Songs Of Power Quotes & Sayings

I met people that I couldn't talk to - they didn't speak Spanish or English - but they knew my songs. That's what I love, the music has gone past where I thought it would get to. That's the power of music, how it can travel and break language barriers. — Prince Royce

They sensed somehow that she lived in the prenumbral shadows between two worlds, just beyond the grasp of their power. That a woman that they had already damned, now had little left to lose, and could therefore be dangerous. So on the days that the radio played Ammu's songs, people avoided her, making little loops around her, because everybody agreed that it was best to just Let Her Be. — Arundhati Roy

Throughout history the leaders of the countries have been very particular about what songs should be sung. We know the power of songs. — Pete Seeger

Songs remain. They last ... A song can last long after the events and the people in it are dust and dreams and gone. That's the power of songs. — Neil Gaiman

There were very few real folk singers you know, though I liked Dominic Behan a bit and there was some good stuff to be heard in Liverpool. Just occasionally you hear very old records on the radio or TV of real workers in Ireland or somewhere singing these songs and the power of them is fantastic. — John Lennon

Violence; violence, and power, in the context of yet somebody else walking up to the groaning boards of fantasy's eternal wedding feast, still laden with the cold meats from Tolkien's funeral, and cheekily joining everyone who's trying to send the whole thing smashing to the ground just to hear the noise all that crockery will make. - But! Also: genderfuck, hearts broken cleanly and otherwise, the City of Portland, Spenser, those moments in pop songs when the bass and all of the drums except maybe a handclap suddenly drop out of the bridge leaving you hanging from a slender aching thread of melody waiting almost dreading the moment when the beat comes back, and the occasional bit of swordplay. — Kip Manley

I just want the songs to have the staying power as my favorite songs. If you listen to any Hank Williams song, when you're in a good mood, it's going to put you in a better mood. If you happen to be bummed-out, you're going to feel maybe a little more bummed-out and better at the same time. At any time in my life, his music has had meaning and value to me. If a song can shape-shift in that way, that's a sign of success. — M. Ward

Prayers offered in faith and then followed by songs of thanksgiving, praise and worship are an expression of our faith and love for God. Joy results when you have faith in the greatness of God and his power to deliver and save you and others from adverse circumstances and enemies. — James Strand

Beginning my studies the first step pleas'd me so much, The mere fact consciousness, these forms, the power of motion, The least insect or animal, the senses, eyesight, love, The first step I say awed me and pleas'd me so much, I have hardly gone and hardly wish'd to go any farther, But stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs. — Edward Hirsch

Genial manners are good, and power of accommodation to any circumstance, but the high prize of life, the crowning fortune of a man is to be born with a bias to some pursuit, which finds him in employment and happiness,
whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statutes, or songs. I doubt not this was the meaning of Socrates, when he pronounced artists the only truly wise, as being actually, not apparently so. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

(about William Blake)
As for Blake's happiness
a man who knew him said: "If asked whether I ever knew among the intellectual, a happy man, Blake would be the only one who would immediately occur to me."
And yet this creative power in Blake did not come from ambition ... He burned most of his own work. Because he said, "I should be sorry if I had any earthly fame, for whatever natural glory a man has is so much detracted from his spiritual glory. I wish to do nothing for profit. I wish to live for art. I want nothing whatever. I am quite happy."
... He did not mind death in the least. He said that to him it was just like going into another room. On the day of his death he composed songs to his Maker and sang them for his wife to hear. Just before he died his countenance became fair, his eyes brightened and he burst into singing of the things he saw in heaven. — Brenda Ueland

One of the marks of a godly woman is that she takes responsibility for her soul's need for joy and delight. A woman is a conductor, who leads the orchestra of her surroundings in the songs and music of her life. God is a God of creativity and dimension, and so He is pleased when we we co-create beauty in our own realm, through the power of His Spirit.
It was a profound realization when I understood that I could become an artist with my very life. — Sally Clarkson

