"Get a radio or a phonograph capable of the most extreme loudness possible, and sit down to listen to a performance of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony or of Shubert’s C-Major Symphony. But I don’t mean just sit down and listen. I mean this: turn it on as loud as you can get it. Then get down on the floor and jam your ear as close into the loudspeaker as you can get it and stay there, breathing as lightly as possible, and not moving, and neither eating nor drinking. Concentrate everything you can into your hearing and into your body. You won’t hear it nicely. If it hurts you, be glad of it. As near as you will ever get, you are inside the music; not only inside, you are it; your body is no longer your shape and substance, it is the shape and substance of music."
— Let Us Know Praise Famous Men by James Agee
"She was indeed like the fairy of silence, and only now, did I realize that even yesterday, in all that music and the milling crowd, she had walked in an island of silence, had floated in the purified atmosphere of silence, as if a few steps from her everything had gone quiet, and her big velvety eyes had muffled the noise of the soul as velvet cushions muffle sound."
— The Nightmare by Milhaly Babits
"I’ve changed the course of music five times. What have you done besides marry the President?"
— Miles Davis, addressing First Lady Nancy Reagan after she had asked him what he had done to deserve a place at a White House dinner.
"It seemed…that her voice sounded quite different in the silvery blue of the night…loud, clear and gentle, it had, as it were, arches and curves; he believed he could see the voice and almost catch hold of it. Soon he had the sensation that it made an arch over his head and that he was standing directly beneath it."
— Weights and Measures by Joseph Roth
"I think it’s strange you never knew."
— Fade Into You by Mazzy Star
For those who like “all kinds of music, except rap.”
Be having dreams that I’ma gangster, drinking Moets, holding Tecs
Making sure the cash came correct then I stepped
Investments in stocks, sewing up the blocks
To sell rocks, winning gunfights with mega cops
But just a nigga, walking with his finger on the trigger
Make enough figures until my pockets get bigger
I ain’t the type of brother made for you to start testing
Give me a Smith and Wessun I’ll have niggas undressing
Thinking of cash flow, Buddha and shelter
Whenever frustrated I’ma hijack Delta
In the P.J.’s, my blend tape plays, bullets are strays
Young bitches is grazed each block is like a maze
Full of black rats trapped, plus the Island is packed
From what I hear in all the stories when my peoples come back
“NY State of Mind” by Nas
I hope it’s not too late
I got my whole life packed inside a suitcase
Ridin’ in a Chevy that should’ve been a Mercedez
Tryna keep my head above water
So I stayed out the navy
I, I, I made a promise to my girl
Said Imma leave town and bring back the whole world
“Wait for Me” by Big Sean
When pop died, didn’t cry, didn’t know him that well
Between him doing heroin and me doing crack sales
With that in the egg shell standing at the tabernacle
Rather the church pretending to be hurt
Wouldn’t work so a smirk was all on my face
Like damn that mans face was just like my face
So pop I forgive you for all the shit that I live through
It wasn’t all your fault homie you got caught
And to the same game I fault that Uncle Ray lost
My big brothers and so many others I saw
I’m just glad we got to see each other
Talk and re-meet each other save a place in Heaven
Til the next time we meet forever
“Moment of Clarity” by Jay-Z
I love it when I tell em shove it
Cause it wasn’t that long ago when Marshall sat, luster lacked, flustered
Cuz he couldn’t cut mustard, muster up nothing
Brain fuzzy, cause he’s buzzin’, woke up from that buzz
Now you wonder why he does it, how he does it
Wasn’t cause he had buzzards circle around his head
Waiting for him to drop dead, was it?
Or was it, cause some bitches wrote him off
Little hussy ass fusses, cause fuck it, guess it doesn’t matter now, does it?
What difference it make?
What it take to get it through your thick skulls
That this ain’t some bullshit
People don’t usually come back this way
From a place that was dark as I was
Just to get to this place
Now let these words be like a switch blade to a haters rib cage
And let it be known from this day forward
I wanna just say thanks cause your hate is what gave me the strength
So let em bic’s raise cause I came in at 5’9′ but I feel like I’m 6’8″
“Lighters” by Eminem
And i’m brainless which means i’m headless like Icabar Craine is
Or foreplayless sex is which makes me saneless
With no neck left to hang a chain with
Wich makes me neckless less like a necklace theft
And I ain’t use my headrest yet
They say they need proof like a vestless chest
About to best fair FF jet in the nest
To excuse confidence and access debts
Even scuba Steve will find it hard to breathe around these leagues
My snorkle is a tuba Luda Ruda around these seas
Westside beside him Westside beside him
Chest high and rising almost touching the knees
Of stewardist and the pilot lucky they make flowered
Personal floating devices is falling out of sleeves
David Blane, make it rain, make a boat I make a plain
Then I pull the plug and I make it drain
Until I feel like flowing and filling it up again
“Dumb it Down” by Lupe Fiasco
Now hear ye hear ye want to see Thee more clearly
I know He hear me when my feet get weary
Cause we’re the almost nearly extinct
We rappers are role models- we rap we don’t think
I ain’t here to argue about his facial features
Or here to convert atheists into believers
I’m just trying to say the way school need teachers
The way Kathie Lee needed Regis that’s the way I need Jesus
So here go my single dog radio needs this
They said you can rap about anything except for Jesus
That means guns, sex, lies, video tape
But if I talk about God my record won’t get played
Huh?
Well let this take away from my spins
Which will probably take away from my ends
Then I hope this take away from my sins
And bring the day that I’m dreaming about
Next time I’m in the club everybody screaming out “Jesus walks”
“Jesus Walks” by Kanye West
*especially those who like poetry…except rap?*
"Let me tell you a little secret about the blues. It’s not enuogh to know which notes you need to play. You gotta know why they need to be played."
— George Carlin
"Do you think there’s a heaven where some screams have gone?"
— Tori Amos
“People don’t know that on “Nowhere to Run,” we used chains, the kind you put on your tires when it snows. We’d do anything. Anything goes.”
Brian Holland
(Source: kiboxx)
"Shoo-be-doo-bee-doo-da-day"
— Stevie Wonder
"You know the more love that I gave it always gave me back
And if I ever borrowed something than I payed it back
And if I ever did you wrong then forgive me
But please don’t put no evil on me
Cause I’m just another brother from a mother and a father
Tryin’ to make his way in the world."
— Free by G. Love
"I am covered in skin/No one gets to come in"
— Counting Crows
Trummy Young, Louis Armstrong, and Edmond Hall in West Africa, 1956.
(Source: captainpeebles, via classicbluenotes)
"The multiple reinforcing cues of a good song–rythm, melody, contour–cause music to stick in our heads. That is the reason that many ancient myths, epics, and even the Old Testament were set to music in preparation for being passed down by oral tradition across the generations. As a tool for activation of specific thoughts, music is not as good as language. As a tool for arousing feelings and emotions, music is better than language. The combination of the two–as best exemplified in a love song–is the best courtship display of all."
— This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel J. Levitin
"Everybody here
Get it out of control,
Get your backs off the wall
Cause Miss Demeanor said so."
— Missy Elliott
