Popular Song Quotes

Old black water, keep on rollin'
Mississippi moon won't you keep on shinin' on me? ~ Patrick Simmons

I don't write songs, songs write me ... Writing a song can be agony or ecstasy. It can take half an hour or half a year ... The popular song is America's greatest ambassador. ~ Sammy Cahn

A jazz tune, melody, or composition is usually based on either a traditional twelve-bar, eight-bar, or four-bar blues chorus or on the thirty-two-bar chorus of the American popular song. ~ Albert Murray

I've asked about you and they told me things but my mind didn't change and I still feel the same. ~ Drake

I don't know what people find or like in me, I'm hopelessly commonplace! Current appreciation of my work is a bit highbrow, I've always considered myself a popular artist. ~ Maxfield Parrish

I've seen fire and I've seen rain I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend But I always thought that I'd see you again. ~ James Taylor

After I won the Oscar, my salary doubled, my friends tripled, my children became more popular at school, my butcher made a pass at me, and my maid hit me up for a raise. ~ Shirley Jones

I sing my heart out to the wide open spaces
I sing my heart out to the infinite sea
I sing my vision to the sky-high mountains
I sing my song to the free. ~ Pete Townshend

How many times can a man turn his head, and pretend that he just doesn't see? ~ Bob Dylan

Every breath you take and every move you make
Every bond you break, every step you take
I'll be watchin' you
Every single day and every word you say
Every game you play, every night you stay
I'll be watchin' you ~ Sting

It's not my job to be popular. I'm goal-driven; my job is to get results. ~ Paddy Ashdown

I moved to New York from California when I was 11, so initially I was seen as the California person for a while. I didn't feel like I was popular, but I did feel confident. ~ Gwyneth Paltrow

All official institutions of language are repeating machines: school, sports, advertising, popular songs, news, all continually repeat the same structure, the same meaning, often the same words: the stereotype is a political fact, the major figure of ideology. ~ Roland Barthes

There's beauty in the silver singing river There's beauty in the sunrise in the sky But none of these and nothing else can match the beauty That I remember in my true love's eyes ~ Bob Dylan

You're nobody till somebody loves you," went the popular song, and we are an entire culture that has taken it literally. We maintain the fantasy that if we find our one true soul mate, everything wrong with us will be healed. But when our expectations and hopes reach that magnitude, as Becker says, "the love object is God." No lover, no human being, is qualified for that role. No one can live up to that. The inevitable result is bitter disillusionment. ~ Timothy Keller

In your eyes I see the doorway to a thousand churches. ~ Peter Gabriel

I find that if you take the various popular song forms to their logical extremes, you can arrive at almost anything from the ridiculous to the obscene-or, as they say in New York, sophisticated. ~ Tom Lehrer

I come to you defenses down with the trust of a child. ~ Peter Gabriel

It seems to me that the American popular song, growing out of American folk music, is the basis of the American musical theater ... it is quite legitimate to use the form of the popular song and gradually fill it out with new musical content. ~ Kurt Weill

For all but the sliver of poetry fans, over the past forty years popular song lyrics have been the nation's poetry. ~ John McWhorter

The road goes on forever and the party never ends. ~ Robert Earl Keen

She's got a way about her,
And everywhere she goes,
a million dreams of love surround her,
everywhere. ~ Billy Joel

We found love in a hopeless place. ~ Rihanna

He not busy being born is busy dying ~ Steve Jobs

When you're DJing, there are songs I love to play, but I know people are going to walk off. It doesn't matter what I like. You have to be able to play the popular song and slip in one of yours, in such a way that they don't notice it. You've got them in such a roll that you get them back into what they think they like. ~ Russell Peters

We have come to love the music of proof. Logical connection for us is not some popular song about a finch, but a choral symphony, so difficult and so inspired that the conductor must exert all his energy to keep the performers under his control. ~ Osip Mandelstam

The great thing about university is that they incline you to get up and do it, from the Classics to modern plays, to the humor that Monty Pythons made popular. ~ Michael York

River gonna take me, Sing me sweet and sleepy,
Sing me sweet and sleepy all the way back home,
It's a far gone lullaby sung many years ago
Mama, Mama, many worlds I've come since I first left home ~ Robert Hunter

