I worshipped Ethel Merman and I worshipped Ethel Merman a lot. It’s incredible – Ethel Merman was a conventional singer. Her naming her child Ethel Merman, Jr., was, to me, one of the coolest feminist things.
BETH DITTOI never went to college and I was raised in Arkansas so there wasn’t a lot of academic language being thrown around my house.
More Beth Ditto Quotes
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When you see a fantastic colour or cut in a magazine, perched up on some famous so-and-so’s head, it’s tempting to ask your stylist for the same, but DO NOT BE FOOLED. The hair in those fancy photos can be very high maintenance.
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I knew that if I wanted to stop being a pushover I had to get comfortable with small rejections myself. That took some work, but because of it I can now say no to other people with a clear conscience.
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A few years back, when my style was “punk grandma”, I picked up an amazing pair of sandals – orthopaedic ones, with really thick soles. I’ve given them away to a friend now, because these days my look is more “1980s substitute teacher gone wild.”
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I think it’s really cool that there are people like Adele on the cover of ‘Vogue’ and ‘Rolling Stone,’ and like I think it’s really important that people are talking about your body, because if they don’t, then you’ll never be able to break that barrier.
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Someone told me once that Lucinda Williams takes six years between albums, and that’s what stuck to me; it’s like, you really are a factory. You don’t do things to make them, on your own time.
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The thing about being on the majors, from the beginning, going into this, I was like, “I’m not going to be treated like a factory,” because that’s never the way it was done before.
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This archaic idea – that a woman who is unmarried and childless at 30 is somehow unnatural – will probably always exist, and, like most social standards, it is ridiculous.
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I have learned so much making first collection that I am excited to use all of it towards making the next one even better! It’s been an amazing learning curve and experience.
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You’re talking about a major label, we’re talking about serious business; you’re not an artist anymore, you’re a business, you have to work in terms of product, you have to release a product, and I don’t really think that way at all.
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When I was a kid Ellen DeGeneres and Rosie O’Donnell were mere blips on the gaydar; and they were both still in the closet.
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There is no rule in the pink-triangle guide to coming out that you must wear a rainbow flag cap and organise a full band parade.
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True love is about being able to accept raw emotions, no matter how difficult.
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As with most phobias, the fear of flying does make some sense, but if ever there was a fear worth quashing then this is it. After all, life is short, and there’s a great big world to explore out there.
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I always was really confident about myself, about my voice, myself as a person, my body, all of those things, but as a songwriter – I just didn’t identify as a songwriter at all.
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Girls are taught to sing high and pretty, like Antony, not low and from the guts like Nina Simone. But we’re slowly trying to change that. There are so many things we’re not told growing up, and it’s our true feminist responsibility to take the truth to the people who need to hear it.
BETH DITTO