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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.

Billie Holiday

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
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
I never had a chance to play with dolls like other kids. I started working when I was six years old.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Chance Myself Play Work
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
I never sing a song the same way twice.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Myself Sing Song
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
Sometimes it’s worse to win a fight than to lose.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Fight Lose Time Win Worst
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
Love is like a faucet, it turns off and on.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Emotion Feeling Love
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
When you sing, always tell the truth.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Sing Truth 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
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 never hurt nobody but myself and that’s nobody’s business but my own.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Business Hurt Myself
Don’t be in such a hurry.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Hurry One Liner Patience Time
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
A kiss that is never tasted, is forever and ever wasted.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Kiss Love Sex Taste Wasted
You’ve got to have something to eat and a little love in your life before you can hold still for any damn body’s sermon on how to behave.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Body Eat Life Love Yourself
If nobody can learn from the past, then there’s no point in raking it up.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Learning Past Point
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
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
They think they can make fuel from horse manure – now, I don’t know if your car will be able to get 30 miles to the gallon, but it’s sure gonna put a stop to siphoning.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Known Myself Stop Thinking Willing
Somebody once said we never know what is enough until we know what’s more than enough.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Enough Known Limitation
And when you’re poor, you grow up fast.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Fast Growth Poor Yourself
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
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
One day a whole damn song fell into place in my head.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Day Head Lyrics Myself Place

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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