Star Trek: Voyager TV - Ken Dodd - Wilfred Owen - Chekhov: Comedy Shorts TV - William Morris - William Wordsworth - William Shakespeare - The Karen Carpenter Story 1989 - George Orwell - Plato - Janis Joplin - Marilyn Monroe - Kurt Cobain - Johnny Cash - Brian Eno - Mick Jagger - Amy Winehouse - Tom Waits - A Journey Through American Music TV - Howard Goodall TV - Billie Holiday - Ella Fitzgerald - Etta James - Ken Burns TV - Masters of American Music TV - That Swing Thing TV - Blues America TV - The Carpenters: Close to You TV - Gary Giddins - Psalms 96:1 - Psalms 98:1 - Psalms 149:1 - 20 Feet From Stardom 2013 - Searching for Sugar Man TV - Incredible Medicine: Dr Weston’s Casebook TV - Nat King Cole: Afraid of the Dark 2014 - Definitely Dusty 2020 -
The doctor’s going to sing something called Danny Boy. Star Trek: Voyager s6e11: Fair Haven, Neelix to Janeway
Ken Dodd to ventriloquist dummy: What do you want to sing?
Dummy: What do you know?
Thou suck’st away the intoxicating air,
Trailing a wake of song in trilling bubbles. Wilfred Owen, The Swift, An Ode
Tenors by Christ are a torment beside which mosquitoes are positively benign ... They attack the central nervous system. Chekhov: Comedy Shorts: A Reluctant Tragic Hero starring Johnny Vegas & Mackenzie Crook, Vegas, Sky Arts 2010
The idle singer of an empty day. William Morris, The Earthly Paradise, 1868
Will no one tell me what she sings?
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago. William Wordsworth, The Solitary Reaper, 1807
Do you sing it, and I’ll dance it. William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing III iv 41, Margaret to Beatrice et al
You don’t want to get fat, do you? The Karen Carpenter Story 1989 starring Cynthia Gibb & Mitchell Anderson & Peter Michael Goetz & Louise Fletcher & Michael McGuire & Lise Hilboldt & Kip Gilman & Scott Burkholder et al, director Joseph Sargent, Richard to Karen
You look too thin, if you ask me. ibid. mother to daughter
Remember that one article – they called me chubby. ibid. Karen
You are not fat! ibid. mother to daughter
It’s called Anorexic Nervosa. ibid. shrink
Karen Carpenter’s struggle over the years with anorexia nervosa caused damage to her heart. As a result, she suffered heart failure in her parents’ home on February 4 1983 and later died. She was thirty-two years old. ibid. caption
She had had her momentary flowering, a year, perhaps, of wildrose beauty, and then she had suddenly swollen like a fertilized fruit and grown hard and red and coarse, and then her life had been laundering, scrubbing, laundering, first for children, then for grandchildren, over thirty years. At the end of it she was still singing. George Orwell, 1984
Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet. Plato
When I sing, I feel like when you’re first in love. It’s more than sex. It’s that point two people can get to they call love, when you really touch someone for the first time, but it’s gigantic, multiplied by the whole audience. I feel chills. Janis Joplin
I won’t be satisfied until people want to hear me sing without looking at me. Of course, that doesn’t mean I want them to stop looking. Marilyn Monroe
I never wanted to sing. I just wanted to play rhythm guitar – hide in the back and just play. Kurt Cobain
I knew I wanted to sing when I was a very small boy. When I was probably 4 years old. My mother played a guitar and I would sit with her and she would sing and I learned to sing along with her. Johnny Cash
You’ve got a song you’re singing from your gut, you want that audience to feel it in their gut. And you’ve got to make them think that you’re one of them sitting out there with them too. They’ve got to be able to relate to what you’re doing. Johnny Cash
I believe that singing is the key to long life, a good figure, a stable temperament, increased intelligence, new friends, super self-confidence, heightened sexual attractiveness, and a better sense of humour. Brian Eno
I’d rather be dead than singing Satisfaction when I’m forty-five. Mick Jagger
If I heard someone else singing like me, I would buy it in a heartbeat. Amy Winehouse
Sometimes the magnetism of a song is impossible to ignore, and it demands that it be sung in a certain way. Tom Waits
The fiery blues soul singer Etta James ... Etta also pointed forward to both the Soul divas of the sixties and Rock belters such as Janis Joplin. A Journey Through American Music, Amazon Prime 2007
Etta is now drug-free and recently underwent an operation to help her lose 200 pounds. She is now singing better than ever. ibid.
The ancient Greeks … were mad about singing competitions. Howard Goodall’s Story of Music: The Age of Discovery, BBC 2013
The singing of chant has always been central to Christian worship. ibid.
I can’t stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession, let alone two years or ten years. If you can, then it ain’t music, it’s close-order drill or exercise or yodeling or something, not music. Billie Holiday, Lady Sings the Blues
The only thing better than singing is more singing. Ella Fitzgerald
A lot of singers think all they have to do is exercise their tonsils to get ahead. They refuse to look for new ideas and new outlets, so they fall by the wayside ... I’m going to try to find out the new ideas before the others do. Ella Fitzgerald
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. Etta James
Her name was Bessie Smith. And her public overwhelmingly black, mostly poor, always looked to her to say what they could not. Ken Burns, Jazz: The Gift 1924-1929, PBS 2001
Sarah Vaughan saw herself as a musician rather than a singer. She was a gifted pianist in her own right. And when she closed her eyes on stage she said she could see and sing lines that might have been improvised on the piano. Musicians loved her for her perfect pitch, and rhythmic sense, her sophisticated ear for chord changes and her astonishing voice. She could sing everything. Ken Burns, Jazz the Gift: 1956-1960
Sarah Vaughan’s voice was one of the most remarkable instruments in the annals of song: it spanned almost three octaves. Her career spanned five decades. Her art transcended such categories as jazz and pop. Masters of American Music: Sarah Vaughan, PBS 1995
For six years running from 1947-1952 she [Sarah Vaughan] won both the Downbeat and Metronome polls. During this period she moved from the ... Craft small record label to big-time Columbia records, who saw her as a potential pop star. ibid.
The arrival of some of the greatest singers of the twentieth century – people such as Billie Holiday, Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald. That Swing Thing, BBC 2013
Emerging from a dirt-poor background, Bessie Smith at her peak commanded $2,000 a week. Blues America I: Woke Up This Morning, BBC 2014
‘There was this girl. Sitting behind a drum-kit. Singing like an angel. And I was totally amazed.’ The Carpenters: Close to You ***** (Your All American College Show 1968), Petula Clark, Sky Arts 2016
She was only five-foot-four. ibid. Richard
The best of them all. ibid.
Karen and Ella did a lovely piece: This Masquerade. And it was really quite a special moment. Because you’ve got in different ways two of the greatest female singers who have ever lived. ibid.