we were playing in L.A. and Clare was sitting next to Walter and paying attention to all the sounds and everything and he told me, "My God, I heard this guy's albums for ages and finally to be able to look at him and see how he does it..." So, you know it was very impressive because he [Fischer] was famous in Brazil as a jazz player, so he [Wanderley] was very very good. He died some years ago."

"I studied some classical giants, especially Bartok and Debussy, but didn't go too far into that realm for fear of losing my focus. I wanted to learn what made a string section really sing, then apply that to what I know and value in jazz. So my sources became Clare Fischer, particularly albums he'd done with Joao Gilberto; Claus Ogerman's things with Michael Brecker, including Cityscape (Warner Brothers); and Eddie Sauter on a a superb album by Stan Getz, Focus (Verve). These men are geniuses, and their music is timeless."

"Saxophonist Tom Scott, bassists John Patitucci and Jeff Berlin, keyboardist Patrice Rushen and drummer Ndugu Chancler are but a few of the L.A.-based contemporary jazz talents who are taking part in "A Tribute to Clare Fischer." [...] The event, which will be emceed by the ever-chipper Chuck Niles, is sponsored by Musicians Wives, Inc. and is being held to offset medical expenses incurred by the Grammy-winning Fischer, a keyboardist-composer-arranger who suffered severe head injuries in an accident in July. Fischer, who has worked with Cal Tjader, orchestrated for Dizzy Gillespie and Prince and had his tunes recorded by Art Blakey, is recuperating at his Studio City home. "Though he's still suffering from short term memory loss, dizziness and depression, he's greatly improved and the latest CAT scans show that blood clots in his brain that showed up after the accident have almost disappeared," said the keyboardist's son, Brent Fischer, a percussionist who plays in his father's band.✱ Fischer said his father is back to playing every day, and "he wrote a new song as soon as he came home. He's just taking it easy, reading and talking to a lot of old friends who are wishing him well." Not only will attendees at the tribute hear a lot of good music, they will be eligible for door prizes which range from a Kurzweil K-1000 synthesizer to signed LPs by Prince and Paul McCartney."

"Everyone who listens to me regularly, either on the radio or in person, knows that I like the music of Clare Fischer. I think he is a brilliant and talented musician who writes and plays beautifully. As a matter of fact, I like his work so well that I recorded two of his works instead of two of my own on my most recent album. Horace Silver once said if you know a man's music you know the man, so I feel know Clare Fischer very well. [...] On hearing some Clare Fischer compositions, the listener is frequently captivated by deceptively simple melodies and harmonies; however, in playing or analyzing those same compositions, the ingenuity and logic of the composer's solutions to his musical problems become much more apparent. The melodic intervals and harmonic progressions are far from ordinary. Even when he pays conscious tribute to musicians he admires, Fischer creates original impressions within the framework of the Ellington, Tristano or Gil Evans tradition without losing his own identity. His writing may combine the looseness of an Ellington or Evans chart with its "breathing space" for soloists, or it may incorporate the long-lined Tristano-inspired unisons with less obvious musical devices to make a musical point, but through it all he establishes a mood and maintains it."

"Before: Is that Clare Fischer? He does some tenth things like that. After: I actually got this record around the same time I got a Clare Fischer solo piano record. And I'm struck by the similarity between their approaches. Both have beautiful touches in the upper register... can make the piano sing."

"One day my aunt went to the record store without me and came home with a number of records, including this one. I loved it. It wasn't a jazz record, but it wasn't a soul record either. Chaka Khan undersang everything. She wasn't up to her usual wailing tricks. The most notable presence on Ask Rufus was Clare Fischer, the uncle of the drummer, André Fischer, and a legendary string arranger in his own right. Orchestral work in black music is nothing new—Philadelphia created an entire genre based on adding orchestral arrangements to songs. But there's something about the beauty of darkness that Clare Fischer adds to these records that's just haunting. This was also a Sunday record in my house. My parents were going to do an extended trip to Louisiana and Miami, gone five weeks. When they told me how long they'd be away, the string breakdown of "Egyptian Song" came on. It's a soundtrack moment, a perfect illustration of childhood sadness, lush and spare and at the same time, creepy. And then the story got sadder, at least for me. In Louisiana, Aunt Karen met a man at a restaurant. It blossomed into romance and they decided to get married. When the grown-ups got back from that trip, my parents gave us another talk: We're not going back out on the road again, no, but Karen's leaving. She took the record with her."

"There are passages on a recent album (in which Fischer collaborates with vibraphonist Cal Tjader) that mark some of the deepest, most profound marshaling of jazz, African, and Latin American elements yet heard (Verve V6-8531). "El Muchacho," for example, is the first step forward since the failure of Liebermann to cross-fertilize mambo and concert music validly. [...] At the time that Reed wrote "El Muchacho," he was not aware that he had written a composition that was a natural for further deeper blending with the mambo. But Clare Fischer was aware of this fact, and on this album triumphantly demonstrates that mambo is a still unfinished solution to a still stimulating problem by means of punning on the ostinato patterns of the Mexican son with the ostinato patterns of Afro-Cuban. For those sensitive enough to comprehend his special flair, he has opened the door on a new phase of tri-hybrid blending. And not a moment too soon. For the Castro revolution has cut the traditional ties between Cuba's Tin Pan Alley and our own popular music, and the next Latin dance may well have to be internally generated."

"His work with Cal Tjader on mambo "Alonzo" is a demonstration piece of the virtues of sober revolution. Alonzo opens with a suitably propulsive riff but so celestial are the high-pitched inventions that flow easily and comfortably in the course of this composition that the introduction is retroactively shown to be almost to be in bad taste. Never has a sharpened academic skill more convincingly enriched a piece of dance-hall music. So expressive is Fischer's personality that one can even detect his hand in normally anonymous ostinato patterns. Surely "Alonzo" will inspire Afro-Cuban musicians in the United States to rebel, at least occasionally, against the strictly chiseled conventions of their octave style of accompaniment."

"We all spent a lot of time and energy figuring out what musicians would best bring the music to life, eventually deciding that we shouldn't overthink things and just hire the best, because—and I've found this to be more true in the music world than anywhere else—you have to spend money to make money. The great Claire [sic] Fischer delivered some beautiful string arrangements, and the great Jerry Hey did the same for the horns."

"Between them, Dizzy Gillespie and Clare Fisher [sic] have come up with one of the most thoroughly delightful jazz sessions—small group or large—of the past several years. Gillespie himself has certainly rarely been heard to better advantage than in this program of low-keyed and lovely Ellington classics. This is unusual improvisational fare for his volatile, puckish trumpet, and he responds to it with some of his most sweeping, lyrical, expansive, and joyous playing on records to date. Fisher, until now known as the pianist and arranger for the Hi-Lo's, shows himself to be a most imaginative, witty and ingenious orchestral writer whose sensitive, continually arresting scores enhance the beauty of the original lines and gently but firmly goad Gillespie into solos of consistent taste and inventiveness. Inexplicably, Fisher's name appears nowhere on the album. Recording balances are insensitive at times."

