Music City Quotes & Sayings

My music is the essence of Detroit. At one time, we were the center of the world, man - Motor City. — Big Sean

I was really lucky to grow up in an extremely diverse neighborhood. I grew up in a city called Southfield, and it's one of the most diverse cities in the country. Just from the different socio-economic statuses and racial and ethnic groups I was around, I was around all different types of music from the beginning. — Mike Posner

I had already been a young singer. And once, as a profession, I was a young singer, what you would call a soprano in England, but I was an alto in singing Jewish music in bar mitzvahs and weddings and synagogues throughout New York City because, after Israel, New York is probably the biggest Jewish community in the world. — Charlemagne Palestine

I was in Nashville and I was having just the most amazing time there, discovering who I was as an artist because that is such a music city. Everyone there is so friendly and inspiring and down to jam. — Lisa Origliasso

Chester's playing filled the station. Like ripples around a stone dropped into still water, the circles of silence spread out from the newsstand. And as people listened, a change came over their faces. Eyes that looked worried grew soft and peaceful; tongues left off chattering; and ears full of the city's rustling were rested by the cricket's melody. — George Selden

White folks have controlled New Orleans with money and guns, black folks have controlled it with magic and music, and although there has been a steady undercurrent of mutual admiration, an intermingling of cultures unheard of in any other American city, South or North; although there has prevailed a most joyous and fascinating interface, black anger and white fear has persisted, providing the ongoing, ostensibly integrated fete champetre with volatile and sometimes violent idiosyncrasies. — Tom Robbins

The minister said, "Music in stone," and truly this phrase, bandied about by authors of art books, described Prague well. The city was, indeed, steeped in music and brought into harmony by it. — Jiri Weil

Yet, there is a Chennai that hasn't changed and never will. Women still wake up at the crack of dawn and draw the kolam - the rice-flour design - outside their doorstep. Men don't consider it old-fashioned to wear a dhoti, which is usually matched with a modest pair of Bata chappals. The day still begins with coffee and lunch ends with curd rice. Girls are sent to Carnatic music classes. The music festival continues to be held in the month of December. Tamarind rice is still a delicacy - and its preparation still an art form. It's the marriage between tradition and transformation that makes Chennai unique. In a place like Delhi, you'll have to hunt for tradition. In Kolkata, you'll itch for transformation. Mumbai is only about transformation. It is Chennai alone that firmly holds its customs close to the chest, as if it were a box of priceless jewels handed down by ancestors, even as the city embraces change. — Bishwanath Ghosh

It is a tough city to live in (Detroit) but a great city to be around. There is so much promise. There just needs to be a movement to help push the city beyond the automobile industry. The music business needs to learn how to support itself. — MC Serch

Artists," he said, "are people who say, 'I can't fix my country or my state or my city, or even my marriage. But by golly, I can make this square of canvas, or this eight-and-a-half-by-eleven piece of paper, or this lump of clay, or these twelve bars of music, exactly what they ought to be! — Kurt Vonnegut

I admire Tom Ades: he's a brilliant conductor, and he gets just the right hard, brilliant sound from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra for Russian music. — Charles Hazlewood

New York has inspired more remarkable music than any other city I can think of. — Moby

Gothenburg's definitely a music city as well, but I think just because of the weather - it's so cold and miserable - people stay in. Coming to the States and going into the store and people are like, "Hi, can I help you?" - I'm not used to people randomly talking to me that I don't know. — Yukimi Nagano

Back in the "leather and lace" eighties, I was the fantasy editor for a publishing company in New York City. It was a great time to be young and footloose on the streets of Manhattan - punk rock and folk music were everywhere; Blondie, the Eurythmics, Cyndi Lauper, and Prince were all strutting their stuff on the newly created MTV; and the eighties' sense of style meant I could wear my scruffy black leather into the office without turning too many heads. The fantasy field was growing by leaps and bounds, and I was right in the middle of it, working with authors I'd worshiped as a teen, and finding new ones to encourage and publish. — Terri Windling

When my hoe tinkled against the stones, that music echoed to the woods and the sky, and was an accompaniment to my labor which yielded an instant and immeasurable crop. It was no longer beans that I hoed, nor I that hoed beans; and I remembered with as much pity as pride, if I remembered at all, my acquaintances who had gone to the city to attend the oratorios. — Henry David Thoreau

