Peggy Lee Quotes

The song is just the given. It's how you cover it that matters.

I'm not a singer, a walking instrument like Aretha Franklin. When you get an Iggy Pop record, you don't get "Iggy Sings." I am also a style of music, an approach.

I try to steal something from the great singers. Of course, I don't want to imitate their sound, but I try to do a sort of compromise.

I do love to sing. Had I a longer set of thigh bones and a sweeter voice, I should have loved to be a performer.

The main thing in making your own music is that it's an expression of someone's personality and being. That's what people want to hear, and you can't really teach that - that's just something that comes out. Teaching just hones that.

There's not only emotion in the way you sing but also in what you sing. That way I can compensate it.

I can play piano, and I write everything on piano, but I don't really feel like a piano player, necessarily.

I change the language with which I use my voice. In opera, I know I have an orchestra behind me; I have to communicate to people very far from me.

As a songwriter, you tend to develop your own style, your own technique, based around what it is you're trying to write and perform, in terms of your own music. So a way of evolving a guitar style as a songwriter is much easier, I think, than developing a true style of your own just from listening to music or playing other people's music.

I have a very difficult time describing my music.

Every song that I've done is me in one way or another.

So when I'm playing, I'm sort of painting a feeling in the air.

'Soulfire' is a collection of stuff I've done in the past. Each song is an element of who I am: There's a doo-wop song on the album; a blues song, R&B and some jazz. For people who are going to be hearing me for the first time, it's an introduction to who I am.

I don't think anybody really super-consciously tries to develop a style to play.

I really like conducting my music in concerts because I'm convinced it's not just for films; it has its own life. It can live far away from the images of the movie.

My version of 'Fast Car' is in the same key as the original. To me that is where all the emotion lies.

During 'Torches,' I was more concerned with communicating the spirit of the song than the actual lyrics.

Strapping Young Lad is a representation of me, just as much as 'Ki,' 'Ghost,' 'Ziltoid' or 'Infinity.' There's no difference; it was just a different period of time.

As a composer, I'm basically trying to represent myself through my music in an honest way.

The 'Voice Kids U.K.' songs were chosen for me, and I had to try and make them mine.

I wanted to do pop music, and I wanted to dance. I wanted all this because that was me. This is my inner performer, that is what it wants, this is what my heart wants.

My records are one thing. My live performances are something totally different because they're very improvised performances.

A lot of my vocals were the first time I ever sang the song.

I can't really describe my sound.

It doesn't really matter what chords I play, what words I say or time of day it is, as it's only a Northern Song.