Women Singers From The United States

"Everything in nature lives according to some order so it seems unlikely that humans live outside this system, even if they try to resist their instincts. That's how we can be sure we're not animals, this refusal to abide by what we know is good for us. If an animal's instinct tells him to avoid something he has no trouble keeping a wide berth. We, on the other hand, run in the direction of danger if it offers a thrill or satisfies a curiosity."

"I tell you, when we travel with our own band and we're on the road . . . Well, I can't even believe this is work."

"It [Ella Fitzgerald's "Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas"] is the happiest Christmas album I've ever heard. That album totally changed the way I look at Christmas albums. I loved what a happy, festive album it truly was . . . it's the best [[music] to have playing when you have a Christmas celebration. I wanted my album to feel just like that."

"Jane Monheit is skyrocketing up the jazz charts. By next year, we won't be able to get her."

"I’ve always chosen all my own material; no one ever told me what to sing or how to sing it, but I’ve always been pressured intensely to use musicians outside of my band."

"It's not so bad to live out of a suitcase. It's a really beautiful life ."

"I've listened to Jazz since I was born and always knew I'd be a Jazz singer!"

"It's [Joni Mitchell's "A Case of You"] been one of my favorite songs for my entire life."

"I can be. I do not normally try to be. In fact, there have been some reviews—which I’ve loved—that said I didn't try to sell my show on sex, that I sang my show. On the other hand, I know I'm cute. I can dance. I don't have a bad figure. I know exactly what I am. I'm certainly no great beauty. I know exactly how far I can go."

"She had a huge influence on everybody, whether they admit it or not."

"Stevie bridges the gap between the powerful rock singers of the sixties, like Janis Joplin and Grace Slick, and what's going on today."

"Witchcraft became part of the rock sensibility in the '70s, when Stevie Nicks twirled onstage swathed in scarves, bathed in incense smoke, and illuminated by hundreds of candles."

"Stevie Nicks is the high priestess of her own religion, ruling a world of prancing Gypsies, gold-dust princesses, and white-winged doves, all without going anywhere near a sensible shoe. Like David Bowie or Bryan Ferry, she has spent a career turning her private fantasies into an elaborate pop mythology."

"A wound gets worse when it's treated with neglect."

"No one knows how I feel, What I say unless you read between my lines, One man walked away from me First he took my hand, take me home."

"Is love so fragile, And the heart so hollow, Shatter with words, Impossible to follow, You're saying I'm fragile, I try not to be, I search only, for something I can't see."

"The clouds, never expect it, When it rains But the sea changes color, But the sea does not change, And so with the slow graceful Flow of age, I went forth with an, Age old desire to please, On the edge of seventeen."

"Well, did she make you cry, Make you break down, Shatter your illusions of love?"

"I don't want to know the reasons why, Love keeps right on walking down the line."

"Thunder only happens when it's raining, Players only love you when they're playing, Say, women, they will come and they will go, When the rain washes you clean you'll know."

"I'll begin not to love you Turn around, see me runnin' I'll say I loved you years ago Tell myself you never loved me, no And did you say she was pretty? And did you say that she loves you? Baby, I don't wanna know."

"Dreams unwind Love's a state of mind"

"She rings like a bell through the night And wouldn't you love to love her?"

"…I put them in my journal. And if I have a really big, important show, I call in all my spirits, and I say, “Tom, stand behind me. Prince, stand with me.” I ask for their help, because I know they’re up there. The Prince thing started a long time ago, because sometimes even before Prince died, I would say that. I wish Prince was here and he could just walk with me out there; because of his performing ability and how good he was on stage, sometimes I’d just go, “Come with me.” And I really do feel the presence, you know. I mean, Tom and I were way, way better friends than I was friends with Prince, because I hardly ever saw Prince. When I did see Prince, we’d have some really important conversations, and we talked on the phone sometimes for a couple hours. But Tom was a different kind of friend. Tom was really my buddy friend. I spent a lot of time at Tom’s different houses, and a lot of time with his family when he was still married to Jane. And that was a very hard loss for me."