You could look out the window today, see the sky raining fire, and say that it has all been for nothing, everything we've ever done, because now we've lost. But folk were born and lived and knew friendship and music in this city, ugly as it is, and all across this land that we fought for. Some grew old, and others were less lucky. Many bore children and raised them, and had the pleasure of making them, too, and we gave them that for as long as we could. Who has ever done more, my friend? — Laini Taylor

When I went to City of Bath College, I studied the music business. — Gabrielle Aplin

My parents didn't really restrict my movement, so I got involved in the underground music scene and the activism scene; I was doing some volunteering in food relief. I spent a lot of time throughout the city in poor areas, even though my family lived in a wealthy area. — Jess Row

I can't read music. Instead, I'd do stuff inside the piano, do harmonics and all kinds of crazy things. They used to put me in these annual piano contests down at Long Beach City College, and two years in a row, I won first prize - out of like 5,000 kids! — Eddie Van Halen

I feel like kids that grew up in New York City or in L.A. were exposed to all these subcultures and subgenres, whereas I was only exposed to the poppiest of pop music so I never had this negative connotation towards pop music. That's not South African music having an effect on me, but just how international music was filtered through South Africa affected me. It gave me a not-negative connotation towards pop music growing up. — St. Lucia

One of my pleasantest memories as a kid growing up in New Orleans was how a bunch of us kids, playing, would suddenly hear sounds. It was like a phenomenon, like the Aurora Borealis
maybe. The sounds of men playing would be so clear, but we wouldn't be sure where they were coming from. So we'd start trotting, start running
'It's this way! It's this way!'
And sometimes, after running for a while, you'd find you'd be nowhere near that music. But that music could come on you any time like that. The city was full of the sounds of music. — Danny Barker

At Dresden on the Elbe, that handsome city,
Where straw hats, verses, and cigars are made,
They've built (it well may make us feel afraid,)
A music club and music warehouse pretty. — Heinrich Heine

First impression: The Tijuana dump is beautiful. Second impression: It is like a military operation. It is at the top of a small mountain. A convoy of trucks comes to the top of the mountain and dumps the refuse of a developing city. [...]
Other equipment moves mountains of dirt to cover the wastes. At intervals, standpipes are inserted into the filled spaces to allow the biogas of the rotting materials below to escape. The wind blows across these vents, creating an eerie music. When the biogas envelops you, you sense that sinking feeling of doom. — Raymond Coppinger

And now the measure of my song is done:
The work has reached its end; the book is mine,
None shall unwrite these words: nor angry Jove,
Nor war, nor fire, nor flood,
Nor venomous time that eats our lives away.
Then let that morning come, as come it will,
When this disguise I carry shall be no more,
And all the treacherous years of life undone,
And yet my name shall rise to heavenly music,
The deathless music of the circling stars.
As long as Rome is the Eternal City
These lines shall echo from the lips of men,
As long as poetry speaks truth on earth,
That immortality is mine to wear. — Ovid

From the moment I stepped foot in Music City I have had a love affair with the people and burgeoning culinary scene. This city's long, highly-respected cultural history, coupled with the recent growth and development is inspiring. I could not be happier with my decision and I'm truly excited to call Nashville my home. — Maneet Chauhan

The people in the city seem paper thin in the mist. They believe they are dancing to the music of their lives ... But I think, like the puppets, each of us is pulled upon invisible strings, until the night comes and we are put away. I shiver, and hurry from the square, as the darkness of the city closes over me like canal water or the grave. — Neil Gaiman

If Music is a Place
then Jazz is the City, Folk is the Wilderness, Rock is the Road, Classical is a Temple. — Vera Nazarian

My first gig was at Radio City Music Hall when I was 13. — Questlove

BUT MOST PEOPLE ARE RATHER STUPID AND WASTE THEIR LIVES. HAVE YOU NOT SEEN THAT? HAVE YOU NOT LOOKED DOWN FROM THE HORSE AT A CITY AND THOUGHT HOW MUCH IT RESEMBLED AN ANT HEAP, FULL OF BLIND CREATURES WHO THINK THEIR MUNDANE LITTLE WORLD WAS REAL? YOU SEE THE LIGHTED WINDOWS AND WHAT YOU WANT TO THINK IS THAT THERE MAY BE MANY INTERESTING STORIES BEHIND THEM, BUT WHAT YOU KNOW IS THAT REALLY THERE ARE JUST DULL, DULL SOULS, MERE CONSUMERS OF FOOD, WHO THINK THEIR INSTINCTS ARE EMOTIONS AND THEIR TINY LITTLE LIVES OF MORE ACCOUNT THAN A WHISPER OF WIND.
The blue glow was bottmless. It seemed to be sucking her own thoughts out of her mind.
'No,' whispered Susan, 'no, I've never thought like that.'
Death stood up abruptly and turned away. YOU MAY FIND OUT THAT IT HELPS, he said. — Terry Pratchett