A popular song is one that makes us all think we can sing. ~ Andy Williams

[D]id you ever notice how friendships are a lot like pop songs? They are for girls, anyway. First there's the newness of it, the melody that streams into your head and makes you wonder ― will I like this song? Then come the vocals, what the song's heart truly sounds like, and with it the song's purpose, it's lyrics ― will they say something meaningful about my life? Will these words help me through a difficult time, or create a memory that will make me smile whenever I hear this song again? ~ Brando Skyhorse

It's become very popular in contemporary films to have the twist ending. ~ Bill Paxton

I've been amazed that it's so popular with people. But it's been fantastic. People are very excited when I walk into a place and they recognize me from the series. ~ Victor Garber

We've been in a war and a recession. That's why acccent colors with yellow and purple are popular. They're optimistic and flirty and happy colors. ~ David Bromstad

You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice. If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill. I will choose a path thats clear. I will choose Freewill. ~ Neil Peart

I could never have imagined that firing 67 people on national television would actually make me more popular, especially with the younger generation. ~ Donald Trump

He goes along just as a water lily
Gentle on the surface of his thoughts his body floats
Unweighed down by passion or intensity
Yet unaware of the depth upon which he coasts
And he finds a home in me
For what misfortune sows, he knows my touch will reap ~ Fiona Apple

If you said good-bye to me tonight, There would still be music left to write. ~ Billy Joel

I only knew classical music, which to me was the only true music. The only way I could survive at the bar was to mix the classical music with popular songs, and that meant I had to sing. What happened was that I discovered I had a voice plus the talent to mix classical music together with more popular songs, which at the time I detested. ~ Nina Simone

Regardless of who originally made it popular, any hit song becomes a challenge to the ingenuity and imagination of other musicians and performers. ~ Les Baxter

I appreciate this moment in time ... ball players and actors be knowing my rhymes ~ Common

So excuse me forgetting, but these things I do
You see I've forgotten, if they're green or they're blue
Anyway, the thing is, what I really mean
Yours are the sweetest eyes, I've ever seen. ~ Elton John

Place a name upon the night
One to set your heart alight
And to make the darkness bright
Paint the sky with stars. ~ Enya

It's the latest popular song," declared the phonograph, speaking in a sulky tone of voice.
"A popular song?"
"Yes. One that the feeble-minded can remember the words of and those ignorant of music can whistle or sing. That makes a popular song popular, and the time is coming when it will take the place of all other songs. ~ L. Frank Baum

No Romeo-and-Juliet acts, no nonsense about Love with a large L, none of that popular song claptrap with its skies of blue, dreams come true, heaven with you. Just sensuality for its own sake. ~ Aldous Huxley

I didn't mean to take up all your sweet time ... I'll give it right back to you, one of these days ~ Jimi Hendrix

You're so vain. I bet you think this song is about you. ~ Carly Simon

I woke up this morning, smiled at the rising sun. ~ Bob Marley

Mind can hear a song sung by heart
when no sound is heard by the ears. ~ Toba Beta

I earned my place,
With the tidal waves.
I can't escape this feeling,
That something ain't right.
I called my name
As I crashed the gates,
Still I can't escape this feeling
That something ain't right. ~ All Time Low

It came as a gift. A large gray bird flew up with a loud alarm call as he approached. As it gained height and wheeled away over the valley, it gave out a piping sound on three notes, which he recognized as the inversion of a line he had already scored for a piccolo. How elegant, how simple. Turning the sequence round opened up the idea of a plain and beautiful song in common time, which he could almost hear. But not quite. An image came to him of a set of unfolding steps, sliding and descending-from the trap door of a loft, or from the door of a light plane. One note lay over and suggested the next. He heard it, he had it, and then it was gone. There was a glow of a tantalizing afterimage and the fading call of a sad little tune ... These notes were perfectly interdependent, little polished hinges swinging the melody through its perfect arc. He could almost hear it again as he reached the top of the angled rock slab and paused to reach into his pocket for notebook and pencil. ~ Steven Pinker

