I Like My Music Quotes

#1. On the other hand, what I like my music to do to me is awaken the ghosts inside of me. Not the demons, you understand, but the ghosts.
David Bowie

David Bowie

#2. I like my music with the rinds and the seeds and pulp left in.

Tom Waits

#3. It is a wise tune that knows its own father, and I like my music to be the legitimate offspring of respectable parents.

Samuel Butler

#4. I don't much like opera, either. Especially Wagner. There's something about Wagner that's just too piss-German, too fucking Bavarian for a Prussian like me. I like my music to be every bit as vulgar as I am myself. I like a bit of innuendo and stocking-top when a woman's singing a song.

Philip Kerr

#5. I rallied all the youth around me, all the people who liked Compa, but felt like it was dying, going away, being replaced with Zouk. So it became a movement. So, through the years, I've played my music with dedication, discipline and originality, and controversy also.

Michel Martelly

#6. I think my music is born out of the music that I personally like to listen to. I love amazing singer-songwriters and diverse artists but it's important to know your strengths.

Hoodie Allen

#7. I don't like to talk about things where you're going to gt one side or the other unhappy. My music has no politics.

Loretta Lynn

#8. Although I miss my family and friends when I'm away from Amsterdam, I've never had that feeling of missing a city like I have with New Orleans. Especially for the music.

Michiel Huisman

#9. I feel like I have a very unique perspective especially for someone in the hip-hop genre. I'm not afraid to explore it, and how my upbringing then shapes my music and being a New York kid and all of that stuff ... that's really the most unique thing I can offer to the music in general.

Hoodie Allen

#10. I'm singing the way that I love to sing, which is like old soul, like old Al Green. I grew up about an hour from Memphis. So all that music that I grew up with - the Stax music and early rhythm 'n' blues - I'm doing that. I'm actually getting out from behind my guitar and I'm singing.

Sheryl Crow

#11. I am the kind of person who does not like to carry baggage. In fact, I don't go back and listen to my own music. I believe in closing chapters and moving forward. That's what gives me peace.

A.R. Rahman

#12. Dave walked closer to me, his dark eyes combing my every move. "Do you always hold your guitar like that?"
I dropped my pick. "Do you always shop at Hot Topic?

Tara Kelly

#13. It's wonderful doing concerts in places like New York and London, but I feel a responsibility to also bring my work home, to bring world-class, classical music to Somerset.

Charles Hazlewood

#14. I've been a big music guy for a long time and a lot of my books have music in them so I like music analogies.

Charles Soule

#15. My voice is a combination of how I grew up and what I was listening to growing up. I like a lot of different kinds of music and am always being inspired in different ways by different artists for different reasons.

Tess Henley

#16. I think my music is like anchovies - some people like it, some people get nauseous.

Barry Manilow

#17. At the piano, I'm able to communicate in a way that is very intimate and direct. My approach at music is a bit like talking to a friend. You don't have to be very complicated when you speak. If you say what's in your heart, it's usually very simple.

David Lanz

#18. Music always stimulates my imagination. When I'm writing I usually have some Baroque music on low in the background chamber music by Bach, Telemann, and the like.

Haruki Murakami

#19. I really look up to Will Smith. He's internationally known, and people know him from everything. I don't know any kid who hasn't seen and liked Fresh Prince, or you'll like one of his movies or his music. He's perfect, and he's done everything. That's my dream: to be internationally known.

Keke Palmer

#20. In films, I didn't crave the type of attention I had sort of stumbled into in my music career. And I do not audition well. I'm really not good at it. Early on, I did movies like 'Alpha Dog' and 'Black Snake Moan' because the directors didn't ask me to audition.

Justin Timberlake

#21. To me, Miami is like Hell and I'm Osiris when it comes to music - I'm underrated and I came through with this rare sound. "East" means east of Miami, which is South Beach. So I'm the "Osiris of the East", I became my own god in music, and I took over South Beach.

SpaceGhostPurrp

#22. I have considered rap music stars, and there is one in my new book, Lovers and Players, and there is also a hip-hop music mogul who I think you will like a lot.

Jackie Collins

#23. I feel like I've spent the majority of my time touring and traveling, so if I reduced the actual time making music, it's probably four and a half years at the most.

Beck

#24. In my life, looking at other women who have been pregnant while writing, I always feel like it's kind of their most musical or the closest to themselves. I think for me it's such a validating moment, you know. I always knew I wanted to have kids, and I've been making music all my life.

Kelis

#25. Some of my favorite films are musicals, like 'Walk the Line,' 'The Rose' and 'Lady Sings the Blues.' I just love the way the music and the story fuel each other.

