Women Singers From The United States

"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."

"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."

"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."

"…It feels like I understand the male mind better than some people. This whole idea that men just want sex, I don’t think that’s true. I think they’re actually looking for intimacy. To them, sex equates to a moment when they can step out of their tough masculine mind and be in a really Technicolor vulnerability. I think that’s more what they’re craving…"

"That explains why I have this impulse to share, to be honest and unveil stuff – because that area was like: ‘No, you have to be perfect.’"

"Men were the gatekeepers. They ran all the equipment and the labels … I was tired of being the girlfriend of the guy in the band, I was tired of hearing that my musical tastes suck."

"Intimacy—real honest intimacy—is one of the most radical things you can do right now. It’s like an endangered species to connect to your feelings and actually be present…"

"…When I’m not working, I safeguard my time to go into a dream state and not have to think about the commercialization of my art or the commodification of myself..."

"Alchemy and magic are about how mundane, benign, and abundant materials can have an effect that is greater than the sum of their parts. To me, creativity is alchemy."

"I want to have a beneficial effect on your physiology, but it’s not my business what happens after that…It’s my gift to you."

"There’s two sides of the coin: One where people don't expect you to do anything and won't let you do anything because they think you don't know how, and then the other side is when you're fucking up but they won't tell you because you're a girl. Then you don’t learn."

"…There's no secret, no shortcut. Once you accept that being a writer or a creator is just really hard and takes a lot of hours of slogging through crappy first drafts, you just keep producing, and then you turn around and it's done. That's the magic."

"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."

"When you go, you let me know If there's a Heaven out there. When you leave me here to grieve In pain and despair, I've seen the face of hell. I know that place pretty damn well. But when you go, you'll let me know If there's a Heaven out there."

"You will never cop To the damage that's been done. You will never stop 'Cause it's too much fun.Now you want somebody to be your buttercup. Good luck finding your buttercup."

"Sometimes the best intentions are never truly met, And all your expectations are never what you get. You’ll never say why, or come up with a reason; You’ve been weakened by a string of bad decisions."

"I found the love I've been looking for. It's a real love, it's a real love. Standing up behind an electric guitar, It's a real love, it's a real love. And all the time I was thinking no way. And all the time I never thought I'd say I found the love I've been looking for. It's a real love, it's a real love."

"There's a place in my heart, I got room to spare. There's a place in my heart, I made room for you there. Even though you make me blue, I've got room enough for you. No matter what you do, I want you to know that You have a place in my heart."

"Open up the doors of heaven and let me in. I think I'm finally tired of living, let me in. I'm going to walk into glory, Tell everyone my story. So open up the doors of heaven and let me in.I've tried to live my life the righteous way. I tried to do my best from day to day. But no matter how hard I try, Seems all I do is cry. So open up the doors of heaven and let me in."

"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."

"Sun came up it was another day, And the sun went down you were blown away. Why'd you let go of your guitar? Why'd you ever let it go that far? Drunken angel."

"I am waiting here for more. I am waiting by your door. I am waiting on your back steps. I am waiting in my car. I am waiting at this bar. I am waiting for your essence."

"Not a day goes by I don't think about you; You left your mark on me, it's permanent, a tattoo. Pierce the skin and the blood runs through, Oh my baby."

"I would risk the serpent's bite. I would dance around with seven. I would kiss the diamond back, If I knew it would get me to heaven.'Cause I want to get right with God. Yes, you know you got to get right with God."

"He sleeps all alone on Second Street With a roof over his head and food to eat. But he can hardly make it day to day cause Everything he wants is six blocks away, six blocks away."

"There are things about you that make me wanna scream and shout. There are things about you that make me wanna lock you out. But there's a little thing that drives me wild, Something that happens every time you smile. I can't get over the lines around your eyes, Lines around your eyes every time you smile."

"You don't have to prove Your manhood to me constantly. I know you're the man can't you see? I love you, righteously."

"Just a shakin' in my knees, just a cold chill. Don't know what it is, just call it a thrill. Just a lump in my throat, just hot blood. Don't know what it is, some call it love."

"I was always into different kinds of music but just by default, I was singing and playing acoustic guitar; I didn’t know how to dance or anything. So it would take some time, over a year, for me to kind of progress into the stuff that I ended up doing later, the more Southern soul, country-rock, whatever-you-want-to-call-it kind of thing."

"I think what informs my songwriting is my empathy with that. Maybe that’s what bothers people. It scares them to go to the edge of the well and look in. But it’s what they like also. And wouldn’t you rather feel the pain than not feel anything?"

"My mother passed away in 2004, and then my dad 10 years later. That period in between, I wrote songs like “Death Came”, and then after my father passed away I wrote, “If There’s A Heaven” and “If My Love Could Kill”, which I wrote about the Alzheimer’s disease that killed my father. There’s a lot of dealing with loss, and heavy stuff, and life. It’s a lot different of an album than some of my earlier ones, like Essence, when I was still struggling with unrequited love as a younger girl."

"The night's too long; It just drags on and on. And then there's never enough. That's when the sun starts coming up. Don't let go of her hand, You just might be the right man. She loves the night, She loves the night, She doesn't want the night Don't want it to end."

"I know—they treat it like it’s a big phenomena. It would be like, “all-girl band” or “girl drummer” and I’d be like, “Why can’t you just say drummer?” Female this, female that. It’s an oddity."

"Do I want too much? Am I going overboard to want that touch? I shouted out to the night: "Give me what I deserve, cause it's my right!""

"I grew up being aware that I was Southern, and that being a very important thing for me. And being drawn to short story writers, like Flannery O’Connor and Eudora Welty—the surroundings in their stories were so familiar to me, the whole Southern Gothic thing. That world only existed in that part of the country. It’s going to inform the personality of the songs. In a lot of my songwriting, I mention towns and places. It’s a culturally traditional thing in the South to tell stories."

"Are you alright? All of a sudden you went away. Are you alright? I hope you come back around someday."

"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 would rather suffer sweet silent solitude, Deathly defiant from drowning out. Filthy sounds stumbling, ugly and cruel Between the lips of your beautiful mouth.Deep down within me words move in phases, Frozen and still until they decide To melt and drip over the pages, Until that moment they live inside."

"It seems to me that that image was created for female folk singers because they actually had a lot more control than other women in the music scene…They wrote their own songs, they played them, they performed by themselves — there you have a picture of a very independent person, and trying to make them seem emotional and fragile and all puts a softer edge on it. As if there was something wrong with being independent."

"I think people are foolish to believe that there won’t be major social changes in this country before we possibly, ultimately, destroy ourselves…There’s only so far you can push people before they start to push back, and I’ve seen that in my life. That’s where the things I write about come from. It’s wrong not to encourage people to hope or to dream or even to consider what’s thought to be impossible. That’s the only thing that keeps people alive sometimes. For me and my family, that was one of the only things that kept us going."

"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."

"I think it's important, if you are an artist, to use your music to stand up for what you believe in…That's what everyone should do with their lives…stand up for what they believe in, or try to do some good in the world. I don't think artists have a greater responsibility than anyone else."

"As a child…I always had a sense of social conditions and political situations. I think it had to do with the fact that my mother was always discussing things with my sister and me — also because I read a lot. A lot of people in similar situations just have a sense that they’re poor or disenfranchised, but they don’t really think about what’s created the situation or what factors don’t allow them to control their lives."

"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..."

"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."

"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."

"…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."

"I think we all have issues of self-esteem and I’m not clear of that…I also think that because it’s my occupation – to be a performer and to attract attention and to appeal to sexuality – it’s sort of a given in showbiz."