Remember Motown? Not just the driving music that swept the nation and the world, but the vibrant energy of the Motor City itself, symbolizing the heyday of America. Today, a derelict Detroit is testament to what America has squandered and what it has become. — Gerald Celente

Last Saturday night I was in a club on the South Side of Chicago listening to live rock music and talking to a guitar playing veteran of the music scene in the city. He looked and talked like the musicians that I recall from my childhood; he was a thin, cigarette smoking, avant garde and interesting guy. We got to talking about a life in the relatively risky creative arts and he said, "Look, you could get that safe job and spend your whole life that way, but what are you waiting for? When you're ninety-six years old and have three days left? Is that when you decide to do what you love? — Jamie Freveletti

What city has given the world more in terms of American culture than New Orleans? There is none. Not New York. Not L.A. Not Chicago. Not anywhere, in the sense that African American music has gone around the world twenty times over, and it's continuing to evolve. It is our greatest cultural export. — David Simon

I hate to blow the mystique, but at the time we really liked bubblegum music, and we really liked the Bay City Rollers. Their song 'Saturday Night' had a great chant in it, so we wanted a song with a chant in it: 'Hey! Ho! Let's Go!'. 'Blitzkrieg Bop' was our 'Saturday Night'. — Joey Ramone

Everyone experiences grace, even if they don't realize it.
It's kind of like Moby's music. You could ask your average sixty-something-year-old retired banker in Connecticut if he's ever heard of Moby and/or his music and the response you'd receive more than likely would be a resounding, "No - what's a Moby?"
But if you say, "Remember that American Express commercial where Tiger Woods is putting around New York City? Remember the song playing? That was Moby."
"Oh, then, OK. I guess I have heard Moby," our theoretical retired banker in New Canaan might say.
"So ... what exactly is a Moby?"
That's like grace. Not that grace is a pretentious vegan techno-rocker, but you get the idea.
Grace is everywhere, all around us, all of the time. We only need the ears to hear it and the eyes to see it. — Cathleen Falsani

New Orleans is unlike any city in America. Its cultural diversity is woven into the food, the music, the architecture - even the local superstitions. It's a sensory experience on all levels and there's a story lurking around every corner. — Ruta Sepetys

Nashville is such a fantastic city, with this great creative music energy. Then there's that Southern hospitality, you can't beat that. — Sam Palladio

Because I hate the ocean, theme parks and airplanes, talking with strangers, waiting in line. I'm through with these pills that make me sit still, are you feeling fine? Yes, I feel just fine. — Aurelien Budynek

It is a cultural tradition that makes New Orleans what it is. It also represents the roots of American music and an important part of the African-American community in New Orleans. It unites people in some of the poorer neighborhoods of the city. It is absolutely critical to continue. — Bill Taylor

He [Alan Lomax] started right off trying to find people who could introduce folk songs to city people. He found a young actor named Burl Ives and said, "Burl, you know a lot of great country songs learned from your grandmother, don't you know people would love to hear them?" He put on radio programs. He persuaded CBS to dedicate "The School of the Air" for one year to American folk music. He'd get some old sailor to sing an old sea shanty with a cracked voice. Then he'd get me to sing it with my banjo. — Pete Seeger

I've got a better idea," says my mother. "Tell me about what you did today. Tell me about New York." So I do, I tell the lifelong New Yorker who chucked it for the woods about the streets of the city: how the subway was so crowded this morning I had to let four trains pass in a row and I was a half hour late to work; how I had a meeting in Times Square and I saw an army of painted topless women posing with tourists for money; how I saw two people dressed up as Disney characters get into a fistfight; how I ate a hot dog from a stand after my client meeting bombed and when I finished it I ate another, on one of the chairs scattered in Bryant Park. A string quartet was playing nearby, under a sponsor banner. "The music part was the part that saved me," I say. "All of it would have saved me," says my mother. — Jami Attenberg

