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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.

Billie Holiday

Love is like a faucet, it turns off and on.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Emotion Feeling Love
God bless the child that’s got his own.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Blessing Children God Independent
I can only sing songs my way. I don’t know any other way.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

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

Myself Need Sing
There’s no damn business like show business – you have to smile to keep from throwing up.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Business Smile Throw Yourself
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
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
When Lester plays, he almost seems to be singing; one can almost hear the words.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Hear Himself Play Singing Word
I don’t think I’m singing. I feel like I’m playing a horn, What comes out is what I feel.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Feeling Horn Myself Sing Thinking
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
A kiss that is never tasted, is forever and ever wasted.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Kiss Love Sex Taste Wasted
Sometimes it’s worse to win a fight than to lose.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Fight Lose Time Win Worst
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 hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my own way of doing it. That’s all I know.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Change Hate Music Myself Sing
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
All dope can do for you is kill you… the long hard way. And it can kill the people you love right along with you.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Hard Kill Love Yourself
One day a whole damn song fell into place in my head.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Day Head Lyrics Myself Place
Don’t threaten me with love, baby. Let’s just go walking in the rain.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Love Rain Threat Walk
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
Don’t be in such a hurry.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Hurry One Liner Patience Time
I never hurt nobody but myself and that’s nobody’s business but my own.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

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

Basis Feeling Myself Singing
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.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Country Greatness Myself Short Start
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
Singing songs like ‘The Man I Love’ or ‘Porgy’ is no more work than sitting down and eating Chinese roast duck, and I love roast duck.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Love Myself Sing Work
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

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 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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Billie Holiday Quotes