Women Singers

"Billie Holiday—she was the nicest woman in the world, you know. All she wanted to do was sing. They picked on her and picked on her to get money out of her. You do drugs 'cause you like to, not 'cause it's a life-style. ... They picked on Billie so much. She said, "Miles, come and see me in Long Island." She was in love with one of my kids and his curly hair—he used to ride my bicycle and watch the horse at Aqueduct. She said, "Miles, if they'd just leave me alone; they could have the house—everything." You know the way singers shake their asses now. Billie didn't have to do that. Her mouth was so sensuous; she was pretty and she would say certain words and her mouth would quiver, and she always had this white gardenia and long gloves."

"I once had a drink with Billie Holiday, and I smoked a joint with Louis Armstrong. Those are my real claims to fame."

"When I say poet, it's an arbitrary word. It's a word I use because I don't like the word artist. Nina Simone is a poet. Max Roach is a poet. There is a whole list of people. I'm not talking about literature at all. I'm talking about the recreation of experience, you know, the way that it comes back. Billie Holiday was a poet. She gave you back your experience. She refined it, and you recognized it for the first time because she was in and out of it and she made it possible for you to bear it. And if you could bear it, then you could begin to change it. That's what a poet does. I'm not talking about books. I'm talking about a certain kind of passion, a certain kind of energy which people produce and they secrete in certain people like Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, and Max Roach because they need it and these people give it back to you and they get you from one place to another."

"In Billie Holiday's famous phrase: "Ain't nobody's business what I do.""

"Southern trees bear a strange fruit Blood on the leaf and blood at the root Black bodies swingin’ in the southern breeze Strange fruit hangin’ in the poplar trees."

"In this country, don’t forget, a habit is no damn private hell. There’s no solitary confinement outside of jail. A habit is hell for those you love. And in this country it’s the worst kind of hell for those who love you."

"Some men like me talkin' happy Some calls it snappy Some call me honey Others think I got money Some tell me baby you're built for speed Now if you put that all together Makes me everything a good man needs."

"Lord I love my man, tell the world I do I love my man, tell the world I do But when he mistreats me Makes me feel so blue."

"I ain't good looking And my hair ain't curls But my mother she give me something It's going to carry me through this world."

"I've been your slave Ever since I've been your babe But before I be your dog I'll see you in your grave."

"Who love my man, I'm a liar if I say I don't But I'll quit my man, I'm a liar if I say I wont."

"[I]t takes a bad woman to be a good godmother."

"I can’t stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession, let alone two years or ten years. If you can, then it ain’t music, it’s close-order drill or exercise or yodeling or something, not music."

"No two people on earth are alike, and it's got to be that way in music or it isn't music."

"Money, you've got lots of friends Crowding round the door When you're gone, spending ends They don't come no more Rich relations give Crust of bread and such You can help yourself But don't take too much."

"Yes, the strong gets more While the weak ones fade Empty pockets don't ever make the grade Mama may have, Papa may have But God bless the child that's got his own That's got his own."

"Them that's got shall get Them that's not shall lose So the Bible said and it still is news Mama may have, Papa may have But God bless the child that's got his own That's got his own."

"The clitoris contains 8,000 nerve endings. It makes it easy to have sex. With yourself."

"By the way, dancers are not human beings. How can you be human and do what they do?"

"Strictly has just given me a real zest for life. Life is so short. We should all grasp it."

"You have this great laugh. It's this crazy, mad laugh."

"I don't need to give Alesha any advice. Honestly, she's a really strong woman."

"When you are knocked down you have two choices - stay down or get back up, stronger."

"Promo? It's a fucking nightmare!"

"We are 13.7 billion light-years from the edge of the observable universe; that's a good estimate with well-defined error bars and with the available information, I predict that I will always be with you."

"We are 12 billion light-years from the edge. That's a guess — no-one can ever say it's true, but I know that I will always be with you."

"Because the line between, Wrong and right, Is the width of a thread, From a spider's web. The piano keys are black and white, But they sound like a million colours in your mind."

"I've got a ticket, To the fast city, Where the bells don't really ring, Getting off the plane the cold air, Rushes like bullets through my brain, And I'm divided between penguins and cats, But it's not about what animal you've got, It's about being able to fly, It's about dying nine times."

"[Melua] makes music that's easy on the ear and even easier on the brain. She's the perfect good girl in the middle of the road. I'm not keen to make things too easy for anyone."

