When I Listen To Music Quotes

#1. When I listen to music, I don't want to hear about flowers. I like death and destruction.

Jonathan Davis

#2. Not to deny that it is a thinking people's music, but when I listen to music if I ever catch myself thinking, I'm in trouble
I know something is wrong.

Brian Blade

#3. When I listen to music from different eras, I sense different things. The 1940s music, there's so much optimism and romance, maybe because they just solved the biggest problem on Earth at that time - World War II. In the 1960s, there was so much creativity and innovation in sound.

Eric Betzig

#4. When I listen to music these days, and I hear Pro Tools and drums that sound like a machine - it kinda sucks the life out of music.

Dave Grohl

#5. I'm not technical. When I listen to music, I gravitate more toward the sonic aspect of it. The technical stuff of it, I get bored with it. These long solos? OK, already. You know your scales, big deal. I know it, too, but I don't want to do that.

Joey Santiago

#6. When I listen to music today, it is about 99 percent classical. I rarely even listen to folk music, the music of my own specialty, because folk music is to me more limited than classical music.

Tom Glazer

#7. When I listen to music - I don't particularly do it for fun all that much. It's not a big part of my life, and I'm not really on top of what's happening in the world of music in the way I was when I was a teenager.

John Hodgman

#8. Music as background to me becomes like a mosquito, an insect. In the studio we have big speakers, and to me that's the way music should be listened to. When I listen to music, I want to just listen to music.

David Lynch

#9. When I listen to music, there's usually some aspect of that music that I like, and that's what I take and try to bring into my own music. Bringing in other musicians to collaborate with is a good way for me to test out new ways or make music that I might have not discovered on my own.

Matisyahu

#10. I'd love to be a saxophonist. I don't know why, but I pretend I'm the saxophonist when I listen to music. I have about as much chance playing the sax as I do learning how to fly.

Richard Price

#11. When we started writing this kind of music in the beginning, I didn't think that many people would listen to it, but over the years our fan base just kept growing and growing. Now, it's like we do it for us and our fans.

Jeff Hanneman

#12. Usually when I'm mad, I'd rather listen to angry music than soothing music - more heavy metal, some Metallica or something.

Matt Kenseth

#13. I'm weird - I don't really listen to American music while I'm writing. I do occasionally get an anthem song, but generally speaking, when I write, I only listen to Japanese and Hawaiian music.

Violet Duke

#14. I have fun when I'm making music, and I want people to have fun when they listen to it.

Becky G

#15. When I was 4 years old my mother put me into an early music education school. That's where they taught you perfect pitch and harmony and how to write music and all that. At that time, one of the homeworks was to listen to all the sounds and the noise of a day and transfer that into musical notes.

Yoko Ono

#16. I listen to other people's music now. I didn't for many years but now I am fascinated again as much as I was when I started out.

Vashti Bunyan

#17. People are not even going to have time to listen to radio in their cars because they are going to be talking on their phones or twittering, or BBM'ing. So I feel like the only time people are going to hear music is when your phone rings, so that's the whole market I'm going after.

Spencer Pratt

#18. How can music without any words make you think? I listen to jazz when I'm doing something else. I use it for background music, I don't just sit down and concentrate on it. Lyrics, words - that's what makes me think.

Eddie Murphy

#19. When I go to see live music I tend to want to really listen to it, so when people get up and dance it's really irritating.

Tony Blackburn

#20. I always listen to music when I write, I need a rhythm to write.

Fatih Akin

#21. When I listen to the radio, I just hear so much music that doesn't even sound like people. The vocals are all tuned, and the drums are all fake.

Dave Grohl

#22. I always used to love singing. The first song I knew all the words to was 'Girl of My Best Friend' by Elvis. My dad introduced me to his music, and when I got given a karaoke machine by my granddad, my cousin and I recorded a load of Elvis tracks. I wish I still had them so I could have a listen.

One Direction

#23. I usually draw in silence, but listen to music or public radio when I'm painting, after all the important decisions have been made.

Sophie Blackall

#24. When I miss you, sometimes I listen to music or look at pictures of you, not to remind me of you but to make me feel as if I'm with you. It makes me forget the distance and capture you.

LeBron James

#25. The music I like best is kind of frozen in my mind from the Sixties and Seventies. I still listen to the same jazz music I listened to when I was eighteen years old, and like and admire it just as much.

Don DeLillo

#26. I do think certain kinds of music can make you violent. Like, when I listen to Nickelback, it makes me want to kill Nickelback.

