A part of me was like, 'Man, do I even like doing this anymore?' That whole thing of 'I'm in my 30s, and I sing and write songs while people are fighting wars in Iraq.' You know? So everything had to have more meaning, and it couldn't just be about making money. So, I took a minute.
In earlier times, so many people sang much more. You know as a kid you'd go to some kind of religious training and or summer camp or whatever it was and you'd learn to sing a lot of songs.
Actors on stage, you can go from playing a myriad of roles, from Shakespeare to a Eugene O'Neil drama, and it's the norm. I came up in a world where you're supposed to be able to do three things very well. Act, sing, dance, paint, do something. The emphasis was on versatility.
I used to sing when I was six years old. When the family would leave the house, I'd get up on the stool and sing. 'T for Texas, T for Tenessee, T for Thelma, the gal that made a wreck out of me.' I was in love with my babysitter. She was 18. I was six.
I found it was really impossible for me to write songs when I couldn't sing.
If a thing isn't worth saying, you sing it.
And I used to think that proof that I had religion was whether I knew how to sing all of the songs.
I just wanted to perform, to sing, dance and act.
When I come out and sing the first few bars of Bill Bailey, it's very exciting.
Shoot the bad guys and I'll gladly sing a tune for you.
People come up to me as I leave the stage after a performance and tell me tey saw my mother onstage with me every time I sing. I keep a sense of humor about it.
I have always loved music. My mom used to sing with my sister and I when I was younger, and I was in choirs and loved to perform, but when I was in college, I went on a study abroad to Trinidad, and while I was there, I sang backup at my first concert.
Some things feel really good to sing: there's a physical aspect, but there's more to it - a deeper place you go to.
I had this temp receptionist job in New York, and I kind of hated it, and in the morning I would come out of the subway and just walk along the New York streets with all these people around me and kind of sing to myself. Like, 'She's gonna make it!'
I have a talent, I can sing.
Nobody in my family plays music professionally, but I definitely grew up around the culture of when my parents got together, as well as a lot of eating and drinking going on, they would also sing - they sat around in a circle, and everyone had a party piece.
I love the whole aspect of music, especially the singing; I never get tired of finding new songs to sing and sing them in a way that's interesting for the public.
I would love to sing. I would love to do a musical, but I wouldn't say that that singing is my strong suit.
I'll have the music, and then I'll just turn the microphone on, press Play and Record and sing. And whatever comes out ends up being the melody.
I had a galvanised voice: I could sing through a 105 fever or a flu or a root canal or anything that you could throw at me.
I never thought of myself as being a good songwriter. There are a ton of other people that are good songwriters, but I don't think I'm in the club. What I do well is perform, sometimes sing pretty good, and accompany myself well and arrange fairly well.
I think I had kind of an advantage. When I was growing up, my dad had just got out of jail and he had a great record collection. He had - it was all - these were the songs. So I heard a lot of these songs, like, my whole life, so for me it was easy. I already knew what I was going to sing.
I prefer to sing in the shower because the acoustics make you sound great, baby.
I sing some songs but don't expect me to release an album anytime soon.
My faith is the grand drama of my life. I'm a believer, so I sing words of God to those who have no faith.
I like to dance and sing when there's no one around, but, if I'm out, I'm really shy about it. So it takes a lot to get me going, but I enjoy being around music.
My favorite type of music to sing would be between R and B and opera.
There are certain functions that a writer has to do. In a time of crisis, it is great to have heroic poems, as it was in the Irish Revolution. It's great to have great songs, because people need something to sing when they are marching. That's OK, but it should be on the side. It's not the ultimate thing.
Children frequently sing meaningful phrases to themselves over and over again before they learn to make a distinction between singing and saying.
There is nothing in the world of art like the songs mother used to sing.
I sing in a higher register, and you haven't heard that on the radio in years.
Johnny Guitar... just one of my favorite singers of all time. I met him when we were both on the road with Johnny Otis in the '50s when I was a teenager. We traveled the country in a car together. I would hear him sing every night.
But to make a holiday record that involves favorite American songs and then also get to sing about Jesus birth, it just seemed like a real easy, subtle way to combine a couple of things that I love.
If I was sad or afraid, I would sit in a corner and sing. If I was happy I would jump into the middle of the room and sing. It was how I expressed my emotions.
I'm about to sing the song for the future.
The type of music that I love to sing would have to be more bluesy and jazzy and more soul-like 'cause I love to belt when it comes to singing, so I guess bigger songs are what I lean more towards.