"Fischer's orchestrations do not so much exhaust the possibilities of the genre as they delineate the full richness of its possibilities. In a sense, his charts serve to open one's ears to the limitless potential for significant, telling musical expression within the confines of the mood music idiom."

"Fischer understands strings; his writing for them does not relegate them to a subservient role in providing a soft cushion for the jazz improvisor. No, they are perfectly integrated into his orchestrations on a footing fully equal to every other element involved. [...] For a sample of absolutely gorgeous string writing, listen to the magnificent, moving "Sleep Sweet Child." (I understand from one of the participants that after the first rundown of his arrangement in the studio, the string players stood up and to a man applauded Fischer.) He will take it as the compliment intended if I remark that this piece reminded me forcibly of Sibelius' string writing."

"Clare Fischer has done what I wish Monk would do: he has written his own big band arrangements; the results are admirable. Fischer can make his ensemble whisper, sing, shout, praise, explain, cajole, proclaim. He is not afraid to be simple when simplicity will work; he can write for a mere quintet within the ensemble when he wants to."

"His string arrangements were weird because they went sort of sideways. They just cut across the track like there was a movie going on, but Prince wanted something dissonant, something weird, so I called Clare for Prince."

"What was Godowsky's method of teaching? As everybody knows, he was reported to be "a wizard of technique" (ein Hexenmeister der Technik, as he was dubbed unanimously by the German and indeed the world press). For this reason numerous young pianists from all over the world flocked to him, mainly in the hope of getting his recipe for attaining "virtuoso technique". Alas for them! Godowsky hardly ever said a word about technique in the sense in which these youngsters understood it; all his comments during a lesson were aimed exclusively at music, at correcting musical defects in a performance, at achieving maximum logic, accurate hearing, clarity, plasticity, through a scrupulous observance and a broad interpretation of the written score. In his class, he valued above all the real musician and approached with obvious irony those pianists whose fingers were fast and agile while their brains were slow and dull (and there were several such in my time). He would immediately lose all interest in a pupil whose hearing was inaccurate, who memorized wrong notes or showed bad taste."

"I just felt like God picked me up in his arms [and said], 'Johnnie Ray, I love you', and kissed me. I'm very humble and grateful for this elevation to the big time. But we all have to come down, and it won't leave me with a complex if I do. I know this thing might go over like a lead balloon, but I can always go back to that movie extra deal."

"I was walking down by the river. I lay down under a tree. I was broke. I felt pretty low. Then I looked up at the sky—all blue except for one little, white, fleecy cloud. The words came to me for the song—quicker than it's taking me to tell it to you. I got up—and I had new hope. That was the turning point in my life."

"It's not a handicap, because when you go to bed, I take [the hearing aid] off, and the phones ring, the maids vacuum, people knock on doors, and I don't hear any of that."

"Americans are the most over-entertained people on the face of the earth."

"I've got no talent. Still sing flat as a table. I'm a sort of human spaniel. People come to see what I'm like. I make them feel, I exhaust them, I destroy them."

"They call, they call me the fat man 'Cause I weight two hundred pounds All the girls they love me 'Cause I know my way around."

"You made me cry, when you said goodbye Ain't that a shame My tears fell like rain Ain't that a shame You're the one to blame"

"I found my thrill On Blueberry Hill On Blueberry Hill When I found you."

"Blue Monday how I hate Blue Monday Got to work like a slave all day Here come Tuesday, oh hard Tuesday I'm so tired got no time to play"

"For the time bombs ticking and the heads they hang, All the gangs gettin' money and the heads they bang - bang. Wild mustangs, the porno flicks, All my homies in the county in cell block six. The grits when there ain't enough eggs to cook, And to D.B. Cooper and the money he took. You can look for answers but that ain't fun, Now get in the pit and try to love someone."

"Well I'm packin' up my game and I'mma head out west Where real women come equipped with scripts and fake breasts. Find a nest in the Hills, chill like Flynt, Buy an old drop-top find a spot to pimp. And I'mma Kid Rock it up and down ya' block With a bottle of scotch and watch lots a crotch. Buy a yacht with a flag sayin' "Chillin' the Most", Then rock that bitch up and down the coast. Give a toast to the sun, drink with the stars, Get thrown in the mix and get tossed outta bars."

"I once was lost, but now I'm just blind."

"I ain't no G, I'm just a regular failure; I ain't straight outta Compton, I'm straight out the trailer. Cuss like a sailor, drink like a Mick; my only words of wisdom are just <>."

"I like AC/DC and ZZ Top, Bocephus, Beasties, and the Kings of Rock, Skynyrd, Seger, Limp, Korn, the Stones, David Allen Coe, and No Show Jones. Yeah! Pass that bottle around, Got the rock from Detroit and soul from Motown. The underground stoned fuckin' pimp With tracks that mack and slap back the whack. Never gayed away, I don't play with ass, But watch me rock with Liberace flash. Punk rock the Clash, boy bands are trash, I like Johnny Cash and Grandmaster Flash."

"I'm an American Bad Ass, watch me kick, You can roll with Rock or you can suck my dick. I'm a porno flick, I'm like Amazing Grace, I'm gonna fuck some hoes after I rock this place."

"The black cat is back, in original form, The legible, credible, inevitable storm. Way past the normal, still misbehaving, Finger in the air and the flag still waving. Don't come, don't test the boss Because I got this sewn like Betsy Ross. You can floss and front, you can taunt and tease, But you can't fuck wit rhymes like these."

"Up and down that lonely road of faith, I have been there Unprepared for the storms and the tides that rise. I've realized one thing, how much I love you, And it hurts to see, see you crying. I believe we can make it through the winds of change."

"Living my life in a slow hell, Different girl every night at the hotel. I ain't seen the sunshine in three damn days. Been fueling up on cocaine and whiskey; Wish I had a good girl to miss me. Lord, I wonder if I'll ever change my ways."

"I put your picture away; Sat down and cried today. I can't look at you while I'm lying next to her."

"I called you last night in the hotel; Everyone knows, but they won't tell. But their half-hearted smiles tell me something just ain't right. I've been waiting on you for a long time, Fuelin' up on heartaches and cheap wine. I ain't heard from you in three damn nights."

"And when the sunshine showed Her face I felt like I was ready to die. Went lookin' for a place to hide, A hole I could crawl inside. Long lines, Whiskey bottles, And the same old song. I smell death in the air And I know it won't be long."

"Maybe I have been on the road too long, Living my life through these songs. I guess loving a music man Really wasn't in your plans. Does it matter if I'm sorry again? And why should I apologize> You knew all along this was my life. You know my ins and outs, All my fears and doubts. It's the life I love, But it's you I can't live without."

"Stop pointing fingers and take some blame, Pull your future away from the flame. Open up your mind and start to live. Stop short changing your neighbors, Living off hand outs and favors, and maybe Give a little bit more than you got to give. Simplify, testify, identify, rectify."

"It was 1989, my thoughts were short, my hair was long, Caught somewhere between a boy and man. She was seventeen and she was far from in-between. It was summertime in Northern Michigan."

"And we were trying different things, We were smoking funny things, Making love out by the lake to our favorite song. Sipping whiskey out the bottle, not thinking 'bout tomorrow, Singing "Sweet Home Alabama" all summer long. Singing "Sweet Home Alabama" all summer long."

