My people had used music to soothe slavery's torment or to propitiate God, or to describe the sweetness of love and the distress of lovelessness, but I knew no race could sing and dance its way to freedom.
Far in the pillared dark Thrush music went- Almost like a call to come in To the dark and lament. But no, I was out for stars: I would not come in. I meant not even if asked, And I hadn't been.
Who are you to judge the life I live? I know I'm not perfect -and I don't live to be- but before you start pointing fingers... make sure you hands are clean!
The more I compose, the more I know that I don't know it all. I think it's a good way to start. If you think you know it all, the work becomes a repetition of what you've already done.
Music is of two kinds: one petty, poor, second-rate, never varying, its base the hundred or so phrasings which all musicians understand, a babbling which is more or less pleasant, the life that most composers live.
All dese governments and dis this and that, these people that say they're here to help, why them say you cannot smoke the herb? Herb... herb is a plant, you know? And when me check it, me can't find no reason. All them say is, 'it make you rebel'. Against what?
An ear for music is very different from a taste for music. I have no ear whatever; I could not sing an air to save my life; but I have the intensest delight in music, and can detect good from bad.
Poetry and music I have banished,
But the stupidity
Of root, shoot, blossom or clay
Makes no demand.
I bend my body to the spade
Or grope with a dirty hand.