I became a country music fan in 1990 when I moved to Colorado. It was my first exposure to it because I'm from a city. I've been a fan of country music ever since. — Ricky Schroder

It's basically a city of songwriters and that's what gives it it's strength, that's what gives it its lasting ability. You've got people making all different kinds of music and that's what attracts me to Nashville as Music City. — Emmylou Harris

The air was stifling, but he liked it because it was stifling city air, full of excitingly unpleasant smells, dangerous music, and the distant sound of warring police tribes. — Douglas Adams

I sat in the green room at Radio City Music Hall for the 2006 NFL Draft. At my table, I was encircled by my parents, brother, agent, former coaches and close friends. — D'Brickashaw Ferguson

My father was a musician, and I've always loved writing. I grew up in New York City during a time when hip hop music was surrounding you with the hip hop culture, and it felt natural. I was a really huge fan of the music. — El-P

I like the city late at night, the blasts of music and the splashes of light cast from bars that are still open, shoals of brightly-dressed clubber, the beeping taxis and the greasy, savoury smell of meat and onions from the burger vans. — Mhairi McFarlane

The city as a center where, any day in any year, there may be a fresh encounter with a new talent, a keen mind or a gifted specialist-this is essential to the life of a country. To play this role in our lives a city must have a soul-a university, a great art or music school, a cathedral or a great mosque or temple, a great laboratory or scientific center, as well as the libraries and museums and galleries that bring past and present together. A city must be a place where groups of women and men are seeking and developing the highest things they know. — Margaret Mead

Prague is far more than the sum of its physical parts or its history. It is a city of the mind and the imagination, a city that exists as vividly in poetry and painting and music and legend as it does in brick and stone... Just as the physical city of Prague would be unimaginable without its unique topography, without its palaces, its churches, its parks, its streets, and its hostelries, so the Prague of the mind would be unimaginable without its storytellers and the tales they weave. — Paul Wilson

When a movie opened - if you lived in New York, you would see it at Radio City Music Hall where it would play a couple of weeks, and then you moved on to the next movie. Now you can see it the rest of your life - it's going to be on Netflix and DVD. — Robert Osborne

There is a view that jazz is 'evil' because it comes from evil people, but actually the greatest priests on 52nd Street and on the streets of New York City were the musicians. They were doing the greatest healing work. They knew how to punch through music that would cure and make people feel good. — Garth Hudson

I have a company in New York City producing music for commercials, for radio, TV, features, etc. That's how I've been making my living. And now the company is very successful - to the extent that I can afford to come out and play. — Chico Hamilton

She was drowning, pulled under by a froth of limbs and bodies, swept along by currents of voices, music, and car engines. Dark shadows circled her like hungry sharks. She rose up, dragged to the surface by an impatient crowd. Hands and elbows pushed and shoved. Exhaust fumes and food smells clogged her nostrils. This was the old part of the city, where archaic buildings stood side by side, defences pitched against the onslaught of the modern. There were no smooth walls here, no towers made of steel and glass. This was all shadows and sculpture, buttresses and winding alleys; the impenetrable heart of a long ago city, beating to a circadian rhythm. The — Malcolm Richards

When I'm in Los Angeles, it's hard to be creative. For me, New Orleans is one of those places that's like a muse. You can hear music on the streets. There's a certain character the city has that inspires you when you're needing to write lyrics and come up with melodies and come up with rhythm and blues. The city has a pulse and it's an inspiration for me. — Chris Thomas King

know Brooklynites who have never been to Radio City Music Hall. — Pete Hamill

Whenever I visit a city, I like to see what classical music concerts are on offer. — Park Chan-wook

Are you hep to what the Beatles are saying? ... Dig it, they're telling it like it is. They know what's happening in the city; blackie is getting ready. They put the revolution to music ... it's 'Helter-Skelter.' Helter-Skelter is coming down. — Charles Manson

Well, I know a guy, he's from far far away
He's a songwriter, he got something to say
He says, "People in this city are too busy to hang out
This town's so spread out, no one would hear you if you shout"
Everyone's got a script to sell and someplace else they want to be
There's always a lock that would open if you could just find the key"
(It Ain't Easy Being Green) — Shannon McNally