"And now these days when I drive through a small town, I turn my stereo up and roll my windows down. ’Cause it reminds me of my first kiss And those days that I always miss. Tom Petty on the radio, Going steady with nowhere to go. No money, just time to spend, An old Chevy and a couple friends. Oh how I wish that I could go back in time Just to love you again."

"If you were there behind every family's closed doors, everyone's a little wacko. Chances are that your family is no weirder than the next family, or than the other girl at school's family. Everyone can be quirky at times, and I embrace that, personally."

"The better you know your character, the more naturally it comes. But at the same time I don’t know that I ever want it to be easy, because the minute it gets easy I think I get too comfortable. And so I always am trying to search for what I can do to make my performance better"

"I don't play this work as a tour de force, as a dazzling display of technique--I play it as a life experience."

"He was searching Blindly night and day This life, there must be more Breaking beauty, Just to stay awake His heart was like a stone"

"And on the last day He walked out in the sun He only just discovered the sun On the last day And on the last day When all his work was done He only just discovered the sun On the last day All this rapture Right here all along In scraps he tore away All this color In his final breath Exhaled the dark and gray"

"…I would say it's not not about Warren Beatty. But I can't understand why there's been such intense interest about this over the years and I don't really want to play into that. To me, it's not an issue. It's a kind of a fun riddle."

"You know, that's so much a part of life, being able to embrace the broken heart, not just cast it off as having no meaning or trying to get rid of it. I think in the book gives a very good journey through the way I handled things that were desperately frightening for me."

"I grew up with lots of mystery in my house…I was always feeling on shaky ground when I was growing up. I didn’t know what was what, and that led me to feel very insecure."

"I think of that time a lot…It’s part of my blood, my bones, all the liquid in my body. I’ve just taken him in so he’s in my core."

"I pretended I was Cat Stevens. I started out with very Cat Stevensy chords, very abrupt. I was so stuck in the moment of being fearful so as a lesson to myself I said: ‘but we can never know about the days to come’. I didn’t know when the door-bell was going to ring. I liked that. It was all of a sudden a quarter to eight and I had written the whole song."

"Fear came in so much in my life that it did everything but completely stop me. When I was a little girl, I so wanted to be sociable, but I was scared that I wasn't going to be able to speak a sentence because I had such a bad stammer..."

"Music brought me closer to the idea of God…Music gave me the energy to revise, revive myself; renew, rebirth myself. It was a palliative, a relief."

"The time I enjoy music most is when it’s not a performance. It’s just trading instrumentals and finding that part in the song that you feel best singing."

"The eyes of love are watching you As you go from day to day The hands of love will catch you When you fall along the way My arms will hold and be with you Your whole life through 'Cause I am love And I'm in love with you."

"I sang it about soldiers, then, later, about gay men. It touches me deeply every time. I used to perform this song at Mr Henry’s and people would be totally silent. I knew it moved them."

"I didn’t try to be a soul singer, a jazz singer, a blues singer – no category…My music is my expression of what I feel and believe in a moment."

"I hope that one day we will be seen for the people we are, not for our race, gender, age or nationality."

"I know what it is to go over the same songs over and over again, and to try to make them perfect. It’s interesting and it’s hard and it’s difficult at the same time…You have to stay on top of things."

"To be moved, to be moved constantly by your own songs. You need it to be in tune with them, and I don’t mean in tune musically, but I mean in tune with the lyrics of the songs, with the words of the songs, and with the meaning. You need to be in tune with all of that, and that takes a little bit of doing."

"Ain't no sunshine when she's gone It's not warm when she's away Ain't no sunshine when she's gone And she's always gone too long Anytime she's goes away"

"And I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know Hey I oughta leave the young thing alone But ain't no sunshine when she's gone."

"Sometimes in our lives we all have pain We all have sorrow But if we are wise We know that there's always tomorrow."

"Lean on me, when you're not strong And I'll be your friend I'll help you carry on For it won't be long 'Til I'm gonna need Somebody to lean on."

"I grew up in the age of Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Nancy Wilson … It was a time where a fat, ugly broad that could sing had value. Now everything is about image. It’s not poetry. This just isn’t my time."

"What few songs I wrote during my brief career, there ain’t a genre that somebody didn’t record them in. I’m not a virtuoso, but I was able to write songs that people could identify with. I don’t think I’ve done bad for a guy from Slab Fork, West Virginia."

"My first goal was, I didn’t want to be a cook or a steward … So I went to aircraft-mechanic school. I still had to prove to people that thought I was genetically inferior that I wasn’t too stupid to drain the oil out of an airplane."

"Let's say you and 20 other people have this group that is anti-racist and all you do is talk about how bad racism is. What good is that group doing? All you do is preaching to the choir. If you and I agree, I'm not accomplishing anything by trying to convince you of what you already know. The way you resolve that is you invite somebody to the table who disagrees with you so you understand why they have that point of view. Then, perhaps, you will figure out a solution to disuade their fears."

"Always keep the lines of communication open with your adversaries regardless of what the topic is. When two enemies are talking they are not fighting. They might be yelling and screaming and shouting an beating their fists on the table, but at least they're talking. They're not fighting."

"How can you hate me when you don't even know me? Throughout my life, I've been looking for an answer to that. Well, who better to ask than someone who would join an organization whose whole premise is hating people who do not look like them? So I began seeking out members of the Ku Klux Klan."

"[On his collection of Ku Klux Klan robes and memorabilia]: People always say to me 'Daryl, how can you have this stuff? Why don't you burn it?' Well, no. As shameful as it is, this is a part of American history. You don't burn our history regardless. The good, the bad, the ugly. And the Ku Klux Klan is as American as baseball, apple pie and Chevrolet."

"[On why he prefers to meet Ku Klux Klan members face to face]: They can't know the real me through e-mail or through Facebook. Just sitting across from somebody, meeting somebody, getting that sense of them, that's the key right there."

"If you have an adversary, someone with an opposing point of view, regardless of how extreme it may be, and believe me I've heard things that cut me to the bone, but give that person a platform. Allow them to air their views. And when you do things like that there is an excellent chance that people will reciprocate."

"Davis: My end goal is to bring people together. Bring white supremacists together with their nemesis. Unless we learn how to get along with one another, this country is about to..."

"Kwame Rose: Why do I have to get along with them?"

"Davis: Because they are our fellow Americans. We all have to live in this country together. We do. Otherwise we're going to end up self-destructing."

"[If he feels disconnected from black millennials]: I've met people like him before and have had confrontations with people like him before, not many. A Klansman hates a white person who 'sells out', so to speak, more so than they hate a black person. Just like the young boy hated me more than he hated some white guy, because he felt that I've sold out my own race. He was very definite that white people could not change. How is he going to advance any agenda in this country, as diverse as it is?"

"When I first began interviewing Klan members, oftentimes they would answer the question but they wouldn't turn around and say 'What do you think?' They felt i was inferior. I had nothing to offer in terms of my opinion. But then over time, as the relationship develops, slowly but surely they began asking me questions. That was the first clue that the tide was turning. 'Oh, all of a sudden my opinion matters? Let's see where this is going.'"