Let my heiress have full rights,
Live in my house, sing songs that I composed.
Yet how slowly my strength ebbs,
How the tortured breast craves air.
The love of my friends, my enemies' rancor
And the yellow roses in my bushy garden,
And a lover's burning tenderness-all this
I bestow upon you, messenger of dawn.
Also the glory for which I was born,
For which my star, like some whirlwind, soared
And now falls. Look, its falling
Prophesies your power, love and inspiration.
Preserving my generous bequest,
You will live long and worthily.
Thus it will be. You see, I am content,
Be happy, but remember me. — Anna Akhmatova

It was R.E.M. who showed other Eighties bands how to get away with ignoring the rules - they lived in some weird town nobody never heard of, they didn't play power chords, they probably couldn't even spell 'spandex.' All they had was songs. — Rob Sheffield

I hope people learn the power of vulnerability through my songs. I think vulnerability can save the world. Empathy helps people connect with each other. — Mary Lambert

Nobody ever talks about the pyramids that weren't built, the books that weren't written, the songs that weren't sung. Stop letting your fear condemn you to mediocrity. Get out of your own way. Your dreams are a poetic reflection of your soul's wishes. Be courageous enough to follow them. There is no greater time than now to experience the full power of your potential. Make this the day you take the first step in the beautiful journey of bringing your dreams to life. — Steve Maraboli

The Man of Sorrows is now anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows. Returned in triumph from the overthrow of all his foes, he offers his own rapturous Te Deum in the temple above, and joys in the power of the Lord. Herein let every subject of King Jesus imitate the King; let us lean upon Jehovah's strength, let us joy in it by unstaggering faith, let us exult in it in our thankful songs. Jesus not only has thus rejoiced but he shall do so as he sees the power of divine grace bringing out from their sinful hiding-places the purchase of his soul's travail; we also shall rejoice more and more as we learn by expeience more and more fully the strength of the arm of our covenant God. Our weakness unstrings our harps, but his strength tunes them anew. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Some of us enter deconstruction willingly. We sat through too many church services that made us queazy with songs-with-words-we-stopped-feeling-good-about-singing, predictable messages, certainty, and focus on belief instead of practice. Something stirred within us, and we started asking the questions swirling around in our head. Others of us were pushed into deconstruction by wounding church experiences. We saw one too many inconsistencies, abuses of power, or crazy-stuff-that-only-insiders-sometimes-see that pushed us over the edge and called everything into question. — Gerardo Marti

I look at him for a moment. Words are a weapon stronger than he knows. And songs are even greater. The words wake the mind. The melody wakes the heart. I come from a people of song and dance. I don't need him to tell me the power of words. But I smile nonetheless. — Pierce Brown

The heart is a mystical thing. It keeps us alive by pumping blood to every part of our body. It is a strong organ which scientists say has no memory. But the heart is also a thing of great speculation and power; spoken, written, and even put into songs, by many great authors, singers, actors and poets around the world. The heart is supposed to be the center of love, feeling, loneliness and heartbreak.
And it was that organ, that great red Valentine's Day sought-after-object that was at present causing me trouble — Renee Lake

We do well to ask about the catechetical value of our songs of worship. What vision of God do they convey? Do they serve well the proclamation of the biblical Gospel? Are the doctrines they exposit or imply sound doctrines that conform to the Gospel? Are our songs biblically based, and clearly so? Have we humbled ourselves to learn from the saints who have gone before us by singing the best of the songs from of old? Or do we limit ourselves to only the newest of the new songs? How can we do a better job of seizing upon the catechetical nature and formative power of our past and present hymnody? — J.I. Packer

Songs remain. They last. The right song can turn an emperor into a laughing-stock, can bring down dynasties. A song can last long after the events and the people in it are dust and dreams are gone. That's the power of songs. — Neil Gaiman