Gina Prince-Bythewood

#26. The things I see every day inspire my sound and lyrics, like certain people and situations that stick out in my mind. There are also certain musicians I love whose music and styles inspire me.

Birdy

#27. The music I want to hear in my head sounds somewhere between Jimi Hendrix and Massive Attack. It's not really like my dad, but there will always be similarities because we have the same vocal cords, and I learnt the guitar the way he taught me.

Dhani Harrison

#28. I'll leave a store if I hate the music. If it's just, like, techno, I feel like my brain is going to explode.

Kim Gordon

#29. It's not like I listened to music and then stopped. I still don't have a real appreciation for music because I didn't really start listening to it until my 20s.

Kumail Nanjiani

#30. I definitely write about a lot of dreamy, surreal stuff. I do end up going to a surreal world with my music, but I also like the idea of there being really real stuff as well.

Ellie Goulding

#31. I always like to think I build in historically accurate musical in-jokes that are so precise that like maybe there's 7 or 8 people in the world watching the show that will sit up and go, "Oh my God the music being played is the right kind of music!"

Bear McCreary

#32. I think about music in the way that I heard music as a kid - like, Oh my god, there's this weird rubbery ball of undulating things.

Ariel Pink

#33. The game Rock Band has been haunting me like a bad ring tone. It gets stuck in my head and momentarily effaces all that I love about music.

Carrie Brownstein

#34. I like taking my leads from what I see rather than trying to impose. I like that way of looking at things and seeing what's on screen and seeing how I can draw music out of it almost.

Steven Price

#35. I've been working with music videos and commercials, they are naturally very music driven and visual driven. So that feels like my natural element to be working with that.

Fredrik Bond

#36. I love dancing to the radio every morning, to start the day with such passion. Otherwise, life is too sad. My little daughter and I like dancing to classical music: Bach and Schubert.

Anna Mouglalis

#37. Novels are almost like music or poetry - they just come to me in simple sentences, whereas I think my pieces get more and more complex ever since I've started using a computer.

Joan Didion

#38. I have had UFO experiences, and yet, at the same time, I can easily be convinced that none of it is true. It's hard to say whether or not you're a believer. I've been interested in that subject matter, like lots of people. Perhaps foolishly, I've allowed some of that stuff to creep into my music.

Frank Black

#39. I picked songs that I've been singing my whole life that stuck with me. I tried to pick stuff that was a variety. And I think the same way I always imagine that people are going to play the record at their house and I imagine them doing stuff with music on, like the way I am.

Chris Isaak

#40. I started speaking about what I was dealing with through my music, and 4 million women responded and said, 'Us too, Mary.' And I didn't know that everyone was hurting like I was hurting. I had no idea.

Mary J. Blige

#41. In the music industry, we value large success. I realized that while I would like that, that it's not what my writing is about. And if I start making it about that, it becomes impure.

David Friedman

#42. My only real requirement is that I like the projects to be good and I like the people that I work with to be really nice people and great people, and as long as that's the case the music is fun to do always.

Christopher Lennertz

#43. At the end of the day, I think that I'm making music for me as that 12-year-old kid in front of my boombox every day. I try to think about, if I'm that little kid, what would he like?

Danny Brown

#44. I think my brand of country music is that's been influenced by not just the rough-stock rodeo side or Ted Nugent's "let's get crazy style", but also the stand-up and sing style's like George Strait and Merle Haggard, and also the wild side of Chris Ledoux

Cody Johnson

#45. James Brown was my favorite, my absolute idol. Every time I played with him was like a music lesson, and I never thought I could be so funky! I mean, a white boy from Canada - a Jew - getting down with his funky bad self!

Paul Shaffer

#46. I liked laughing, I found out, and music. I liked nice people, getting up early, and working hard. I liked simple pleasures, like my toes in the sand and someone to kiss.

Z.A. Maxfield

#47. I think it's funny how people get confused when they think about church music, because a lot of times there is a soloist who stands out, but my church wasn't like that at all.

Valerie June

#48. I feel like spirituality definitely comes through in my music, but I don't make any specific efforts to make it that way.

John Legend

#49. Music overwhelmed me, soaked into my skin like water. I didn't have words for the squiggles and dashes across the pages, or the way his fingers stretched across the keys to make my heart race. If I could hear only one thing for the rest of my life, this was what I wanted.

Jodi Meadows

#50. It's very much a piece of myself when I write a song. I don't mean to say it's very personal, like the lyrics mean something personal to me. When I write a song, that's my taste in music - my taste in chord progressions and melodies.

