Music Quotes

And why is our music called world music? I think people are being polite. What they want to say is that it's third world music. Like they use to call us under developed countries, now it has changed to developing countries, it's much more polite.

I seem to be stuck in the '60s, and my favorite music, cars, and women's fashion come from that era. And the sense of social rebellion. It was a good time for a lot of things.

Music is the arithmetic of sounds as optics is the geometry of light.

This is the thing about hip-hop music and where people get it most misconstrued: It's all hip-hop. You can't say that just what I do is hip-hop, because hip-hop is all energies. James Brown can get on the track and mumble all day. But guess what? You felt his soul on those records.

I felt I really wanted to back off from music completely and just work within the visual arts in some way. I started painting quite passionately at that time.

I was the music director at a dinner theater called the 'Pheasant Run Theater' in the suburbs of Chicago, and that was my side gig while I acted.

I have to admit I've found myself doing the same things that a lot of other rock stars do or are forced to do. Which is not being able to respond to mail, not being able to keep up on current music, and I'm pretty much locked away a lot. The outside world is pretty foreign to me.

The reflection of the world is blues, that's where that part of the music is at. Then you got this other kind of music that's tryin' to come around.

Music is still part of my life, but I hate the idea of people coming to see me play the guitar because they've seen me in movies. You want people who are listening to be only interested in the music.

The business aspect is one of the most important things about having a music career, because every choice you make in a management meeting affects your life a year-and-a-half from now.

Napster hijacked our music without asking. They never sought our permission. Our catalog of music simply became available as free downloads on the Napster system.

Back then people closed their eyes and listened to music. Today there's a lot of images that go with the music. A lot of music is crap and it's all commercial and the images are all trying to sell the record.

I enjoy all forms of music - pop, classical and opera.

I had phases of listening to rap and trap, and then I had phases where I'd listen to post-hardcore, rap, grunge, metal... all that. I had different time periods of listening to different music. And now it all clashes together.

Every time I sit for a song, I feel I am finished. It's like a beggar sitting waiting for God to fill your bowl with the right thought. In every song, I ask help from Him. Everybody around is so good, so to create music that will connect with so many people is not humanly possible without inspiration.

My horizon on humanity is enlarged by reading the writers of poems, seeing a painting, listening to some music, some opera, which has nothing at all to do with a volatile human condition or struggle or whatever. It enriches me as a human being.

I think Paul McGuinness and U2 created the Irish music industry. It certainly wasn't there before that.

Going through something difficult in your life, music, for me, is always a friend and something that helps you to figure things out.

The best of a book is not the thought which it contains, but the thought which it suggests; just as the charm of music dwells not in the tones but in the echoes of our hearts.

I definitely don't like red carpets. I go on the red carpet because I have to but I'm not a big fan. That's not my thing. I'd rather be in the studio making music and performing.