He hears everything as music,' said his father, Moses Whitaker. 'The fax machine sounds like an A. The copy machine is a B flat. The jackhammers are making the drum beats that he likes.' When the subway rumbles, Matthew taps his cane on the ground to re-create the noise. He hums along with the city - the fast cars and fast talkers. When asked to describe New York, he stands and pivots a full 360 degrees, pointing his fingers in front of him. 'New York is a circle of sounds,' he says. 'There is music everywhere. Everybody has a smile on their face. It's musical, it's dark and so beautiful. — David Byrne

What does travel ultimately produce if it is not, by a sort of reversal, 'an exploration of the deserted places of my memory,' the return to nearby exoticism by way of a detour through distant places, and the 'discovery' of relics and legends: 'fleeting visions of the French countryside,' 'fragments of music and poetry,' in short, something like an 'uprooting in one's origins (Heidegger)? What this walking exile produces is precisely the body of legends that is currently lacking in one's own vicinity; it is a fiction, which moreover has the double characteristic like dreams or pedestrian rhetoric, or being the effect of displacements and condensations. As a corollary, one can measure the importance of these signifying practices (to tell oneself legends) as practices that invent spaces. — Michel De Certeau

Joel Lane documents a life we don't quite live, in a city we can't quite find: half glimpsed and half imagined, we know it's out there somewhere. Waiting, maybe. Mixing fear with desire, reputation with regret. Touching the blood-beat of our secret hunger with the rhythms of a music that never felt alien till now. Wasted lives, with never a wasted word. It's an extraordinary achievement: vivid as neon, real as rain. Devastating. — Chaz Brenchley

I grew up in New York City in the '80s, and it was the epicenter of hip-hop. There was no Internet. Cable television wasn't as broad. I would listen to the radio, hear cars pass by playing a song, or tape songs off of the radio. At that time, there was such an excitement around hip-hop music. — Michael Rapaport

Someone like Mozart moves from Salzburg to Vienna, where all of the sudden he finds this musical city that is not only asking for music, it's demanding music of him. — Eric Weiner

One morning in April, I woke up a little sick. I lay there looking at shadows on the white plaster ceiling. I remembered a long time ago, when I lay in bed beside my mother, watching lights from the street move across the ceiling and down the walls. I felt the sharp nostalgia of train whistles, piano music down a city street, burning leaves. A mild degree of junk sickness always brought me the magic of childhood. It never fails, I thought, just like a shot; I wonder if all junkies score for this wonderful stuff. — William S. Burroughs

I always view my music like a city at night, like Atlanta. I view my music in lights. So Far Gone would be my experiences in Toronto at night. — Drake

You just let your lower self go, and then it takes on all these aspects of the society - the city with horns blowing, the people yelling things at each other, and the all-in-all violence and chaos of the city. Put that on stage with music, and that's what this is. — Alice Cooper

Vietnam was the defining event for my generation. It spilled over into all facets of American life - into music, into the pulpits, in churches of our country. It spilled over into the city streets, police forces. And even if you were born late in the generation, Vietnam was still part of your childhood. — Tim O'Brien

It was around this time that I'd begun trying to perfect the art of fucking with people's minds. I'd figured out that when someone else was hogging the limelight, you could cut him down to size by bringing up a subject he didn't know anything about. If the other person knew a lot about literature, I'd talk about the Velvet Underground; if he knew a lot about rock, I'd talk about Messiaen; if he knew a lot about classical music, I'd talk about Roy Lichtenstein; if he knew a lot about pop art, I'd talk about Jean Genet; and so on. Do that in a small provincial city and you never lose an argument. — Ryu Murakami

I have built a city from the books I've read. A good book sings a a timeless music that is heard in the choir lofts, and balconies, and theaters that thrived within that secret city inside me. — Pat Conroy

Many cities make music, but no city breathes music quite like Memphis. The songs and sounds that come from here are uniquely American. — Shawn Amos

I'm happy to be on a winning team. My individual success, that lasts for a short period of time. The success of being a part of the South, of Atlanta, which is now the hot bed of music, that's what's gonna last the longest. The fact that I contributed to planting our flag and moving music to my city, that's what I'm most proud of. — T.I.