Brian Posehn

#27. I never listen to music when I'm writing.

Ben Fountain

#28. I believe in spiritualism. It's like, when you listen to music or something and then you're sort of primed. If you're an artist, you're sort of primed and inspired, and you start drawing, you sort of have the spirit of what you're listening to, still in you. You just have sort of an inspiration.

Daniel Johnston

#29. When I'm in the mood to listen to music, I do like to go to the SkyBar [ L.A.].

Tracy Morgan

#30. When I look at great works of art or listen to inspired music, I sense intimate portraits of the specific times in which they were created.

Billy Joel

#31. I usually wait until I get on the bus, when I'm done with media and I get to sit down and listen to my music and just read through everyone's messages.

Eddie Lacy

#32. When I listen to Radio 1 and hear five different tracks in a row using old disco samples, well that's plagiarism, that's taking other people's music.

Jay Kay

#33. When I'm riding in a car, I don't really listen to music. I turn the radio off and just be thinking, brainstorming. I'm one of these people that just like to brainstorm.

Chamillionaire

#34. I only listen to my own music when I'm playing an hour-and-half set each night. I don't put it on recreationally.

St. Vincent

#35. I wasn't allowed to listen to a lot of music growing up. It wasn't until I started to make my gospel record when I was around 14 or 15 that I started to be exposed to more outside influences.

Katy Perry

#36. I try not to listen to other music. I have to keep my mind open for what's coming in as a songwriter. If I go into the gas station and pay for gas, whatever song was playing when I was in there is in my head for the next few days and I can't change the channel.

Mark Farner

#37. When I listen to most forms of music, in their most raw and pure, it all has a punk edge to me, like Lead Belly, Jimmie Rodgers, Otis Redding or Nirvana.

Langhorne Slim

#38. Music has a tremendous effect on me. When it's playing, I can't think or do anything other than listen. But I can write to it.

Nancy Farmer

#39. I like listening to music on a Discman, where the CD spins, and the fact that it's weird to listen to something on a Discman when most people have an iPod, even though those have an internal hard drive that's spinning, too.

Alexis Taylor

#40. When you listen to my music, you hear that there are all these voices going on in different parts of the song. That's because I was always around so many voices in church.

Valerie June

#41. I'm astounded by people who can listen to music when they write. I can only assume that they have multi-track brains, while mine is decidedly single.

Elizabeth McCracken

#42. When I'm feeling stressed out and overwhelmed, sometimes I'll read a book. But most of the time, I will either listen to music or play music. I'm basically always playing music, even if I'm not stressed!

Ross Lynch

#43. I try not to listen to a lot of music when I'm starting the recording process, because it can be so subtly influential.

Hoodie Allen

#44. When I would play pop music at underground shows, it was offensive to some people. I wasn't doing it to piss people off: I just didn't believe in those strong divisions that you're supposed to listen to this or that.

Girl Talk

#45. When I was 13, listening to Choice FM, I would listen to a lot of R&B from America, and whenever a British person tried to do it, it didn't really work, they just sounded like they were trying to copy that whole style. Now the music sounds British, something real rather than an imitation.

Katy B

#46. I think with drama, at least for me, my process, there's a lot of thought. I do a lot of back story. I listen to a lot of music. I'm very committed to a process when it comes to drama, but with comedy, I think it's really about letting loose.

Jamie-Lynn Sigler

#47. I don't listen to music when I'm writing, but I often do when I'm reworking, editing or when I need to relax.

Joanne Harris

#48. When I listen to the engine of my car, I might say it sounds fine, but it would not occur to me to say What lovely music!

Jose Bergamin

#49. When I listen to old music, that's one of the few times that I actually have a kind of love for humanity.

Robert Crumb

#50. Strangely, the thing I listen to 75% of the time, when I'm exercising with my headphones on is English Tudor/Elizabethan music, so music from about 1450 to the early 1600's.

Tod Machover

#51. I like to listen to sad music when I'm sad. It seems honest. It makes me cry, and sometimes a
good cry is the only thing that can make you feel better.

Elizabeth Berg

#52. When I'm skiing, I listen to electronic music. It's repetitive and let's me get into a groove and crank out the miles.

Ben Saunders

#53. When I'm alone at home, I really prefer to listen to Wagner's orchestral music rather than any vocal music. I find it illuminating not to have to pay attention to voices in the recordings.

Kiri Te Kanawa

#54. Teenagers are passionate and they want music that speaks within their hearts. It's a big deal for students to listen to Christian music and talk about it at school. Music is a very exciting element of your life when you're love. I think it's huge.