"I never sat out to convert anybody. I just set out to get that answer to my question: 'How can you hate me if you don't even know me?' And in my quest to have that answered, they couldn't answer it. And some of them ended up converting themselves."

"I would hope that by the time I'm gone, things like this will not be as prevalent. But if they are, perhaps this film will encourage others to do the same and do a better job that I've been able to do."

"The lesson learned is: ignorance breeds fear. If you don't keep that fear in check, that fear will breed hatred. If you don't keep hatred in check, it will breed destruction."

"I am a musician, not a psychologist or sociologist. If I can do that, anybody in here can do that. Take the time to sit down and talk with your adversaries. You will learn something and they will learn something from you. When two enemies are talking, they are not fighting. They are talking. It's when the talking ceases that the ground becomes fertile for violence. So keep the conversation going."

"What I have come to find to be the greatest and most effective and successful weapon that we can use, known to man, to combat such adversaries as ignorance, racism, hatred, violence, is also the least expensive weapon, and the one that is the least used by Americans. That weapon is called communication."

"As an artist, I don’t like being able to be seen…If you’re having difficulty getting a part, it adds to the tension when the assistant engineer, engineer, producer and producer’s wife are hanging out. With the School-house, my engineer’s in the control room, and I could be doing vocals while stretching my T-shirt over my head and it wouldn’t matter. Everyone who’s worked here has gotten used to this nonvisual communication and actually found it to be advantageous. That’s what home studios are about — that funky thing."

"Creativity is an interesting thing…You can sit back, have a glass of wine, watch some television…and get a terrific idea of what you want to do…The great thing about being at home is that as soon as you get an idea you can put a mike at the piano and record it. That way you don’t lose the vibes, and you don’t have to worry about finishing before the studio’s next booking arrives…”"

"I'm the least technical person I've ever met...I hate anything with digital numbers on it. I just go by instinct. It's the same with a new AMS as it is with a synthesizer for me. I never read manuals. I just sit down with the thing for a couple of days and fiddle with the knobs until I figure out what it can do. And get what I like out of it. When it comes to producing too I just go for something that will jump off the record and into people's heads. Again, it's a question of what feels right. I try to make records which have a point of view to express and so you always have to concentrate upon the voice. When we did my album we tried very hard to keep the sort of R'n'B danceability in the vocals you'd expect from a D Train or Gloria Gaynor, but still keeping that Rock conviction you get from Foreigner."

"The bass suit was actually one of the first cordless guitars in existence, and I invented it. It was built right into this silver bodysuit so it looked as though the bass was coming out of my body, and the volume and tone knobs were on the sleeve...When it worked it was great, but the tunings were a little strange, plus I can’t tell you how many times I got shocked. It wound up being just one more thing that we had to worry about on tour: ‘Well, I wonder if this will work tonight.’ After a while I couldn’t stand wearing it anymore so I gave it up."

"In my mind, recognition has never been something to be obtained…I’m happy that more people appreciate what I’m doing, and are hearing my music. When I write, I communicate my own message, my own feelings and passion. I’m glad that they are being accepted."

"Sure. It does lean more towards the industry standard rather than towards my roots. But I meant it to be that way for a reason. To begin with this is my first album in about three years and my first for a new label. So I wanted the album to have the same basic listenability throughout and I wanted the record company to feel that they could hear four or five potential singles on it. Tracks that would work on the radio. Because that was what I was aiming for, I had to make sure that each song would capture an exact feeling which would get across to the most number of people. I always like to make records like that. I hate records where all the musicians or the artiste are really saying is 'Dig Me!' You can lose a lot of your potential audience by making self-indulgent statements. Unless, of course, you're so neat and groovy that people say 'Wow Man! Come All Over Me!'. Now I think I am pretty neat and groovy, but I prefer to make the sort of records which will make people think about themselves, not about me. Pop music shouldn't really express the innermost thoughts of the artiste as much as giving the listeners a feeling of exuberance or pain or power or whatever. To give them a sense of their own selves. Once you start making music with that sort of end in mind, you realise that you have to make it less jagged and more compartmentalised. And so the reason I Can Dream About You sounds maybe as Industry Standard as it does is because it was designed to get through to as many different sorts of people as possible. And that isn't necessarily a negative factor."

"...People get confused because they want the boxes your talent comes in to be always the same shape and the same colour. If you don't do that then people lose track of who you are. They say 'Oh, he doesn't know himself'. But I know who I am. The energy is the same, the expression is the same and the work diligence is the same. Always. It's just that sometimes it all comes in different boxes and different colours. It may be weird to some people but it surely doesn't bother me."

"It seemed to be a natural period when I wanted to stop doing pop records; it came with a falling-out between my record company and me...There was a hole in my career. Instead of a valley, it became a peak to me. I decided I was going to do something that I hadn’t really had time to do."

"I started reading books about the subconscious mind and intuitiveness, and what makes people tick when they hear songs that excite them, make them feel romantic or melancholy. I was in and out of bookstores and libraries. I read a lot of texts, including on primitive man and the workings of the way we emotionally react to things. It wasn’t scholarly or scientific. I read and skimmed and when I thought something was nonsense, I just moved on…"

"In a lot of ways this music is soothing. I think there’s a place for music that is peaceful and soulful unto the spirit. After plane bombings, AIDS and everything that has come upon us in this decade, I think we can use a little solace and reflection."

"I don’t necessarily do music for the pure art sake of my own self-expression, which is why a lot of people make music—to express themselves. I really feel that the work I do, be it writing, singing or producing, I do in order to help communicate feelings to other people, hoping they might feel the same things, that they somehow relate to it or get an experience from it that they can share with themselves."

"The reality of Andy Warhol’s 15 minutes is here, only if he were around now, he’d say “Now it’s five.” We’re going so fast, we don’t know what’s going on inside anymore. We’re becoming external, not feeling anything."

"I have a bit of anger about some things going on in the world that I know I want to sing about. I’ve never done that on a solo album before; they’ve been mostly about romance and relationships…The concept is Dan Hartman, so whatever’s happening to me when I begin to put out the feelings will be what the album is about. Whether I’m in love, out of love, or the next plane blows up…whatever, I just want to stay creative and hopefully keep people thinking and feeling…At least feel something."

"I think James Brown has made a lot of good records (in recent years)…But it was that purist James Brown thing that he was doing in the beginning and people won’t let him do that anymore because time marches on…That stuff is classic to me, but other people get bored with it. The challenge is to present something that is him, yet sounds fresh to listeners. That’s usually hard for (a veteran artist) to do. It helps to have someone step in from outside…I am proud of what we did on the album. I think it does present a contemporary James Brown. It’s not candy-coated. It has a lot of statement and a lot of heart."

"When you get into the areas of eroticism, politics, and belligerency, you have to be careful. Some of it will get out. Both Charlie and I have slanted minds. If “Relax” or “Sugar Walls" can be hits, there is a place for that kind of stuff, too. It's fun and interesting to write about that. Or with politics: Third World people own the bomb. That's probably where the nuclear war will start. They have nothing to lose. You can write about that. It'll be just another record from a romantic cynic."