When I lived in New York, not only did I have safety locks on the door but I had the music going, keeping the city at a distance, trying to find creative time and peace and so forth. — Ann Beattie

Now that that album's done [TModern Vampires of the City], I have time to revisit things that I was working on earlier, previous to it. I actually found it very helpful to be working on some music on my own. — Rostam Batmanglij

Rome is a city where in every corner you have a reminder of the sacred world. That's why I have sacred music, minimalist sacred music, which is also music I like, because at the end of the day, that's what I want to do. — Paolo Sorrentino

The alley and the music all fell away, and there was nothing but her and the rain and Jace, his hands on her ... He made a noise of surprise, low in his throat, and dug his fingers into the thin fabric of her tights. Not unexpectedly, they ripped, and his wet fingers were suddenly on the bare skin of her legs. Not to be outdone, Clary slid her hands under the hem of his soaked shirt, and let her fingers explore what was underneath: the tight, hot skin over his ribs, the ridges of his abdomen, the scars on his back. This was uncharted territory for her, but it seemed to be driving him crazy: he was moaning softly against her mouth, kissing her harder and harder, as if it would never be enough, not quite enough - — Cassandra Clare

I have known the silence of the stars and of the sea.
And the silence of the city when it pauses,
And the silence of a man and a maid,
And the silence for which music alone finds the word. — Edgar Lee Masters

As expected, the church lady grumbled something incoherent and put Bridget's call on hold. A peppy rendition of "City of God" blared as hold music just long enough for Bridget to start to sing along with the chorus. Catholic brainwashing at its best. — Gretchen McNeil

Kansas City, I would say, did more for jazz music, black music, than any other influence at all. Almost all their joints that they had there, they used black bands. Most musicians who amounted to anything, they would flock to Kansas City because that's the place where jobs were plentiful. — Jesse Stone

Of course, if Saint Peter could come out today upon these streets below he would find all he could wish, voices from nowhere, music from unpopulated boxes, men ascending divine distances in gas balloons, and traveling at the speed of sound, apparitions from nowhere appear on the screen; the sick are raised from the dead, life is prolonged so that every detail of pain may be relished, the blind are given eyes and the cripples forced to walk, and there is an item which can blow a city of the beloved enemy into a place where their sins will be brought home to them, with of course as much noise as the trumpets on the walls of Jericho — William Gaddis

Each year, every city in the world that can should have a multiday festival. More people meeting each other, digging new types of music, new foods, new ideas. You want to stop having so many wars? This could be a step in the right direction. — Henry Rollins

She smiled. Her skin looked whiter than he recalled, and dark spidery veins were beginning to show beneath its surface. Her hair was still the color of spun silver and her eyes were still green as a cat's. She was still beautiful. Looking at her, he was in London again. He saw the gaslight and smelled the smoke and dirt and horses, the metallic tang of fog, the flowers in Kew Gardens. He saw a boy with black hair and blue eyes like Alec's, heard violin music like the sound of silver water. He saw a girl with long brown hair and a serious face. In a world where everything went away from him eventually, she was one of the few remaining constants.
And then there was Camille. — Cassandra Clare

Sometimes it's difficult because you like some regularity in your life, but never knowing who's gonna pop up at what show, what person you might see that you don't expect to see in that city, what problem you're gonna have that night, even the problems at some of these venues, if you look at them the right way, it's an adventure. You're like a cowboy. That's the best part about being in the music industry. You get your gun and you ride your horse. — Colin Munroe

Look at it,' he said, gesturing. 'This window looks down upon hundreds more panes of glass, and behind those panes live thousands upon thousands of lost souls. When I feel cast down and helpless, scores of other men do as well, and when I am bitterly angry at feeling cast down and helpless, countless other people languish in concert with me. When I'm happy, it's the same. It's a bit like ... I used to play chamber music. It's like a vast orchestra. And so I shan't ever be alone. — Lyndsay Faye

We are serious about our music here in Philadelphia, and jazz has meant a lot to this city. — Michael Nutter

When the music changes, the walls of the city shake. — Plato

Boston was a great city to grow up in, and it probably still is. We were surrounded by two very important elements: academia and the arts. I was surrounded by theater, music, dance, museums. And I learned how to sail on the Charles River. So I had a great childhood in Boston. It was wonderful. — Leonard Nimoy

Speaking of River City in The Music Man & his home town, Mason City, Iowa: I didn't have to make up anything. I simply remembered Mason City as closely as I could. — Meredith Willson

