The blues to me is like being very sad, very sick, going to church, being very happy … it’s sort of a mixed up thing. You just have to feel it.
BILLIE HOLIDAYOne day a whole damn song fell into place in my head.
More Billie Holiday Quotes
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In this country kings or dukes don’t amount to nothing. The greatest man around then was Franklin D. Roosevelt, and he was the President; so I started calling Lester the President. It got shortened to Pres.
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I never hurt nobody but myself and that’s nobody’s business but my own.
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Love is like a faucet, it turns off and on.
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I hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my own way of doing it. That’s all I know.
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I can only sing songs my way. I don’t know any other way.
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Dope never helped anybody sing better or play music better or do anything better. All dope can do for you is kill you – and kill you the long, slow, hard way.
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I can’t stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession. If you can, then it ain’t music, it’s close order drill, or exercise or yodeling or something, not music.
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I joined Count Basie’s band to make a little money and to see the world. For two years I didn’t see anything but the inside of a Blue Goose bus, and I never got to send home a quarter.
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The whole basis of my singing is feeling. Unless I feel something, I can’t sing.
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If you think dope is for kicks and for thrills, you’re out of your mind. There are more kicks to be had in a good case of paralytic polio or by living in an iron lung.
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Don’t threaten me with love, baby. Let’s just go walking in the rain.
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One day a whole damn song fell into place in my head.
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You can’t copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you’re working without any real feeling.
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Them that’s got shall get, Them that’s not shall lose. So the Bible says, And it still is news. Mama may have, Papa may have, But God bless the child that’s got his own.
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I try to improvise like Les Young, Louis Armstrong or someone else I admire. What comes out is what I feel.
BILLIE HOLIDAY