"They said the scene was going to be patriotic, with the flag and Apollo fighting the Russian, and it had to be pro-American. We said we didn’t really want to go flag waving. We just wanted to have a good time, write a funky number and sing about America."

"I realize all you need to do is do it. I think we all restrict ourselves in our lives from doing things. We have choices and alternatives."

"I started producing before I even joined the Legends—around 1962... I produced some local R&B, rock and gospel acts at Baldwin Sound in Mechanicsburg [Pennsylvania]. People would hear what I'd done on someone else's record and call me up and ask if I'd produce them, too. I even wrote and recorded an advertising jingle for Sutliff Chevrolet out on Paxton Street when I was 16. So it's always been something that I could fall back on throughout my career--to keep my mind going, to keep me musically inspired, and to keep me moving without having to make statements of my own…"

"Dan was the first person I enlisted for The Edgar Winter Group. It was a huge talent search; I listened to hundreds of demo tapes to choose talented people for what I wanted to be the quintessential American rock band...The thing that I loved about Dan was that he had a youthful innocence and enthusiasm. He loved commercial music, and he didn’t have to try to be commercial. He had a natural ability to come up with simple ideas that were never overdone...he was originally a guitarist...I had to talk him into playing bass. He was a multi-instrumentalist like myself, but he was not a virtuoso player. Yet he would always find the right part to complement the song. Rock solid, and with the right groove. As well as being a great songwriter, he knew what to play and when to play it."

"Dan always liked to have a lyric before he wrote a melody and created a track. He reasoned that he needed to know the essence of the song in order to inspire his creative process. As a result, we would discuss an idea and I would then write lyrics. Often, I would throw out some lines or titles before proceeding to ensure that Dan agreed on the direction. If he concurred then I would go on to complete a lyric. Dan was very tough and uncensored in his assessments but our dynamics allowed for this. Being satisfied with the final work was all that mattered. However, because of his unvarnished critiques, I developed a system wherein I would write many alternative lyrics so that Dan could have choices."

"...This guy was so multi-talented. We would wake up and come down to the den and hear somebody playing like Hendrix, with the amp low-tuned. He could play like Hendrix. And then he’d sit down at the piano and play all these Elton John songs. He loved the Philadelphia Soul — that’s why you can hear it in “I Can Dream About You.” He loved The Spinners, and all those guys. He was like a sponge; he soaked up all those influences. And it was amazing to see the guy be such a virtuoso at every instrument — singing, playing, producing, piano, guitar..."

"Working with Dan was like going to an institute of higher learning in pursuit of a PhD in the art of collaboration. Before this, I had been the lead singer in bands and expected to write the lyrics, and it had been expected for those lyrics to express my experience and worldview. That had been my job, and, for the most part, no collaboration had been necessary...which opinion was better or worse did not enter into the dynamic, because we both understood that our sensibilities were not the same, and that, left alone, either of our opinions might or might not have worked, but the point of the collaboration was to create a work that was Hartman and Midnight, not Hartman alone or Midnight alone..."

"Somebody asked him to write a song for Aretha. You would get a demo that sounded like, you know, Aretha! If you asked him to write a song for Barry White, you’d get a demo that sounded like Barry White. He was brilliant at that."

"I remember we were at some club in Detroit, and playing all kinds of crazy things behind George, while behind Miles we played really straight. And Miles said afterward, "Why don't you play like that behind me?" That's when Tony and I began playing our little musical game behind Miles. After only four days, it turned around and he was leading us. And Miles began playing different after that. It was the most uncannily rapid adaptation I could ever imagine."

"I realized I could never be a genius in the class of Miles, Parker or Coltrane, so I might just as well forget about becoming a legend and just be satisfied to create some music to make people happy. I no longer wanted to write the Great American Masterpiece."

"I'm not a chauffeur. Nobody would have bought any of my records if I were. I'd have had nothing to say. I'm supposed to be presenting things to the public, not accepting requests. I call the shots. They don't have to like it. I really wanted to develop my career in such a way that I have the freedom to do what I want to do, and not have that considered bizarre. I think I'm finally at that point. People are no longer surprised when I come out with something different. I've done it enough now. That's what I've wanted all this time."

"Hey, man; I would never dare to sing alone and unaided. I mean, nobody would want to hear the sound of my natural voice. But by singing through this new machine, I can mix what I sing with what I play on the synthesizer and it comes out sounding like you hear it on Sunlight. [...] What it all means is that I can sing "I love you, baby" down while playing different notes with the same rhythm up on the synthesizer ... Now any keyboard player who can coordinate his playing with his singing can sing anything he wants to ... and be able to do all the things singers can't do that instrumentalists can."

"[B]y the time I actually heard , I started picking that stuff out; my ear was happening. I could hear stuff and that's when I really learned some much farther-out voicings – like the harmonies I used on ' – just being able to do that. I really got that from Clare Fischer's arrangements for the Hi-Lo's. Clare Fischer was a major influence on my harmonic concept... he and Bill Evans, and and , finally. You know, that's where it came from."

"I didn't know whether Wayne was crazy or a genius. I knew something was there, but I couldn't get a handle on it. We were playing some club outside of Boston. After the gig, I got a bottle of cognac and went back to his hotel room and we drank. And we talked for hours. And I began to see that there were word games that Wayne would play. His whole approach was much more like poetry, if anything, than how we normally perceive standard conversation. His way of speaking was on a much higher plane. I did come to the conclusion that he was a genius, not crazy."

"A few months ago, Wayne Shorter and I were being interviewed after performing in a quartet at the . Before any questions were asked, the interviewer remarked that in previous interviews, responses from Wayne "tripped him out" so much that he would be discovering new meanings in Wayne's words for several days. He said that it wasn't just what Wayne said but how he said it that did the trick, and that he was looking forward to another mind-blowing experience. Even though I was the other interviewee, I was also looking forward to Wayne's profoundly creative and thought-provoking reactions to the questions. Reactions, not just answers, that are chock-full of wisdom. In his jovial way, and with an innately uncanny sense, Wayne says what a person needs to hear in order to expand himself. No, it's even better than that. It's more like, you feel that Wayne has gleaned deeper meaning from a question by using it as a springboard for an answer that will blow your socks off and perhaps change your life for the better. As a matter of fact, you might start to think, Wow, I didn't know my question had so much in it."

"redefined swing for modern jazz pianists for the latter half of the 20th century up until today. I consider him to be the major influence that formed my roots in jazz piano playing. He mastered the balance between technique, hard blues grooving, and tenderness. You'll find Oscar Peterson's influence in the generations that come after him. No one will ever be able to take his place."

"We all have natural human tendency to take the safe route—to do the thing we know will work—rather than taking a chance. But that's the antithesis of jazz, which is all about being in the present. Jazz is about being in the moment, at every moment. It's about trusting yourself to respond on the fly. If you can allow yourself to do that, you never stop exploring, you never stop learning, in music or in life."