Zooey Deschanel

#51. Because people love music, I feel it's my responsibility to produce more of the music and to get it out to more people, so like I said, If the mainstream route does that without compromising me being happy as a person then that's something I'll do.

Jhene Aiko

#52. My photography changed from being more documentary-like to arranging things more, and that came into being partly because I started doing music videos, and I incorporated some things from the music videos into my photography again, by arranging things more.

Anton Corbijn

#53. When 'Nevermind' came out, my roommate had the CD. At first, I actually thought, 'This is too polished and commercial.' It was a little off-putting. But then I was like, 'This is the best music ever.' It felt so close to what I wanted to do.

Rivers Cuomo

#54. I want people to listen to the lyrics of each song and absorb the music fully before they look at me and make a judgment about what they think my music will or should sound like.

Darren Fletcher

#55. My parents listened to a lot of music when I was really little. They used to listen to people like Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder and I used to be really into that.

Conor Maynard

#56. Children go with whatever makes them feel good - like if that's the color green or orange, they do that with their clothes. As I've grown older, everything reversed. My music, my personality - onstage those things became my colors.

Janelle Monae

#57. Hope you don't mind my taste in music. I like a little backbeat when I launch. (Devyn)
Just wait until you're in battle with him. That shit'll make your ears bleed. (Sway)

Sherrilyn Kenyon

#58. Music has always helped my films. In 'The Curse Of The Jade Scorpion,' you can hear 'Sunrise' by Glenn Miller, an idol of my childhood, in the surprise ending. I like mixing comedy with suspense and action.

Woody Allen

#59. At 11, I went to live with my maternal nan and granddad temporarily, after my parents separated, and Nan would let me have a go on her piano. My grandparents were like something out of the Noel Coward play, 'This Happy Breed,' and it was magical to hear them sing music-hall songs.

Jools Holland

#60. I just want people that like my music to like me.

Kat Dahlia

#61. I've been working on my craft for a long time. People never want to let go of the whole 'Glitter,' ... I'm like, 'It's eight years later, people. Let's move on.

Mariah Carey

#62. All my books are about one major idea and two or three subsidiary ones. I have thought a lot about music when constructing books, and I like the way in music that themes come back.

Sebastian Faulks

#63. I suppose my approach to religion is like my approach to music - I take what I want and leave the rest.

Lana Del Rey

#64. Creatively, I'd like to achieve not only being an artist, but being a businessman and having my own music home.

Anthony Hamilton

#65. I got to tell you, that if it weren't for that harmonica music, i might of just packed up and gone home, but it made me feel so good, I can hardly describe it. Sort of like my whole body is the harmonica and the music give me goosebumps when I play it.

Winston Groom

#66. I like to listen to different kinds of music - it just depends on my mood. I love Madonna, Russian singers ... I like the Rolling Stones a lot!

Oksana Baiul

#67. Obviously the people that I admired, like the Beatles, were really into rock'n'roll, but it was already a little past rock'n'roll when I started listening and making my own choices about music.

Elvis Costello

#68. I'm thrilled that country music fans like my stuff, but so do a lot of people outside of country music, people who just love music. My goal is more to reach music lovers than to appeal to a genre. I love country music, and I'm proud to represent it, but I don't obsess over it as a category.

Kacey Musgraves

#69. I thinks it really interesting how they throw the world music samples in there. I often wonder what it would be like to do something like that, but use my lyrics and my kind of style.

Marc Almond

#70. I don't listen to my own music, so to me it's awesome that people really like it. I was afraid that it wouldn't connect with everyone. I'm more appreciative than anything.

SZA

#71. I do feel like my music, in some weird way, is probably better suited for cinema than for anything else - I can't really explain, other than I think that music has been mostly inspired often by soundtracks.

Zach Condon

#72. Black music is a group music. That's why I don't like doing a solo saxophone thing: My feeling stems from rhythm, I really have to feel that rhythmic thing happening.

Jimmy Lyons

#73. I write songs very quickly, so the 20 minutes of joy I get out of writing a song doesn't compare to the two months of joy I get engaging with the people who like my music.

Halsey

#74. I would like my album to be on the pop side with a little bit of soul. I would like to make music that is on the top of the charts right now.

Hollie Cavanagh

#75. I feel like politics have always informed what I do. If you know anything about my music, you know I've never been shy about stating how I vote.

Mary Chapin Carpenter

#76. Because I love you," I said. "Because you are in my life like the music at the edge of silence.

Robert B. Parker

#77. Twenty days," I said, looking at my father. "I'd say you're right." We smiled and stroked the leaves like swaddled babes, enjoying the soft music they created together in the breeze.

