I was born with music inside me. Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart. Like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me-like food or water.
Interpretation
Music is an essential part of who I am, as vital as life itself.
In this quote, Ray Charles emphasizes the integral role that music plays in his existence, comparing it to essential organs and life-sustaining elements like food and water. He suggests that music is not just an activity or passion for him, but an innate part of his identity that he cannot live without.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of music education in schools.
I suppose I've always done my share of crying, especially when there's no other way to contain my feelings. I know that men ain't supposed to cry, but I think that's wrong. Crying's always been a way for me to get things out which are buried deep, deep down. When I sing, I often cry. Crying is feeling, and feeling is being human. Oh yes, I cry.
I never wanted to be famous. I only wanted to be great.
To me, music is entertainment - what else can it be? In fact, it's the only language I know of that's universal.
Just because you can't see anything , doesn't mean you should shut your eyes.
Any artist, when he goes in to record, should have the feeling that any song he records can be a hit. This may sound egotistical, but it makes sense.
When I started to sing like myself - as opposed to imitating Nat Cole, which I had done for a while - when I started singing like Ray Charles, it had this spiritual and churchy, this religious or gospel sound. It had this holiness and preachy tone to it. It was very controversial. I got a lot of criticism for it.
It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance, for our consideration and application of these things, and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process.
A poet can write about a man slaying a dragon, but not about a man pushing a button that releases a bomb.
Music must be listened to; it is not enough to hear it. A duck hears also.
Somewhere along the line a convention developed that the opening of a film was just a laundry list of credits. There was no incentive to complicate an area that was settled.
My own thing is in my head. I hear sounds and if I don't get them together nobody else will.
One does not read a poem by Gwendolyn Brooks with hopes that it will grant him a career in engineering; he does so because poetry helps him see something in the world that he might not have seen before.
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