Lata Mangeshkar Quotes

Singing isn't always about being on key; it's about emotionality.

I'm not really a songwriter - I'm an interpreter. So in a sense I am an actress first and foremost. I act out the songs, and I lead with my heart.

It's not enough to hit the notes. There is no point in the singers just standing there and sounding wonderful if they're not connecting with the characters they are portraying.

For my money, Tony Bennett is the best singer in the business. He excites me when I watch him. He moves me. He's the singer who gets across what the composer has in mind, and probably a little more.

We have to put expressions in a song when we sing it.

Of course we all know when music's too much in the head, and we define our greatest players by the way they are able to communicate directly from their emotional selves.

When Lester plays, he almost seems to be singing; one can almost hear the words.

And I like to interpret music. So I think it's all interpretive.

It doesn't necessarily mean at all that the composer plays his own works best.

You know, when I did 'American Idol' the three times, I tried to tell these kids you have to tell the story of the lyric.

I tend to explain my songs.

I have often heard the statement made by foreign singers, as a demonstrated fact, that the German artists are artists in feeling indeed, and serious in their devotion, but that their singing is crude.

Nobody sang better than my mom. That's why I've never even thought of singing for singing sake. I've always thought of a song as an acting piece, as a way to say something.

People assume that the meaning of a song is vested in the lyrics. To me, that has never been the case. There are very few songs that I can think of where I remember the words.

The quality of the writing, really. Simple as that. Beautiful words. It's very nice as a singer to do great songs, which have wonderful lyrics and strong feelings underneath the song.

I go for as much feeling as I can rather than show what I can do up and down the neck. I don't play to show people ability.

I love to sing and I do think that my strength as a singer is... I think I have a voice that is certainly sufficient under most any circumstances... but I think my strength is that I really am an actor and I really do have to own what I am saying.

It is jazz music that called me to be a musician and I have always sang the songs that moved me the most. Singers, like Frank Sinatra and myself, we interpret the songs that we like. Not unlike a Shakespearean actor that goes back to the greatest words ever written, we go back to the greatest songs.

I can't sing, like, I can't saaang. I'm no Luther! That to me is singing. Being able to hit a note doesn't mean you can sing.

We singers have a different level of responsibility from other musicians. We have words that we must convey; we have meanings that we must convey through these lyrics.

Not only was it enough to be a cover band, it was perhaps the highest calling. After all, if you could play music recorded by others, stay true to the original, and still add fire and flare, why not?

I have sung, but I haven't sung in any way that I would ever call myself 'a singer.'

My advice to singers is always the same: 'Don't sing the song, sing the lyric.'

Singing beautiful melodies is one thing, but to deliver the text so that the people understand it, even in a foreign language, has to be worked at very hard.

I think I'm a soulful singer.