William Kamkwamba

#78. Usually I'm pretty myopic. It's hard for me to multi-task, so to speak. If I'm in a show and I'm creating a character, I'm just completely into that. It's really hard for me to do anything else like write music. I have to sort of shut down different sides of my head and just focus.

Idina Menzel

#79. When the OutKast sound changed and I started producing my own records, I would mirror what I thought that character doing that music would look like. As the sound got a little wilder, freakier and funkier, so did the clothes. Then when the sound got more sophisticated, the clothes changed again.

Andre Benjamin

#80. One of the biggest obstacles I've overcome in my life was thinking I didn't deserve to be successful. Artistically I'm not as much of a heavyweight as someone like Paul Simon or Joni Mitchell, because I'm not a creator of original music, and I worried about that for years.

Bonnie Raitt

#81. My influences are jazz, blues, European classical music; they are rock music and pop music. So many kinds of music. World music from different countries like India and China. I think that would be a shame not to take advantage and do something ... not unique, because I don't have this pretension.

Rokia Traore

#82. I really do not see why there is not a splendid field for good work on the music hall stage, and if I did not have my own theatre taking up my time, I should rather like to go into it.

Lady Gregory

#83. I feel connected to my generation through the music, but I also fear for us. We're in a very self-destructive state where we're addicted to outside opinions and we all feel like we have fans.

Drake

#84. I don't do much press. I don't like to talk about my music too much before I do it.

Skrillex

#85. I don't look at myself as a celebrity. People recognize me, but it's all about my music, my songs. It's not like I'm a greater being. I take my kids to school, pick them up, go to the grocery store. I'm a mother, and my kids mean more to me than even being an artist.

Faith Evans

#86. As I put out more music, I really want to get to the point where people feel like my show is a must-see.

Big Sean

#87. I don't care about what people might call my style. It's just like when people call my music 'jangly,' 'dream,' 'oceanside,' whatever - I don't care. I'm just wearing whatever I can scrap together.

Mac DeMarco

#88. There are parallels between the music and film worlds, but they're really very different. I feel like they're just two different ways to channel my creativity.

Mandy Moore

#89. I'm one of those artists that doesn't actually hate my old hits. I love Boston music. I really like 'More than a Feeling.' After playing it to myself in a basement for such a long time, I'm happy to do it out on stage.

Tom Scholz

#90. Music is definitely something that I'd like to pursue. It's probably, I mean, the acting and music are the two biggest things in my life.

Nolan Sotillo

#91. Music for me is something I prefer to keep away form the whole business part of my life. I feel like everything I do, in a way, has some sort of business around it. So with my music I can have my privacy. If people don't have to pay for it then I think they can be a little more open to new ideas.

Milla Jovovich

#92. I tried to reach the combatants with my music. I tried to turn my anger into something positive. Myself, and others like me, just tried to keep rock and roll alive.

Eric Burdon

#93. A lot of my music is very roots-oriented, and that's country and soul. I've been in every roadhouse in the South, soaking in all of that ... Nashville is like a second home to me, and I'm just gravitating toward the songs.

Taylor Hicks

#94. My great joy is to give form to reality. Music is a great release, a great enjoyment to me. Eventually I'd like to write something of great importance. That's my ambition-to write something worthwhile.

Jim Morrison

#95. We're all dealt with the same hand here, so to speak. I feel like I've had it a lot better than most people. I've had the opportunity to travel and play music all my life.

Levon Helm

#96. I often begin movies with music in my head; it's a very important dimension to me. Not just the music itself, but how to use music in film: when and how and subtlety. I don't like to be too sweet in my stories, and I like the abrasive clang, the contrasting of sounds and cultures.

Mira Nair

#97. I'm compelled to paint nearly every day. I just felt like making a painting, went out and bought paints and a canvas. Now it fulfills me creatively when I'm not doing music: it's something you can do by yourself and it's totally yours. It's a great adjunct to my life.

David Johansen

#98. That is how I felt, watching the musicians play. I couldn't stand it. The everyday lack of my music was like a toothache I had grown used to. I could live with it. But having what I wanted dangled in front of me was more than I could bear.

Patrick Rothfuss

#99. I tried to bring in the live orchestra like Bjork does. I love the feeling that that music gives me when I just listen to it. I mean it would be awesome to do an entire record like that. But unfortunately that's not my style. So rather than do a record like that I just got inspired by it.

Willa Ford

#100. It just feels like I'm on the right path musically and I'm in the right mindset to continue out my mission in music because I'm not putting myself in a box.

Brandy Norwood