People always say 'Etta, you know what your problem is? You're neither fish nor fowl. There is no place to rack you.' When I would go in a record shop, you might find one or two records by me in different stacks.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the struggle of identity and belonging in a world that categorizes people.
Etta James expresses the challenge of feeling out of place or not fitting into defined categories, as illustrated by her experience in record shops. This speaks to a broader human experience of individuality and the pressure to conform to societal expectations, highlighting the complexity of identity when faced with rigid classifications.
In practice
In a motivational speech about self-acceptance.
Jazz took too much discipline. You have to come in at the right place, which is different than me singing the blues, where I can sing, 'Oh, baby,' if there's a pause in the melody. With jazz, you better leave that space open, or put in something real cool.
I figured I could do "It's A Man's, Man's, Man's World" because I believe it's the truth.
It's not about battling the original artists when I record these songs, it's about paying tribute to them.
I wanna show that gospel, country, blues, rhythm and blues, jazz, rock 'n' roll are all just really one thing. Those are the American music and that is the American culture.
The only time that I am really truly happy—when I feel at my best—is when I'm on the stage.
When I'm singing the blues, I'm singing life.
The moment that justice must be paid for by the victim of injustice it becomes itself injustice.
But this was what happened when you didn't want to visit and confront the past: the past starts visiting and confronting you.
The planter, the farmer, the mechanic, and the laborer...form the great body of the people of the United States they are the bone and sinew of the country men who love liberty and desire nothing but equal rights and equal laws.
He who is only just is cruel; who Upon the earth would live were all judged justly?
I went to get a detective story. You have to kill time. But time will kill me too - and there´s the true, preestablished balance.
In time, Mr Hall, one gets to recognize that sneer, that hardness, for fornication extends far beyond the actual deed. Were it a deed only, I for one would not hold it anathema. But when the nations went a whoring they invariably ended by denying God, I think, and until all sexual irregularities and not some of them are penal the Church will never reconquer England.
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