Ray Charles Quotes

In singing, you cannot 'cheat' if you want to give emotions to those who are listening. You must have something to tell.

When a singer truly feels and experiences what the music is all about, the words will automatically ring true.

I've always believed you should sing songs you can really put yourself into. I think the emotion you put into it is just as important as singing the notes.

Self-expression is my goal, I want to be real with my feelings. Singing and dancing and all the joy that goes with performing come from my heart. If I can't feel it, I won't do it.

You can't just sing the song and live another life, you know. It's really difficult now because that's not what it's about. It's pop and pop just says that we could be actors. We could sing about stuff and not believe in it. It could be absolutely fraudulent and it doesn't really matter.

I get an audience personally involved in a song - because I'm involved myself. It's not something I do deliberately: I can't help myself. If the song is a lament at the loss of love, I get an ache in my gut. I feel the loss myself and I cry out the loneliness, the hurt and the pain that I feel.

Speaking with passion born of your own authentic experience and belief is always persuasive.

I think most actors rarely get the opportunity to play something really close to you and speaks to something you deeply believe.

Find one person in the audience and sing to them with all of your heart. And then cast a spell over them. Hoss, if you can't do it with feeling - don't.

Well, I make every song I sing personal. I've never chosen a song that wasn't.

If you're writing anything decent, it's in you, it's your spirit coming out. If it's not an expression of how a person genuinely feels, then it's not a good song done with any conviction.

You can't fake this music. You might be a great singer or a great musician but, in the need, that's got nothing to do with it. It's how you connect to the songs and to the history behind them.

Anything I sing is supposed to be genuine. It's not supposed to be make-believe or I'm making something for the crowd to jump or to hold up their hands.

I don't want to stand on stage night after night, without being on my face beforehand truly crying out for those that have come to the event.

The heart must glow before the tongue can gild.

'Unbelievers' was a song that we felt like we could tackle, so that's one of the reasons we wanted to start playing it live, we really believed in that song and we still believe in that song a lot.

I'm developed as an artist to accept the fact there are different points of view, but I believe in what I do and I have to stay with that.

I'm just writing love songs. I'm not trying to be pop. I'm not trying to be jazz. I'm not trying to be anything. I'm just writing love songs. And everyone loves a love song.

What I react against in other people's work, as a filmgoer, is when I see something in a movie that I feel is supposed to make me feel emotional, but I don't believe the filmmaker shares that emotion. They just think the audience will. And I think you can feel that separation. So any time I find myself writing something that I don't really respond to, but I'm telling myself, 'Oh yes, but the audience is going to like this,' then I know I'm on the wrong track and I just throw it out.

Most black singers like to slow the word down and, and go directly to your heart. They're not interested in your ears, we just want to go directly to your heart.

When the melody touches your heart emotionally and the words hit your brain intellectually, more than likely you'll find you'll have an excellent song to sing.

I think it's important to be able to write stuff that's personal to you and stuff that you'll really be able to understand what you're singing about and be able to truly sing it. Because if you're singing a song that someone's written for you and you really can't relate to it, it's hard to sing that song.

I love you," she said, and I knew she meant it because she spoke the words from the heart at the center of her chest. This, at least, had not been left behind at the hospital.

Writing is too hard not to do exactly what you want to do. It's a very draining and agonizing process for me, and I don't want to live with any piece of work that I don't believe in completely. I have to believe completely in what I'm doing. It has grown organically out of my own experience.

I've always been drawn to the best writing that I can find. I don't care if it's in movies or theater or whatever - if you want to be in front of an audience, you have to do writing you believe in.