The Sunday morning service shows how popular your church is. The evening services show how popular your pastor is. Your private prayer time shows you how popular God is! ~ Leonard Ravenhill

She sings the songs without words Songs that sailors, and blind men, and beggars have heard She knows more of love than the poets can say And her eyes are for something that won't go away. ~ Harry Chapin

They were inventing their own type of relationship, one that wasn't officially recognized by history or immortalized in poetry or song, but which felt truer and less constraining. ~ Hanya Yanagihara

Information is Power. Think For Yourself. CAUTION: proper use of the brain is not endorsed by federal governments nor huge corporations involved in serious financial profit from a brainwashed and enslaved population. Mild discomfort may occur as confusing independent thought challenges popular views of the world. ~ Timothy Leary

I used to wish I could write songs like the others - and I've tried but I just can't. I get the words all right, but whenever I think of a tune and sing it to the others they always say 'Yeah, it always sounds like such a thing' and when they point it out I see what they mean. But I did get a part credit as a composer on one - it was called What Goes On. ~ Ringo Starr

Now the various species of whales need some sort of popular comprehensive classification, if only an easy outline one for the present, hereafter to be filled in all its departments by subsequent laborers. As no better man advances to take this matter in hand, I hereupon offer my own poor endeavors. I promise nothing complete; because any human thing supposed to be complete, must for that very reason infallibly be faulty. I shall not pretend to a minute anatomical description of the various species, or - in this place at least - to much of any description. My object here is simply to project the draught of a systematization of cetology. I am the architect, not the builder. (moby dick chap 32 p131) ~ Herman Melville

I am made of earth, and my song made of words. ~ Pablo Neruda

A song can be a song where somebody thinks you're crazy. A song that gets released has got to be something that everyone can relate to. Most of the songs that I keep are un-relateable for most people - some of the music I make only for myself and the homies. ~ Schoolboy Q

I swallowed hard, a hot flush blazing a trail across my skin. Reminded me of that old television show, Bonanza. You know, the one with the burning map and the lively western tune? Yeah, my skin was that map, but the song blaring in my head leaned more toward a "bow-chick-a-wow-wow" sound than anything else. Hormone overload! ~ Lisa Sanchez

Seeing, contrary to popular wisdom, isn't believing. It's where belief stops, because it isn't needed any more. ~ Terry Pratchett

When I'm playing music I'm usually not thinking of surfing, just because I'm usually thinking about the chords and the lyrics, and sometimes that messes me up 'cause you'll start thinking, "Wait, how am I doing this?" But when I'm surfing, I'm usually thinking about music - whether it's an idea for a new song, or just singing a song in my head. ~ Jack Johnson

Sometimes you sing songs about the way you want to feel more than the way you actually do feel. ~ Jon Crosby

In fact, I think all of this screaming about "Political Correctness" that we hear these days in the elite culture is basically just a tantrum over the fact that it has been impossible to crush all of the dissidence and the activism and the concern that's developed in the general population in the last thirty years. I mean, it's not that some of these "P.C." things they point out aren't true-yeah, sure, some of them are true. But the real problem is that the huge right-wing effort to retake control of the ideological system didn't work―and since their mentality is basically totalitarian, any break in their control is considered a huge tragedy: 98 percent control isn't enough, you have to have 100 percent control; these are totalitarian strains. But they couldn't get it, especially among the general population. They have not been able to beat back all of the gains of the popular movements since the 1960s, which simply led to a lot of concern about sexism, and racism, and environmental issues, respect for other cultures, and all this other bad stuff. And it's led to real hysteria among elites, so you get this whole P.C. comedy. ~ Noam Chomsky

All of the most popular music of the '30s and '40s were deeply informed by jazz. ~ Terry Teachout

What good is a song that doesn't break your heart? ~ Marty Rubin

She could not bear to look at him just now. If she did, she might well slap him again. Or cry. Or kiss him. And never know which was right and which was wrong and which was madness. ~ George R R Martin

It's nice if people ask to use your song. You have to make a decision as an artist how you feel about that. ~ Jared Leto