"I came back to New York looking for a piano player. I found him in Herbie Hancock. I had met Herbie about a year or so earlier when the trumpet player brought him by my house on West 77th Street. He had just joined Donald's band. I asked him to play something for me on my piano, and I saw right away that he could really play. When I needed a new piano player I thought of Herbie first and called him to come over. I was having and over so I wanted to know how he would sound with them. They all came over and played every day for the next couple of days, and I would listen to them over the intercom system I had hooked up in my music room and all over the house. Man, they sounded too good together. On around the third or fourth day, I came downstairs and joined them and played a few things. [...] I knew right away this was going to be a motherfucker of a group."

"Tony would lead the tempo, and Herbie was like a sponge. Anything you played was cool with him; he just soaked up everything. One time I told him that his chords were too thick, and he said, "Man, I don't know what to play some of the time." "Then, Herbie, don't play nothing if you don't know what to play. You know, just let it go; you don't have to be playing all the time!" He was like someone who will drink and drink until the whole bottle is gone just because it's there. Herbie was like that at first; he would just play and play and play because he could and because he never did run out of ideas and he loved to play. Man, that motherfucker used to be playing so much piano that I would walk by after I had played and fake like I was going to cut both of his hands off."

"A lot of times I would let Herbie play no chords at all, just solo in the middle register and let the bass anchor that, and the shit sounded good as a motherfucker, because Herbie knew he could do that. See, Herbie was the step after and Thelonious Monk, and I haven't heard anyone yet who has come after him."

"Though Herbie Hancock has the chops to share a stage with Miles Davis and to create such jazz classics as Watermelon Man and Cantaloupe Island, he may forever be remembered for a one-off novelty track called “Rockit”, a song that (along with its groundbreaking video) was all over MTV in the network’s early days. As cracking a track as Rockit is, it is not indicative of Hancock’s style of electrified jazz. However, it does showcase that he was that rare jazz performer who did not shy away from the wonders of technology. It received criticism from purists, but Hancock was used to it. He’d gotten the same sort of guff when his Headhunters group crossed the line into pop and funk music in the early ‘70s. Nevertheless, the man’s playing is impeccable."

"I'm not a video person at all, I prefer to let the listener have their own impressions."

"Got blood on my hands Got blood on my hands And I don't understand What's happening There's blood on these hands And still American's Left to the Taliban Now how's that happening? Winkin' Blinken Can't you look me in the eyes Willy Milley Tell me when did you decide This we'll defend Your sacred motto Now means... never mind Got blood on my hands Got blood on my hands Flag of the Taliban Over Afghanistan I can't hear her scream if shе's not, she's not She's not on TV To every Afghan ally that we left behind Every child who won't know freedom Faces covered and blind As for this American promise Now... shit in the Fire."

"Shot down, said you never had the chance, Took a ride on a suicide romance. Could have sworn there was somebody home To facilitate the great unknown. Oh woman, I ain't going to meet you anywhere. Don't know where I'm going yet, But I sure am getting there."

"I can't stand to fly. I'm not that naïve. I'm just out to find The better part of me.I'm more than a bird, I'm more than a plane, I'm more than some pretty face beside a train. It's not easy to be me."

"I wish that I could cry, Fall upon my knees. Find a way to lie 'Bout a home I'll never see.It may sound absurd but don't be naïve Even heroes have the right to bleed. I may be disturbed but won’t you concede Even heroes have the right to dream. And it's not easy to be me."

"Fifteen, there's still time for you, Time to buy and time to lose, fifteen. There's never a wish better than this, When you only got a hundred years to live."

"I'm thirty-three for a moment, I'm still the man, but you see I'm a "they" A kid on the way, babe, A family on my mind. I'm forty-five for a moment, The sea is high And I'm heading into a crisis, Chasing the years of my life."

"What kind of world do you want? Think anything. Let's start at the start, Build a masterpiece. Be careful what you wish for, History starts now..."

"Then he said, "Here's a riddle for ya: Find the answer. There's a reason for the world: You and I.""

"Picked up my kid from school today. "Did you learn anything? 'Cause in the world today, You can't live in a castle far away. Now, talk to me, come talk to me." He said, "Dad, I'm big, but we're smaller than small. In the scheme of things, well, we're nothing at all. Still, every mother's child sings a lonely song. So play with me, come play with me.""

"There are secrets that we Still have left to find. There have been mysteries From the beginning of time. There are answers We're not wise enough to see. He said, "You're looking for a clue I love you free.""

"There was a time a long, long time ago Chevy's and levees played on the radio No cell phones, just twenty thousand lights Swaying on a Saturday night alright."

"Chances are when said and done Who'll be the lucky ones Who make it all the way? Though you say I could be your answer. Nothing lasts forever, No matter how it feels today.Chances are we'll find a new equation Chances rolled away from me Chances are all they hope to be."

"Artists, especially pianists, have to be comfortable with themselves. It's what makes us unique. We have our own voice and process of creating. I'm not entirely sure I'll ever be completely comfortable with myself, but that's probably what pushes me to work harder."

"I am the complete optimist. But I'm also a very quiet, internal processor—a guy who kind of takes things in. I think that is reflected in my music for sure, just because that is my personality. I'm not a lively person but I'm animated. I'm not boisterous but peaceful, and I don't think that there is really another way to live my life."

"I’ve been playing for 38 years, and I will take lessons until I'm in the grave. There's always something to learn. We each have our own abilities — be it music, be it accounting, be it culinary. But there's this idea, why would anyone want to put a cap or put a ceiling on their craft, right?"

"I think what happens with classical music is that there is a concrete expectation of how it's done. For some people, that's their jam and I applaud that. I'm too sloppy of a classical player to be able to do that consistently. I want to hear colour and I want to hear and play something I've never played before. So that’s really where jazz came into it. You're learning a conversation, musically speaking, and then you're putting your own phrase into that."

"Melody is what makes a song a memory."

"I was criticized by some people for my first album because they said I was taking sacred music. They knew nothing about what I was doing. That was no sacred music; that's music I wrote. I patterned it around voodoo church music, but it wasn't exactly the music of the lyrics of nothing'."

"Well, I like to think about what Louis Armstrong and also Duke Ellington said about music. There'are only two kinds of music: good and bad... And, I would like to think about my music as being good."

"When the voice and the vision on the inside is more profound, and more clear and loud than all opinions on the outside, you've begun to master your life."

"First when there's nothing But a slow glowing dream That your fear seems to hide Deep inside your mindAll alone I have cried Silent tears full of pride In a world made of steel Made of stoneWell, I hear the music Close my eyes, feel the rhythm Wrap around Take a hold of my heartWhat a feeling Bein's believin' I can have it all Now I'm dancing for my lifeTake your passion And make it happen Pictures come alive You can dance right through your life"

"This photo is by Erica McDonald. She doesn’t waste time - she sees, she captures. She is brilliant. She has shot covers for Raven, Ballads, 7, and many images of me over time. Because in the past, male photographers have essentially been pricks pressuring me to disrobe, touching me inappropriately etc., I work with women. Photographers like Jodie Olson (This Fire) and @ebruyildiz (American Quilt) and @merrifairy (Amen) are humble geniuses."

