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I don’t think I’m singing. I feel like I’m playing a horn, What comes out is what I feel.

Billie Holiday

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

Hungry Myself Sing
Mom and Pop were just a couple of kids when they got married. He was eighteen, she was sixteen and I was three.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Marriage Myself Parents Young
Love is like a faucet, it turns off and on.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Emotion Feeling Love
If I don’t have friends, then I ain’t nothing.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Friendship Myself
Somebody once said we never know what is enough until we know what’s more than enough.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Enough Known Limitation
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 can’t stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession, let alone two years or ten years.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Myself Night Sing Song Stand
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
Lust may be in the heart, though it be not seen by others; as guests may be in the house, though they look not out at the windows.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Heart Home Lust Window
Don’t threaten me with love, baby. Let’s just go walking in the rain.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Love Rain Threat Walk
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.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Better Hard Kill Sing Slow Way
I don’t think I ever sing the same way twice. The blues is sort of a mixed-up thing. You just have to feel it. Anything I do sing is part of my life.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Feeling Life Myself Sing Thinking Way
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
Don’t be in such a hurry.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Hurry One Liner Patience Time
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
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 difficult I’ll do right now. The impossible will take a little while.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Difficult Impossible Inspirational Myself Right
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.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Goodness Mindset Thinking Yourself
God bless the child that’s got his own.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Blessing Children God Independent
A kiss that is never tasted, is forever and ever wasted.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Kiss Love Sex Taste Wasted
When you sing, always tell the truth.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Sing Truth Yourself
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.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Children Himself Lose
If you copy, it means you’re working without any real feeling. No two people on earth are alike, and it’s got to be that way in music or it isn’t music.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Earth Feeling Imitation Music People Reality Work Yourself
I never hurt nobody but myself and that’s nobody’s business but my own.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Business Hurt Myself

I don’t think I’m singing. I feel like I’m playing a horn, What comes out is what I feel.

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I don’t think I’m singing. I feel like I’m playing a horn, What comes out is what I feel.

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