Then, you know, the other more-traditional role of the producer in, like, the kind of Quincy Jones sense is kind of part arranger. So you're coming up with, like, these - you hear these songs that are quite bare-bones, and you dream up what's the band doing? What's the rhythm section doing? What's the guitars, strings, pianos - that sort of thing. It's almost like a little toolbox. ~ Mark Ronson

I mean, m-m-m-my you're like pelican fly ~ Nicki Minaj

You have everything within you to do great things in this world. Maybe, you are inspired to sing a song, write a book or poems, create art in various forms. Or you may decide to find a cure for disease, end world hunger, prevent abuse, or take a stand politically. The question is how to begin the process of fulfilling your vision. Start where you are and use the resources you have to build from there. Inspiration is what motivates you to achieve your remarkable ideas. Also it takes time and dedication to excel to the next level. ~ Amaka Imani Nkosazana

At still higher doses psilocybin triggers this activity in the language-forming capacity of the brain that manifests as song and vision. Psilocybin may have synergized the emergence of higher forms of psychic organization out of primitive protohuman animals. It can be seen as a kind of evolutionary enzyme, or evolutionary catalyst. ~ Terence McKenna

I have great family and good friends; the stories I told became popular, and people all over the world bought them. ~ Maeve Binchy

I had so many songs that were actually sort of finished. And I deleted them. I wrote on my website that I'd put them on the shelf, but that wasn't true. I actually deleted them from my computer. I got sort of trigger-happy and I think I deleted about 200 songs from my computer. ~ Jens Lekman

I had an all right high school, even though I hated school. I wasn't massively popular, but I was okay. But I wouldn't want to do it again. ~ Channing Tatum

I had a dream about you. We made a good team, you and I, and I thought we were in love, but our coach didn't agree. He tried saying he wanted to trade you to another team, but I said if he did that I'm going to take up competitive knitting. He knew I was serious, because the word on the street was that Weezer's "The Sweater Song" was inspired by a legendary cat sweater I knitted. ~ Jarod Kintz

It's so funny because I listen to songs that I recorded that I didn't really know anything about at the time. Later on I'm starting to feel the songs. Sing them first, feel them later. ~ Tanya Tucker

Frank Halford was a master at the school and remembers Adams as "very tall even then, and popular. He wrote an end-of-term play when Doctor Who had just started on television. He called it 'Doctor Which.' " Many years later, Adams did write scripts for Doctor Who. He describes Halford as an inspirational teacher who is still a support. "He once gave me ten out of ten for a story, which was the only time he did throughout his long school career. And even now, when I have a dark night of the soul as a writer and think that I can't do this anymore, the thing that I reach for is not the fact that I have had best-sellers or huge advances. It is the fact that Frank Halford once gave me ten out of ten, and at some fundamental level I must be able to do it. ~ Douglas Adams

The shanty soon ended, but Ryber kept pounding the drum and hollered, "'The Maidens North of Lovats!'" - which Merik knew was her favorite song, since she was a maiden from north of Lovats. ~ Susan Dennard

When we can't find my sister, we know / she is under the kitchen table, a book in her hand, / a glass of milk and a small bowl of peanuts beside her. / We know we can call Odella's name out loud, / slap the table hard with our hands, / dance around it singing 'She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain' / so many times the song makes us sick / and the circling makes us dizzy / and still / my sister will do nothing more / than slowly turn the page. ~ Jacqueline Woodson

I want to give the people a lot more, and be able to perform more than just my one single and all my old songs ... ~ Juelz Santana

And when she told us her wedding song - of course, they've already picked their wedding song, and of course, it's "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong - I said that choosing that song is the sonic equivalent of buying picture frames and never replacing the photos of the models. ~ Rainbow Rowell

When you're writing a song and there are five people invested in it, it's easy for one person to say, 'Oh, this song is about this and that', and everyone has to hear the idea and see if they can do better. ~ Jason Mraz

Some of the fanmail is interesting! Some of it's the lyrics to the songs and stuff, and they'll like, send me their favourite lines, which is cool to ... know what people are liking. Most of them are really cool to read. ~ Miley Cyrus

My eyes adored ya
Though I never laid a hand on you
My eyes adored ya
Like a million miles away from me you couldn't see how I adored ya
So close, so close and yet so far ~ Frankie Valli

