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And when you’re poor, you grow up fast.

Billie Holiday

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.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Exercise Myself Night Sing Stand
Don’t threaten me with love, baby. Let’s just go walking in the rain.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Love Rain Threat Walk
If I don’t have friends, then I ain’t nothing.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Friendship Myself
If I’m going to sing like someone else, then I don’t need to sing at all.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Myself Need Sing
One day a whole damn song fell into place in my head.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Day Head Lyrics Myself Place
I try to improvise like Les Young, Louis Armstrong or someone else I admire. What comes out is what I feel.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Feeling Improvisation Myself
You can’t copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you’re working without any real feeling.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

End Feeling Reality Work Yourself
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.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Money See World
In this country, don’t forget, a habit is no damn private hell. There’s no solitary confinement outside of jail. A habit is hell for those you love. And in this country it’s the worst kind of hell for those who love you.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Country Forget Hell Love Privacy Yourself
New Orleans is the only city in the world you go in to buy a pair of nylon stockings they want to know your head size.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Clothes Weird World Yourself
You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Appearance Hairs Plantation Yourself
I never sing a song the same way twice.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Myself Sing Song
People don’t understand the kind of fight it takes to record what you want to record the way you want to record it.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Fight Kind People Record Understand Yourself
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 HOLIDAY

Feeling Happiness Sadness Yourself
I’ve been told that nobody sings the word ‘hunger’ like I do.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Hungry Myself Sing
The whole basis of my singing is feeling. Unless I feel something, I can’t sing.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Basis Feeling Myself Singing

And when you’re poor, you grow up fast.

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And when you’re poor, you grow up fast.

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