Jimmy Somerville Quotes

When you hear people scream because they're about to hear a song that has been a part of their life, there's nothing like that.

That's what music has always been to me: a feel. I've listened to the Stones many times and it still makes me have that feeling of joy every time. They are still around and put on a really exciting show. We also give it 120 percent.

Music remains the most strange of the materials because we don't understand what happens when music moves you.

When I first played '1234' it was on stage in San Francisco at some kind of, like, sticky-floored club. And it felt like a punk song. I mean it's ridiculous to say that now, but it had that kind of, like, piercing straight melody. And then this fist-pumping ending, you know that pa-dap-pada.

The first time I heard The Beatles, I cried. It was 'Let it Be'.

My fans get passionate about certain songs.

Watching artists like Joplin perform, I felt that tingle down my spine; I experienced the wonders of a cultural and musical revolution.

In most cases, my favorite Jethro Tull songs will be determined by how I feel about them as live performance songs, not by the recorded identity.

Music emotionally and psychologically transports you immediately.

When I go to a live show, I want to be moved. That's why you do it. And it's not very often that a band will move you live.

I realized you can be the dopest producer technically, but if the songs don't give you emotion, it doesn't matter.

I love how music can create an audiovisual experience. To me, some of the best music is the music that does that.

I never knew listening to a song could give you goose bumps and make you cry until I listened to Lauryn Hill.

'Varmathiye' is a song that can touch your hearts.

To see fans singing our songs and loving them and dancing or crying to some of them, it feels like the first time you ever played it. It really gets to you, like day one.

You hear sounds and orchestration, it's ... the fastest way, I think, to your emotions, even if you don't understand the language of the song.

A great song can make you cry and transport you to another dimension.

Indeed, there is a moment on the first CD - the electrifying opening to "I Got Loaded," which sounds like an R&B standard but isn't - when you might find yourself asking whether anyone who has ever been smitten by pop music can fail to have his heart stopped by the chords, the swing, and, once again, Steve Berlin's wonderfully greasy sax.

I mean there’s a certain finality about a movie, when it’s done it’s done – that raised eyebrow in that moment will always be that raised eyebrow. Whereas a play only lives as a blueprint for a performance on any given night. There’s a reason you can eat popcorn and watch a movie and you can’t do that in the theatre. Theatre you have to lean in, you have to tune your ear to the stage and participateI respond to heat. And blood. And humanity. The cold experience is not for me. I’ve always enjoyed all the real people in a room together in the theatre.

The feeling you get from playing to a good audience is hard to describe without sounding as though you are talking silly. But reaction is important. You might feel in yourself that you're doing it ok but it's when you get the live reaction that you know you're doing it right.

I just remember standing there, singing with the headphones on and the strings playing, just how wonderful that felt. But we so rarely got to go out and do it. Obviously, we don't carry a 70-80-piece orchestra with us when we do shows.

A good song can make you smile, or it can make you dance or laugh or remind you of a moment.

Music films are great, but they can never compete with a live performance. Live music is what it is. It's the whole point. You experience it in the moment.

Why is it that whenever I hear music I think I’m a bride?

Songs are like movies to me, and so you put yourself in the movie. You become a character in the movie. The new ones are exciting because they're fresh. But if it's not that, if the story is not what you get into, maybe it's the crowd response. You hit the first chords of 'She's In Love With The Boy' and 20,000 people start to scream, you're pretty motivated. You get what you need. And it's a great story. It works.