Blues Quotes

John will never forsake the weak and the helpless, nor fail to bring hope to the hopeless. That is what they believe, and so they do not worry. They go on and laugh and sing. Things are bound to come out right tomorrow. That is the secret of Negro song and laughter.

~ Zora Neale Hurston

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever i find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet... I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

~ Herman Melville

After we became a couple, she composed our time together. She planned days as if they were artistic events. One afternoon we went to Tybee Island for a picnic; we ate blueberries and drank champagne tinted with curacao and listened to Miles Davis, and when I asked the name of her perfume, she said it was L'Heure Bleue.She talked about 'perfect moments.' One such moment happened that afternoon; she'd been napping; I lay next to her, reading. She said, 'I'll always remember the sounds of the sea and of pages turning, and the smell of L'Heure Bleue. For me they signify love.

~ Susan Hubbard

Sometimes I ask myself how autumn smells? My answer: it's the smell of the autumn leaves firework and red wine.

~ Bryanna Reid

The blues is relevant today because when we look down through the corridors of time, the black American interpretation of tragicomic hope in the face of dehumanizing hate and oppression will be seen as the only kind of hope that has any kind of maturity in a world of overwhelming barbarity and bestiality. That barbarity is found not just in the form of terrorism but in the form of the emptiness of our lives - in terms of the wasted human potential that we see around the world. In this sense, the blues is a great democratic contribution of black people to world history.

~ Cornel West

Blues are the songs of despair, but gospel songs are the songs of hope.

~ Mahalia Jackson

The blues are important primarily because they contain the cultural expression and the cultural response to blacks in America and to the situation that they find themselves in. And contained in the blues is a philosophical system at work. And as part of the oral tradition, this is a way of passing along information.

~ August Wilson

I'm very lucky that people are able to say, 'Oh, that's that Moody Blues guy!' I'm very fortunate with that. That's all. Without the songs, I think, I'd just be a pretty average karaoke singer. In the end, it comes down to the songs: the strength of the songs.

~ Justin Hayward

I was in a rock band; I was my own folk singer; I was in a death metal band for a very short time; I was in a cover band, a jazz band, a blues band. I was in a gospel choir.

~ Kiesza

My idea of heaven is a place where the Tyne meets the Delta, where folk music meets the blues.

~ Mark Knopfler

I've said that playing the blues is like having to be black twice. Stevie Ray Vaughan missed on both counts, but I never noticed.

~ B. B. King

The blues. It runs through all American music. Somebody bending the note. The other is the two-beat groove. It's in New Orleans music, it's in jazz, it's in country music, it's in gospel.

~ Wynton Marsalis

When I think of music, I think of music in its totality, complete. From the lowest blues to the highest symphony, you know, so what I'd like to do is exemplify each style of as many periods as I can possibly do.

~ Donny Hathaway

The reflection of the world is blues, that's where that part of the music is at. Then you got this other kind of music that's tryin' to come around.

~ Jimi Hendrix

From the first album, Led Zeppelin was always going to be a totally new approach from what had gone before - whether it was approaching the blues or folk music like 'Babe I'm Gonna Leave You': nothing existed like that.

~ Jimmy Page

The fact that we elected Obama was a sign that the black struggle inherent in the blues and so much of the music I have loved can triumph.

~ Jack White

I didn't want to go out and change anything. I just wanted to make the music that was part of my background, which was rock and blues and hip-hop.

~ Kid Rock

It was stumbling on to really the bible of the blues, you know, and a very powerful drug to be introduced to us and I absorbed it totally, and it changed my complete outlook on music.

~ Eric Clapton

What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man.

~ Ray Charles

I find Indian music very funky. I mean it's very soulful, with their own kind of blues. But it's the only other school on the planet that develops improvisation to the high degree that you find in jazz music. So we have a lot of common ground.

~ Mahavishnu John Mclaughlin

Lorne finally said, Do the Blues Brothers thing. The response was amazing. People went nuts.

~ Steve Cropper

I grew up with a heavy diet of gospel, folk, and blues because those are kind of the cornerstones of traditional American music.

~ Ben Harper

The next thing I knew, I was out of the service and making movies again. My first picture was called, GI Blues. I thought I was still in the army.

~ Elvis Presley

While the House of Blues slogan has been 'In blues we trust,' its stages are usually filled with more reliable moneymakers - Neil Diamond and A Tribe Called Quest among them.

~ Bill Dedman

One thing the blues ain't, is funny.

~ Stephen Stills

I don't wanta do any Blues or any sad songs.

~ Bob Livingston

I'm a human being. I feel all emotions. I'm not just happy all the time. Sometimes, I'm sad and feel the blues. Sometimes I even want to feel the blues. Sometimes, you want to feel down.

~ Tracy Morgan

The delta blues is a low-down, dirty shame blues. It's a sad, big wide sound, something to make you think about people who are dead or the women who left you.

~ David Edwards

There's no way in the world I can feel the same blues the way I used to. When I play in Chicago, I'm playing up-to-date, not the blues I was born with. People should hear the pure blues - the blues we used to have when we had no money.

~ Muddy Waters

I have heartaches, I have blues. No matter what you got, the blues is there. 'Cause that's all I know - the blues. And I can sing the blues so deep until you can have this room full of money and I can give you the blues.

~ John Lee Hooker

It was a time after 'Lady Sings the Blues' and 'Mahogany' and all those romantic movies: I became this romantic figure on the street in a very special way.

~ Billy Dee Williams

Everybody thinks I'm, like, a bad boy. I've had my day, but I just sit at home and play the blues mostly.

~ Brad Renfro

I guess music, particularly the blues, is the only form of schizophrenia that has organised itself into being both legal and beneficial to society.

~ Alexis Korner

When you break it all down, my punk rock is my dad's blues. It's music from the underground, and it's real, and it's written for the downtrodden in uncertain times.

~ Frank Iero