"When my people were brought over here from Asia and Africa, they were given various names, such as Jones and Smith. I haven't adopted a name. It's a part of my ancestral background and heritage: I have re-established my original name. I have gone back to my own vine and fig tree."

"[In response to a comment ("I sometime-get the feeling that Jamal would rather crawl into the piano than off the bench at the conclusion of a performance, so deeply involved is he in his music") by critic Philip Elwood] Maybe so. But I regret that I still don't have enough time to spend with my instrument. I think I could become more at one with it if I did."

"It was 25 cents here, $6 there. At $6, one gets to thinking it's a lot of money. So then economics started dictating the direction of my career, and that's when I started devoting more time to jazz. When I got up to $60 a week, which was as much as my father was making, I said, well, this is it. And I was doing that before I left high school."

"Miles, Thad Jones, Clark Terry, Gil Evans, myself—the reason we always stay young is because we've been part of three eras. We heard Lunceford, Hines, Basie at their peak--I was a sponge, I absorbed that era. Then it was the Gillespie-Parker era—we were still young, and again we sponged it up. Now we are living in the electronic age . . . and we're still listening."

"A guy that knows all these electronic things may be great [...] but a guy who knows acoustic and electronic is better. Just like a guy who knows Mozart only may be great, but a guy who knows Mozart and Duke Ellington is better. And a guy who knows Mozart and Brahms and Ellington is even better . . . It's musical depth perception."

"If you're applying for credit and write that you’re an insurance salesman, or a member of the Chicago Symphony, you won't have trouble. But just write "jazz musician" and you can't even buy a sofa on credit."

"[On querying the permanent use of the word "jazz"] So was the word Negro ! Yet you hardly hear it anymore—it's now Afro-American or black. All sorts of linguistic changes are going on: Instead of chairman we now say chairperson in order to upgrade the position of women in our society. Jazz is an important-enough area of our culture to demand constant refinement."

"Years ago, when I was growing up and bands like Basie and Ellington came to the Stanley Theatre in Pittsburgh, where I was born, they were called entertainers. You can hardly use that word today, when men like Max Roach and Jackie McLean have tenure as professors at major American colleges."

"When 1 was 7, my mother arranged for me to take piano lessons. They cost one dollar a lesson. She was a domestic. She walked to work to save that dollar."

"Performing is like being the matador in a bullring. You have to be constantly concerned about what you're doing or you get gored."

"When I pass a piano anywhere, I have to touch it or play it."

""I do things differently," he asserts. "I put it down to my parents, and to being raised in Pittsburgh, which is unique. I was delivering papers to Billy Strayhorn's family when I was seven years old. It was Mary Lou Williams's town, Kenny Clarke's, Art Blakey's, Earl Hines's, Roy Eldridge's, George Benson's, Stanley Turrentine's, Earle Wilde [sic], the exponent of Liszt, Maxine Sullivan, Loren Mazel [sic] the conductor. My father was an open-hearth worker in the steel mills, but they got me playing the piano when I was three years old."

"I was playing Liszt's Eroica etudes when I was 11 . . . though I can't play it now." (Jamal reflects on this with a laugh.) "It all made me eventually settle on calling this great music 'American classical music' instead of jazz. It's the only art form that developed in the United States except for American Indian art. It managed to survive because it's so strong and so natural and so pure."

"[Jazz and the European classical repertoire] In Pittsburgh we didn't separate the two schools [...] We studied Bach and Ellington, Mozart and Art Tatum. When you start at 3, what you hear you play. I heard all these things."

"[When asked how he practiced] With the door open, hoping that someone would drive down my street in a big luxurious car and hear me! [...] I was never the practitioner in the sense of 12 hours a day, but I always thought about music. I think about music all the time."

"I once heard Ben Webster playing his heart out on a ballad [...] All of a sudden he stopped. I asked him, "Why did you stop, Ben?" He said, "I forgot the lyrics." That's what Nat (King) Cole was talking about, "You have learn to live with a song.""

"[Jazz] interpreted the works of composers such as the Gershwins or Irving Berlin beyond their wildest dreams. Take the pianist Art Tatum; most of the body of work he did wasn't his own music, and yet it was totally his. That's a process that has allowed what is called jazz to add so much to the world's culture. Look at the Juilliard School, the New England Conservatory, institutions that wouldn't have thought of teaching Louis Armstrong – now Louis Armstrong is teaching them, they all have jazz departments, and they teach kids from all over the world."

"I listened to music from Tatum and Erroll Garner to Mozart. I've composed since I was 10 years old – I used to do 20% my own pieces and 80% other people's; now it's turned the other way. After a certain time you discover the Mozart in you, the Duke Ellington or Billy Strayhorn in you. It takes time to discover yourself. You also have to find and keep players who are in tune with what you're doing; you have that empathy, the quality of breathing together."

"[On maintaining high levels of energy into old age] It's a divine gift, that's all I can tell you [...] We don't create, we discover – and the process of discovery gives you energy"

"I'm still evolving, whenever I sit down at the piano [...] I still come up with some fresh ideas."

"I always tried to divest myself of the music business. I wasn’t too thrilled with the music business at any time [...] So I have always sought to do other things."

"All my inspiration today," he [Miles Davis] asserts "comes from Ahmad Jamal, the Chicago pianist. I got the idea for this treatment of 'Autumn Leaves' from him."

"Listen to the way Jamal uses space. He lets it go so that you can feel the rhythm section and the rhythm section can feel you. It's not crowded ... Ahmad is one of my favorites. I live until he makes another record."

"Well, I think it's time to get ready To realize just what I have found I have lived only half of what I am It's all clear to me now My heart is on fire My soul's like a wheel that's turnin' My love is alive My love is alive, yeah, girl, yeah"

"Ooh, dream weaver I believe you can get me through the night Ooh, dream weaver I believe we can reach the morning light"

"Fly me high through the starry skies Maybe to an astral plane Cross the highways of fantasy Help me to forget today's pain Ooh, dream weaver I believe you can get me through the night Ooh, dream weaver I believe we can reach the morning light Though the dawn may be coming soon There still may be some time Fly me away to the bright side of the moon Meet me on the other side"

"Sunny Day Sweepin' the clouds away On my way to where the air is sweet Can you tell me how to get — How to get to Sesame Street?"

"I believe in little things that you can hardly see like honeycomb and spider webs and starfish in the sea. I believe in little things like icy drops of rain that melt into the morning mist when winds are warm again."

"I believe in little things Like you and me And just how big Little things can be"

"Come and knock on our door We've been waiting for you Where the kisses are hers and hers and his Three's company, too."

"Grindcore is the bridge between thrash and death metal mixed with brutally fast hardcore. You take it and throw it all in a blender, hit puree and stand back."

"It tells you everything you need to know about Stephen Stills that even Hendrix rated him highly. Stills was a guitarist’s guitarist in the era of greats, so it’s no surprise that when he transitioned from rock to folk he became a genre-hopping pioneer. His acoustic wrangling is a fine reflection of the man: fiery, idiosyncratic, and all up front. He wields his guitar like a tommy gun and rattles off rock-infused folk licks and open-tuned melodic rhapsodies for fun. About as dynamic an acoustic player as you’ll ever see."