"The only trouble is that there's absolutely no passion, no soul and no excitement to be found here...Yet all good music should provoke some sort of emotion, and this [Nine Million Bicycles] provokes none whatsoever."

"I'm a songwriter but she [Melua] has her songs written for her... She must think it's her fucking lucky day... It's not like she's singing old songs like Jamie [Cullum], she's singing shit new songs that her manager writes for her."

"She enjoys extremes, but in life her emotions are always in check."

"She is one of the most intelligent singers I've worked with for a very long time, - there are little reminders in her voice, of all sorts of other singers like Eartha Kitt and Edith Piaf, - of whom she has never heard. She exudes a modest confidence, she is completely sure of herself and has a maturity far in advance of her age."

"I just think war is fucked up"

"Earth is my home!"

"Wanking housewives"

"I've never had paparazzi follow me and I rarely get recognised. I dress like a tramp when I'm not working. My hairdresser calls me the Romanian window cleaner. That's just the way I am."

"Don't come into the music industry. It's almost inevitable that you'll psychologically be quite screwed up. Fame isn't a natural, human, behavioural thing. You get alienated. You're not really surrounded by truth."

"The last verse [In My Secret Life] completely got to me, about how we all have great ideals but in reality we end up conforming, following everyone else. We want to be stronger so we lead that life inside, thinking of ourselves as these great brave souls. I literally thought when I was 15 that I was a musical genius and I could change the world, but in fact you're not and you can't and you don't, and that realisation is almost heartbreaking."

"...after all we don't want the radio star to kill video."

"Some people think it's got a double meaning, but as my mum's in the audience tonight, it doesn't."

"I don't think I could see myself with someone who's famous. I don't like the lifestyle and everything it stands for. Too superficial. That attention is too much. For me to go home and be surrounded by that sounds like a fucking nightmare. But a musician or someone who's into music is different."

"Buying books is probably my biggest vice when I travel. I bought a great one in America called An Incomplete Education, which covers everything from fashion to philosophy in quite a humorous way. It’s a bluffer’s guide, but pretty extensive. Because I never went to university, it’s my attempt to bone up on subjects I don’t know much about."

"I spend eight to nine months working abroad and cram in a holiday when I have the odd week off. This year, three of those months were spent in America playing gigs with my band, so we got to visit all kinds of places from Arizona to New York. After a few weeks, I really began to miss family and friends not to mention baked beans!"

"Of course [Kate Bush] is still relevant. I wasn't actually in the country when her music first came out, so I only discovered it three or four years ago. What's amazing is that something like "Wuthering Heights" still sounds so different. I actually saw her about nine months ago, we were just passing at an industry event and I went up to her and said I was a big fan and asked her about the new record. She was really excited about it but quite nervous because she felt that everyone was hyping it up a bit and she just wanted to bring out an album. You know, she's a musician."

"I think I am easy to make fun of. I try not to pay too much attention. You can't let critics dictate what you do... The thing that fascinates me, is the emotion in music, the way it can make me cry or laugh or be angry. I'm not trying to be hip or cool, and I'm not scared to put everything I have into songs. Passion is the greatest thing that music can evoke. We live in a society where I think people often find it hard to express themselves, but sometimes a song can do that for you. It might not be groundbreaking, but there is something about the simplicity of presenting songs where it's all about the lyric and the melody. People don't need to get through a whole lot of production to get to the root of the song. It's just music doing what music does best... A lot of things in the mainstream are repetitive and soulless and have been churned out without any real conviction. It is really unfair to call Coldplay insufferable, when they obviously care about what they do. James [Blunt] too. Too much of the music industry is controlled by lawyers and businessmen, making music like it's a product on the factory line. That's what I call insufferable."

"I do know that there are some things that exist in this world that you just can't prove. That could be the case with God or whoever might be up there, but I don't follow any one religion."

"As a family, we have been very fortunate to find a happy lifestyle in this country and we feel we belong. We still consider ourselves to be Georgian, because that is where our roots are, and I return to Georgia every year to see my uncles and grandparents, but I am proud to now be a British citizen."

"I get guilty when I spend money on silly things like clothes and stuff... Having experienced a completely different extreme of wealth, and I don't mean me being poor or rich, I mean knowing that 40 quid that gets spent on a pair of shoes could go a long way for a family in Georgia for a week or even a month, having experienced that, you're a bit more [guilty]."

"Dancing is an important function of music, but so is crying."