In each medium - popular music, literature, and visual art, respectively - the woman has broken form, shed a skin, with each phase of her career, whereas the man has returned to ever-deepening iterations of the sound or sentence or imagery with which he began. ~ Stacey D'Erasmo

So we're considering doing a new Christmas album, because there's been Christmas episodes since then, and maybe finally do the version of 'The Most Offensive Song Ever' with lyrics intact. ~ Trey Parker

Behind every dancer there's someone that broke her, a song that moved her, a moment that inspired her and a dance floor that healed her. ~ Hope Alcocer

There are very few things that live in both this world and the world of dreams. Most are gods, angels and demons. The Stone you hold was made by Vlad Valkire the son of an angel and a demon. By the divine blood that ran in his veins, Valkire could see the light and hear the song of creation -- if only as glimmerings and whispers.
"Over time, he became aware of the light and the music and as he grew so did his understanding of it. At the age of twenty two, he began his greatest labor -- the making of the Wyrd Stones. In them he captured the light and song of creation and by them some of the powers of gods, angels and demons fell into the hands of elves and men. A sorcerer who knows its secret may -- like a god, angel, or demon -- stand with one foot in this world and another within the world of dreams.
"Your Stone is a gateway into the world of dreams, Luthiel. When you sing, it opens and you are, in part, taken there. Others who hold a Wyrd Stone like yours may know when someone crosses into dream. When you sang, I could hear you quite clearly. ~ Robert Fanney

I was gonna write songs, I was gonna be a star and a singer and I never thought of doing anything else. ~ Kim Carnes

All the gold in the world was worth around $7 trillion. If Bitcoin became even half as popular, that would put the value of each Bitcoin at around half a million dollars - or ~ Nathaniel Popper

God took His time to carve out the perfect place, Sam remembered her grandma always saying.
Indeed, the hilltop was akin to a real cherry on top of a stunningly picturesque sundae. Bayview Point was home to two of northern Michigan's most popular orchards and tourist stops: Very Cherry Orchards and her family's Orchard and Pie Pantry. The first half of the hill was dense with rows of tart cherry trees, and the limbs of the small, bushy trees were bursting with cherries, red arms waving at Sam as if to greet her home.
In the spring, these trees were filled with white blossoms that slowly turned as pink as a perfect rosé, their beauty so tender that it used to make Sam's heart ache when she would run through the orchards as part of her high school cross-country training.
Often, when Sam ran, the spring winds would tear at the tender flowers and make it look as though it were snowing in the midst of a beautiful warm day.
Like every good native, Sam knew cherries had a long history in northern Michigan. French settlers had cherry trees in their gardens, and a missionary planted the very first cherry trees on Old Mission Peninsula.
Very Cherry Orchards grew nearly 100 acres of Montmorency tart cherries in addition to Balaton cherries, black sweet cherries, plums, and nectarines. They sold their fruit to U-Pickers as well as large companies that made pies, but they had also become famous for their tart cherry juice concentrate, now sold at grocery and healt ~ Viola Shipman

Suddenly I began to find a strange meaning in old fairy-tales; woods, rivers, mountains, became living beings; mysterious life filled the night; with new interests and new expectations I began to dream again of distant travels; and I remembered many extraordinary things that I had heard about old monasteries. Ideas and feelings which had long since ceased to interest me suddenly began to assume significance and interest. A deep meaning and many subtle allegories appeared in what only yesterday had seemed to be naive popular fantasy or crude superstition. And the greatest mystery and the greatest miracle was that the thought became possible that death may not exist, that those who have gone may not have vanished altogether, but exist somewhere and somehow, and that perhaps I may see them again. I have become so accustomed to think "scientifically" that I am afraid even to imagine that there may be something else beyond the outer covering of life. I feel like a man condemned to death, whose companions have been hanged and who has already become reconciled to the thought that the same fate awaits him; and suddenly he hears that his companions are alive, that they have escaped and that there is hope also for him. And he fears to believe this, because it would be so terrible if it proved to be false, and nothing would remain but prison and the expectation of execution. ~ P.D. Ouspensky

By the time I was 12 or 13, I felt that I was special, because I could play the guitar and write songs. ~ Paul Simon