Regarding The Music Man, Jay Nordlinger wrote: The Music Man (for which Willson also wrote the lyrics) is an astonishing creation. It came in a spurt of brilliance. It is shot through with originality, verve, and-why not go all the way?-genius. People love it, can't get enough of it, can't stop performing it-and they are not wrong. For closing in on a half- century now, The Music Man has been performed continually, in every American city, town, and village, and in other parts of the world as well, not excluding Peking. — Meredith Willson

A drunken whore walks in a dark street at night, shedding snatches of song like petals. Was it in this that Anthony heard the heart-numbing strains of the great music which persuaded him to surrender for ever to the city he loved? The — Lawrence Durrell

Think of music as being a great snarl of a city [ ... ]. In the years I spent living there, I came to know its streets. Not just the main streets. Not just the alleys. I knew shortcuts and rooftops and parts of the sewers. Because of this, I could move through the city like a rabbit in a bramble. I was quick and cunning an clever.
Denna, on the other hand, had never been trained. She knew nothing of shortcuts. You'd think she'd be forced to wander the city, lost and helpless, trapped in a twisting maze of mortared stone. But instead, she simply walked through the walls. She didn't know any better. Nobody had ever told her she couldn't. Because of this, she moved through the city like some faerie creature. She walked roads no one else could see, and it made her music wild and strange and free. — Patrick Rothfuss

Butch, you come from DeWitt Clinton. There are five thousand brothers in that school. You're the best there. You've been all-city two years in a row. How bad can you be? You come with me and we'll make nice music. — Al McGuire

Rhys released my chin. But as he lowered his hand, I gripped his wrist, feeling the solid strength. "It's a shame," I said, the words nearly gobbled up by the sound of the city music. "That others in Prythian don't know. A shame that you let them think the worst." He took a step back, his wings beating the air like mighty drums. "As long as the people who matter most know the truth, I don't care about the rest. Get some sleep." Then he shot into the sky, and was swallowed by the darkness between the stars. — Sarah J. Maas

Music was in the air when I was growing up. My siblings Katy, Dave and Phil were musical; my dad worked in inner-city New York where a musical revolution was taking place - folk music, rock n' roll, gospel music. My sister taught me to sing. My brothers taught me to play. — Sam Barry

Rock music pays off. Rock music takes me on a joyride. Rock music keeps me off the hell city bus. Rock music will always look out for me. But I will not let my torture profanity demon shoot it down. — Wesley Willis

Stockholm is unique in that it's built on islands and surrounded by water, so you get this enormous sense of freedom. It's got everything you could possibly need - everything New York or London has but without all the people and traffic. It's also become a very creative city, not only for music but also for fashion and computer games. — Bjorn Ulvaeus

I think I had the same notion most people have, which is it's simply a town that percolates around country music. Though country-music history is deep and richly steeped throughout the city, this is a place that's been expanding musically and culturally ... People coming from Europe and Canada-there are all kinds of different cultures and different music being represented here. It continues to blossom. — Joy Williams

It's a shame," I said, the words nearly gobbled up by the sound of the city music. "That others in Prythian don't know. A shame that you let them think the worst." He took a step back, his wings beating the air like mighty drums. "As long as the people who matter most know the truth, I don't care about the rest. — Sarah J. Maas

I grew in the inner city, listening to Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, James Brown, The Commodores - lots of soul music. — Stefon Harris

Chicago gave me more music than any other city in America. — Dave Grohl

It was a cruel world though. More than half of all children died before they could reach maturity, thanks to chronic epidemics and malnutrition. People dropped like flies from polio and tuberculosis and smallpox and measles. There probably weren't many people who lived past forty. Women bore so many children, they became toothless old hags by the time they were in their thirties. People often had to resort to violence to survive. Tiny children were forced to do such heavy labor that their bones became deformed, and little girls were forced to become prostitutes on a daily basis. Little boys too, I suspect. Most people led minimal lives in worlds that had nothing to do with richness of perception or spirit. City streets were full of cripples and beggars and criminals. Only a small fraction of the population could gaze at the moon with deep feeling or enjoy a Shakespeare play or listen to the beautiful music of Dowland. — Haruki Murakami

My conception of New York City came from rap music. I envisioned it as a place where people shot each other on the street and got away with it; no one walked on the streets, rather people drove in their sports cars looking for nightclubs and for violence. — Ishmael Beah