Perception of Music Quotes

One of the more distant concerns is with the visual interpretation of the music. I find it fascinating but I don't always particularly get involved with it.

[Early on,] the attitude was that what I was doing wasn't music.

Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music as if for the first time, as if I had never heard it before. Being so inescapably a part of it, I'll never know what the listener gets, what the listener feels, and that's too bad.

I once said to a boy, ‘You’re a really good kisser,’ and he said, ‘You’re only as good as the person you’re kissing.' I think it’s the same with the music. If someone [says], ‘Your music is really provocative,’ I’m only as provocative as the person that’s listening to it.

I mean you know at midnight everything is going to turn to pumpkins and mice; right? But if the evening goes along, I mean, you know, the guys look better all the time, the music sounds better, it's more and more fun, you think why the hell should I leave at quarter of 12. I'll leave at two minutes to 12. But the trouble is, there are no clocks on the wall. And everybody thinks they're going to leave at two minutes to 12.

Maybe you just get so attached to the music of your youth that you think it's better than what's coming out now.

There's a sadness to all kinds of music if you want to hear it. There's also happiness to it if you want to hear it.

I don't know that I make a big distinction between the big pieces and the little pieces, because I don't experience them in that way. I mean, by the same token, you're out touring with a band and then you're writing string quartets, and in a funny way, isn't it all the same, in a way? It's all just music.

It's what's on the record not what labels on it. You know, that's like getting a box of cornflakes and eating the cardboard.

If anyone takes me seriously then they actually must have a problem .. Music is fun its not algebra.

People wonder if there is a relationship between my lack of sight and the way I sing. But there's no connection.

Journalists say my music is "blue wave," or "dreamy," or "jangly-slacker jewel," and none of it really makes sense to me.

See deep enough, and you see musically.

I always see colors when I listen to music. It's difficult to explain, but when I hear the music I think about gold, blood rushing.

Today's parents grew up with the silly notion that music was meant to be heard.