"…The reason I chose that kind of a platform boot was because the rest of my outfit is so filmy and floaty that I thought: If you’re going to wear that outfit, if you just wore a pair of stiletto high heels with ankle straps, it would look really pretty, but it would be way too airy-fairy. But if you put on a pair of really strong suede boots to your knee, that have got a substantial little platform and a really good heel, then if somebody tries to drag you off that stage, you can seriously kick them with that boot. And so those boots are not just a fashion statement. They are to make people understand that I’m not a ballerina. As much as I would have loved to be a ballerina, I’m not a ballerina — I’m a rock ‘n’ roll singer. And so when people get too close to me, I can just feel my foot starting to raise, you know? It’s like my karate moment. A few times I’ve said, “Let go of my hand,” and some people don’t. And my foot starts to raise, and they get it, like, “I don’t want to be kicked with that boot. So I better back off.” So they have their moments where I feel like they’re a weapon."

"We all did everything we could do to try and talk her out of [quitting]. But you look in someone's eyes and you can tell they're finished. As Taylor Swift would say: 'We are never ever getting back together ever!' That's what Chris was saying... But I'd beg, borrow and scrape together $5 million and give it to her in cash if she would come back. That's how much I miss her."

"I'm going to spend my life writing poems, turning them into music that will affect people and touch their hearts. I'm going to write the songs that people can't write for themselves."

"That’s the words: "So I’m back to the velvet underground"—which is a clothing store in downtown San Francisco, where Janis Joplin got her clothes, and Grace Slick from Jefferson Airplane, it was this little hole in the wall, amazing, beautiful stuff—”back to the floor that I love, to a room with some lace and paper flowers, back to the gypsy that I was.""

"When I thought I was dying in rehab in 1994, 'I Won't back Down' was my mantra. It lifted my up out of the pain and made me fight through it. 'The Waiting'... summed up my life. We can't stand waiting, we rock 'n' roll men and women. Tom Petty's songs are like a great book that you revisit when you need help. His songs make me better."

"Lindsey [Buckingham] and I went up to Aspen and we went to somebody's incredible house and they had a piano and I had my guitar with me and I went in their living room, looking out over the incredible Aspen sky and I wrote 'Landslide.'"

"I look around at all the girl singers, and I think they're all my children... and they're all going to do this... And, yes, maybe I inspired them because I did get through a lot, and I did have the same problems that they're going to have. You do have to give up a lot for it."

"It's just about a lady who's a goddess of steeds and a maker of birds."

"I sat at my piano, a feminist woman, and I wrote it, to say that nothing you or anybody else can do to me can change the fact that, as the opening line goes: ‘Every night that goes between / I feel a little less.’...Freedom…I am a totally free woman, and I am independent, and that’s exactly what I always wanted to be."

"…If I had not had that abortion, I’m pretty sure there would have been no Fleetwood Mac. There’s just no way that I could have had a child then, working as hard as we worked constantly. And there were a lot of drugs, I was doing a lot of drugs … I would have had to walk away…And I knew that the music we were going to bring to the world was going to heal so many people’s hearts and make people so happy. And I thought: you know what? That’s really important. There’s not another band in the world that has two lead women singers, two lead women writers. That was my world’s mission."

"…People would say to me: ‘It would be very hard to be Mr. Stevie Nicks.’ And I’m going: well, yeah, probably, unless you were just a really nice guy that was really confident in himself, not jealous of me, liked my friends, enjoyed my crazy life and had fun with it. And, of course, there are very few men like that. I’m an independent woman and am able to take care of myself, and that is not attractive to men.”."

"I met Lindsey in high school in San Francisco. We had gone to some party and he was sitting in the middle of this gorgeous living room playing a song. I walked over and stood next to him, and the song was "California Dreaming," and I just started singing with him. And so I just threw in my Michelle Phillips harmony, and he was so beautiful. And then I didn't really see him again until two years later, when he called me and asked me if I wanted to be in his rock 'n' roll band, which I didn't even know existed. And within two or three months we were opening for Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, all the San Francisco bands. Two years later, we packed up and moved to Los Angeles with about 12 demos."

"I phoned Prince out of the blue, hummed a melody, and he listened," … "I hung up, and he came over within the hour. He listened again, and I said, 'Do you hate it?' He said, 'No,' and walked over to the synthesizers that were set up, was absolutely brilliant for about twenty five minutes, and then left. He was so uncanny, so wild, he spoiled me for every band I've ever had because nobody can exactly re-create—not even with two piano players-what Prince did all by his little self."

"...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."

"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?""

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."