"It was famously observed that, though Duke Ellington played piano, his real instrument was his orchestra. Similarly, while Eddie Condon was a useful rhythm guitarist, he was a virtuoso of the spirit of Chicago jazz. Organiser, promoter, impresario, publican and publicist, he symbolised its carefree pleasures until his death in 1973. [...] If Chicago jazz epitomised the devil-may-care mood of the 1920s, it also looked forward to the ’30s: Chicago stars such as Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa spearheaded the age of the big bands. But Condon kept faith with his original passion, espousing both small-group spontaneity and the fun-loving, hard-drinking ethos that went with it. Leading groups in clubs, arranging record dates and concerts, he became a one-man mission for Chicago jazz and was rewarded in the ’40s when public interest revived in Dixieland. Condon was the music’s embodiment. A dapper figure with slicked-back hair, he was a celebrated wit, typically addressing a sparse audience as ‘Lady and gentleman’. The music itself was first class, as you can hear in Eddie Condon: Windy City Jazz.[...] In later years, the Condon style was often barbarised by amateurs, giving Dixieland a bad name. But he would be pleased with a record that so appealingly distils the best of his life’s work."

"In its post-World War II heyday, bebop was known as much for its precarious lifestyle as for musical daring. Generated in no small part by the aura surrounding the mythic, self-destructive Charlie Parker, drug addiction became an occupational hazard among aspiring jazz players. But amid this chronicle of disaster, Clifford Brown presented a shining alternative. The most brilliant young trumpeter of his generation, he was completely drug-free, a model both as musician and man – disciplined and good-natured. Thus it seemed a particularly cruel trick of fate that, in 1956, he died in a car accident, aged just 25. Though he had only been recording for four years, Brown left a considerable legacy on disc. He enlivened every session with his bright sound, impeccable facility and, above all, the sense that everything he played was driven by delight, an insatiable urge to say something new in each solo. Sheer fluency is perhaps his most striking quality, carried along by a rich tone, and an attack as crisp, intelligent and varied as the buoyant logic that informed his improvisations."

"Dave Brubeck was incredibly well known for most of his career. His early success with college audiences – the Brubeck Quartet virtually invented the campus circuit – catapulted him on to the cover of Time magazine in 1954. In 1960 his star status increased with the album Time Out. Brubeck’s mixture of asymmetrical rhythms and catchy tunes won international renown, though the disc’s biggest hit, the sinuous ‘Take Five’, was written by the quartet’s alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, with some structural advice from his boss. But, as all too often in jazz, popular celebrity inspired critical condescension. He was slated for his ‘academic’ approach – he had studied with Darius Milhaud, classical composer and member of the French collective Les Six – his use of such classical devices as counterpoint and polytonality, his sometimes thunderous keyboard attack and disinclination to swing in a conventional manner. Critics damned his lyricism with faint praise and dismissed him from the jazz tradition. However, over the years, as the idea of a monolithic tradition has become suspect, Brubeck has come to be seen as a remarkable, original talent. Far from being some kind of uptight academic, he had trouble reading music and was one of the most purely intuitive pianists jazz has produced. His style was founded completely on a commitment to musical expression, fuelled by a belief that, as he once put it, ‘jazz should have the right to take big chances’ – even going beyond what has been considered jazz."

"As a matter of right, Jelly Roll Morton would have assumed that any jazz starter collection would begin with him. After all, he once proudly proclaimed, ‘I myself invented jazz in the year of 1902’. Grandiosity was his lifelong style: pianist, composer, leader; pool-shark, pimp and hustler – there was something mythic about Jelly, right down – or up – to the glittering diamond in one of his front teeth. People resented his arrogance, but as one of his musicians put it, ‘Sure he bragged, but he could back up everything he said.’ And while he may not have invented jazz, he was arguably the first great jazz composer, the man who proved it was possible to realise both a compelling structure and spontaneous excitement. The key to his achievement was a many-sided and acute musical imagination, steeped in the cultural melting pot of New Orleans. Morton absorbed all the riches the Crescent City had to offer – blues, ragtime, marches, grand opera, quadrilles and the ‘Spanish tinge’ he maintained was essential to jazz. His piano style displays all these influences, at once refined and raffish, encompassing elegant turns and trills, barrelhouse chords and a strain of melancholy lyricism. The same qualities suffuse his orchestral works. Morton first formed the band he called Red Hot Peppers in Chicago in 1926, and their recordings will come as a revelation to anyone who thinks of early jazz as raucous and one-dimensional. Morton’s men were all masters of the vibrant New Orleans style, and gave his compositions just the right interpretative and improvisatory gusto."

"Depending on his mood, Fats Waller could be ‘the cheerful little earful’ or ‘the harmful little armful’. Usually, he was both, winning a huge following in the 1930s and ’40s with his high-spirited, satirical takes on run-of-the-mill popular songs. He transformed his material with a sense of humour, ebullient vocal style and the infectious swing enshrined in the name of his jumping sextet: Fats Waller and His Rhythm. But jazz fans and musicians prized Waller's glittering piano style. He was a product of the demanding school of New York stride players, whose formidable technique was matched by competitive zest. They challenged each other wherever there was a piano and Waller often prevailed with his sparkling invention and the dexterity, power and finesse you might expect from a sometime pupil of Leopold Godowsky. Waller’s taste for classical music was as natural to him as his genius for swing."

"Red Garland is one of the those musicians you probably know a lot more about than you think you do, but it's still not enough. He made his biggest splash as a sideman, but today we induct a record under his own name into the NPR Basic Jazz Record Library. A Garland of Red is some of the finest piano trio jazz you can find."

"Being curious is an absolute rule of life. If you don’t have that, I don’t know what you're doing in this music."

"Even while I was studying at [Manhattan School of Music], I was learning about melody and rhythm, and theory, and harmony, and all the great composers like Scriabin, Khatchaturian, Shostakovich, and Prokofiev...Bach and Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Schoenberg, Alan Berg...Boulez, Stockhausen...We would listen, for example, to Ravel's Piano Concerto in G, or a Bach Cantata or the Prelude and Fugue, and so on. And then the teacher, Ludmila Ulehla, picked the essential 20 composers in music history, from...Mozart...and so on, up through...Debussy, Scriabin...and Stockhousen...Eventually, my goal became to put all that I had absorbed from these studies into jazz, into, say, "Stella By Starlight," to integrate the harmony, the melodic ideas, and so on. I continued doing that for about twenty years afterwards. I spent hours and hours at the piano, sleeping as little [as] three hours a night. But I loved it, so it wasn't arduous work."

"You must remember that it was a different time...It was before everyone was looking into their smartphones. There were computers but it wasn't such a dominant vibe in the air. People talked to each other, met in bars, and went out to hear music...In Greenwich Village...there were at least six clubs within a few walking minutes...Around that time there were at least 10 functioning clubs just in Manhattan, not even counting Brooklyn, that featured music seven nights a week...People would go out to the the clubs, not just musicians. There was a real sense of community...We were very lucky to live in this time."

"Very often the things that we consider to be new are not new. They're just new combinations or reanimations and reimaginations of things that have already been done, put together in a different way."