Mark Hall

#55. When I was a young student, I only listened to foreign music, mainly rock music and hard rock. Then I surprised myself by discovering ethnic music. Now I like to listen to music from different places, and in many situations. Even when you work, some ethnic music calms the nerves.

Dmitry Medvedev

#56. I am totally, absolutely romantic. When I broke up with a girl I would listen to the most heart-breaking music and make it worse. That's what girls do. I think I am a girl really.

Billy Connolly

#57. When I listen back to my music and everyone else that's out there, I'm aware that there's something I can do that the next guy doesn't do.

Jakob Dylan

#58. Growing up, my grandmother did not want worldly music in the house. Then when I went out to California, I started listening to Spanish music, mostly Mexican music. But were I in Egypt, I would listen to the music of the people, or if I was in Italy, I'd listen to Italian music.

Maya Angelou

#59. I want to make people feel certain ways when they listen to my music. Whether it's partying or going through relationship problems or grinding or getting dressed and feeling fly. I want to be who I am and have emotion in my music that affects people.

Tyga

#60. I actually can't listen to music and write poetry at the same time, but I do kind of think about the music I've been listening to when I write.

Shane McCrae

#61. When I'm working, I always listen to music to zone everyone else out.

Kirsten Dunst

#62. In order to build a career and to be successful, one has to be determined. One has to be ambitious. I much prefer to drink coffee, listen to music, and to paint when I feel like it.

Saul Leiter

#63. When I listen to great music, the first thing I wonder is what people were saying when this came out of the speakers in the studio. I want to know what happened when they played it and said, "This is the one!"

Jay-Z

#64. Always when I write my music, I take my guitar, and I improvise always with a melody, you know, lyrics in Spanish. But sometimes I use some words in English. I don't know why. Maybe because I listen to a lot of music in English.

Juanes

#65. It is one thing to record an album but it's a huge difference when people play it and listen to it and embrace it the way that I do. It has always been my dream to get my music out to the world and have people hear it.

Rihanna

#66. Oftentimes, when music is just blasting out it seems like it's overcompensating for something missing in the song's structure. When I think of the music that I listen to constantly, it's never like an assault.

Babatunde Adebimpe

#67. I'm really into old school music when hip-hop first came out with Common, A Tribe Called Quest, Queen Latifah, MC Lyte, and Run DMC. I'm really into that! Hip-hop these days isn't the same and doesn't have the same sound anymore. I'd rather listen to the old school hip-hop.

Raven Goodwin

#68. At times when I am myself sitting at a retreat, and at the end I get into my car to drive away, I watch my hand move forward to turn on the radio. When I can be mindful, I notice the fact that I actually don't want in that moment to listen to the news or hear some music.

Sharon Salzberg

#69. Music has always carried me through times of loneliness. So when I make music, I like it to make people who listen to it feel like they have a friend who reveals something personal to them, rather than trying to be like a god up on a pedestal

John Frusciante

#70. When people say stuff like, "Oh, that's soft rock. I don't listen to that," I find that elitist. It's music-racist.

Jay-Z

#71. When I read a daring book or listen to rebellious music, I feel like I've found what freedom really means.

Carla H. Krueger

#72. It gets quite difficult for me when I listen to pop music. I don't often understand the words, but when someone translates them to me, I think, 'What is this song representing? That women are just there to be treated like objects?'

Malala Yousafzai

#73. I listen more to music when I'm on my computer. I'm into the latest YouTube thing. I'm a nanosecond kind of listener, but if I'm driving I would be listening to a Merle Haggard box set. It's a weird experience listening to 'Working Man Blues' by Merle Haggard and cruising around in a Porsche.

Jason McCoy

#74. When I'm writing, those ideas are seldom inspired by music itself. I won't often listen to an artist and come up with an idea.

St. Lucia

#75. I'm on Twitter a lot of the day because I really like Twitter. It's great for jokes. But when I'm writing, I can't do anything else. I can't even listen to music. I just have to write, and then I can do something else. I can't multitask.

Mallory Ortberg

#76. When I first started writing, I used to listen to music all the time because it would make time pass more quickly. And then I started to wonder if the music wasn't affecting my writing in ways that I didn't necessarily intend.

Gabrielle Zevin

#77. Lenny Breau was a genius - inspired and really loose. I loved how he used the guitar as an extension of his inner freedom, because, obviously, on the outside there were a lot of trainwrecks going on. But when you listen to him play, you hear what kind of guy he really is

Steve Vai

#78. I wanted to watch a movie or listen to some music, so I did both. I put on a DVD of The Wizard of Oz and a CD of Metallica's Ride the Lightning. IT TURNS OUT THAT WHEN YOU PLAY THEM BOTH TOGETHER, YOU GET ALL THE ANSWERS.

John Moe

#79. I got to where I couldn't listen to country radio. Country music is supposed to have steel and fiddle. When I hear country music, it should be country.

Gretchen Wilson

#80. I don't listen to music. I very rarely listen to music. I only listen for information. I listen when a friend sends me a song or a new record.

John Oates

#81. I listen to older music a lot more than new singers. I listen to whatever's on the radio, but when I want to listen to something that moves me I put on a Stevie Wonder record.

Mariah Carey

#82. I cannot work and listen to Wagner at the same time, nor Mahler, nor Beethoven's late quartets. I enjoy listening to Chopin's piano music when I work.

I.M. Pei

#83. I think there's just so many people in the world that don't feel understood, and when you hear a song and you go, 'Oh, that song understands me,' that's an amazing feeling. I get it when I listen to the radio ... That's a beautiful part of music.

Keith Urban

#84. When I was young, my parents made me listen to old music and watch Jimmy Durante. I fell in love with the whole mystique of acting and entertainment.

James Wolk

#85. When I hear that young people have come to the theater for the first time to listen to opera, I'm very happy. Because it's the same thing that happened to me as a child. When I first heard the tenor voice, I immediately fell in love with this kind of music.

Andrea Bocelli

#86. When I'm in the car sometimes it's like, 'Yeah, man, just put on the pop music.' You know what I mean? I don't want to listen to Tom Waits.

Max Greenfield

#87. I do it when I'm a preparing for a role quite a bit - I sit with music. It helps influence the discovery of something. Then sometimes during filming I like to listen to the same things. It brings me back to a place where I just feel more creative and focused.

Rami Malek

#88. I do the same things I did when I was 12 years old: I ride bikes, I read books, I walk in the woods. And I listen to music.

Charles Frazier

#89. I have a big barn that I converted to my music studio, so I go there early in the morning and the first thing I do is rowing. And that's when I listen to a lot of music.

Tod Machover

#90. Experimenting with make-up is a lot of fun. When I'm not touring, I like nothing better than inviting the girls around to listen to music and get ready together before going out.

Eliza Doolittle

#91. I always have loved music, ever since I was really little. I just loved to sing. I can't really explain it, except maybe - and this is going to sound really stupid - when I would listen to a song it would make me more excited than anything else could.

Zooey Deschanel

#92. I'd like a male to listen to my music and find it kind of fascinating, what a girl goes through when they get heartbroken or get sad or get hurt by something.

Ellie Goulding

#93. When I'm writing a record, I kind of don't listen to much music. Just because I want to be inspired solely on the emotion; just based on how it feels.

Taylor Swift

#94. I'm not planning what I listen to, except when I think the music can guide me to some emotional place I want to be reminded of.

Jonathan Lethem

#95. You don't try to get influenced by everything that's going on with all the other music around you. You don't listen to the radio - I mean, I don't. When I get ready to do an album, I don't listen to anybody else; I don't wanna be influenced.

Tim McGraw

#96. Music, for me, is vital. Punjabi, Bollywood, Sufi, RnB ... I listen to it all. When I'm not listening to music, you will find me chatting with friends. Off the field, I just let my instincts take over. I certainly don't think about batting, or which bowlers I'm going to face.

Virat Kohli

#97. And for some reason, when I'm sad, I do listen to Leonard Cohen, I do listen to Joni Mitchell. I do find myself going to the music that's actually reflecting my mood, as opposed to sticking on Motown, which might actually bring my mood up.

Glen Hansard

#98. I never listen to music when I am writing. It would be impossible. I listen to Bach in the mornings, mostly choral music; also some Handel, mostly songs and arias; I like Schubert's and Beethoven's chamber music and Sibelius' symphonies; for opera, I listen to Mozart and in recent years Wagner.

Colm Toibin

#99. I run around, I listen to a lot of music, go to a lot of concerts. And when I see someone that gases me, I try to go out of my way to involve them somehow in what I'm doing or get involved in what they're doing.

John Zorn

#100. I try to listen to a lot of music when I'm in the mixing process of a record, when I'm in post-production and trying to get everything to sound a certain way.

Jay Reatard