I am interested in politics but have stayed away from writing overtly political songs, or message songs, because I find it difficult to discuss politics intelligently in a 4-minute song. But I am finding there are ways to get bits and pieces of political thought across without preaching that the people have the power or we shall not be moved. Of course these sentiments have their place too - I'm not knocking Phil Ochs - but that's a different kind of music, songs to play at rallies, not to achieve a state of bliss. — Dean Wareham

people to ourselves rather than Jesus, and then wonder why power has left the pulpit and why the deep theological treasures of some of the old hymns have degenerated into songs that exalt us above the glory of our Creator. Despite our pretensions, our pride grows — Matt Boswell

Music is more powerful than reason in the soul. That is also why Plato made music the very first step in his long educational curriculum: good music was to create the harmony of soul that would be a ripe field for the higher harmony of reason to take root in later. And that is also why he said that the decay of the ideal state would begin with a decay in music. In fact, one of your obscure modern scholars has shown that social and political revolutions have usually been preceded by musical revolutions, and why another sage said, 'Let me write the songs of a nation and I care not who writes its laws. — Peter Kreeft

God gave music the power to carry his light into the darkness. That's a mighty privilege. It means intentionally telling stories and writing songs that bear truth that outlasts the songs themselves. If I did this in hopes of thunderous applause and piles of cash, I would have quit years ago. But there are moments on the stage when I sense something magical, a connection with the band and the audience, when our stories intersect and suddenly we're wading in an ancient river. Suddenly the song is secondary to the greater story being told through each of us. — Andrew Peterson

Whether the issue was black political power or nuclear power, Scott-Heron didn't mince words. His comeback record, 'I'm New Here,' doesn't mince words either, but instead of political battles, these songs suggest he's fighting personal ones. — Will Hermes

Why do we care about singers? Wherein lies the power of songs? Maybe it derives from the sheer strangeness of there being singing in the world. The note, the scale, the chord; melodies, harmonies, arrangements; symphonies, ragas, chinese operas,jazz, the blues: that such things should exist, that we should have discovered the magical intervals and distances that yield the poor cluster of notes, all within the span of a human hand from which we can build our cathedrals of sound, is alchemical a mystery as mathematics, or wine, or love. Maybe the birds taught us. Maybe not. Maybe we are just creatures in search of exaltation. We don't have much of it. Our lives are not what we deserve; they are, let us agree, in many painful ways deficient. Song turns them into something else. Song shows us a world that is worthy of our yearning, it shows us our selves as they might be, if we were worthy of the world. — Salman Rushdie

Songs and hymns refresh the body. Hymns invoke the spirit to rise to its maker for strength. When we live in a day without a hymn or a song, we disregard the essence of the day — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Jonas' music is inspiring, energizing, and spiritually uplifting. A brilliant songwriter, he writes music that reaches deep into the soul and awakens the best and highest in all of us. And Jonas delivers his songs with a power, joy, and grace that last long after the last note is played. The world needs this music! — Marci Shimoff

Songs, and songwriting keeps me inspired, moving forward. I tend to scribble down notes, lyrics or just random thoughts on pieces of paper, backs of cigarette packs, sometimes on my shirt cuff. Rock n' roll is closest thing I've got to a spiritual power. It's been the higher voice in my life and it's never let me down. — John Waite

Who will sing today?
Who will sing today?
A dear full heart untold awaits
A sinful mind unchanged rests ajar; to hear the sweat salvation in Christ Jesus through hymns and praise amass
Who will sing today?
Who will sing today?


Who will sing today?
Who will sing today?

A spirit to rise
A body to uplift
A soul to change
The lost to seek
Who will sing today?
Who will sing today? — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

The Hawk hired fifty harpers and jesters and taught them new songs. Songs about the puny fairy fool who had been chased away from Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea by the legendary
Hawk. And being such a legend in his own time, his tales were ceded great truth and staying power. The players
were delighted with the epic grandeur of such a wild tale. When they had rehearsed to perfection the ditties and
refrains portraying the defeat of the fool, the Hawk sent them into the counties of Scotland and England. Grimm
accompanied the group of players traveling to Edinburgh to help spread the tale himself, while Hawk spent late hours by the candle scribbling, crossing out and perfecting his command for when the fool came. Sometimes, in the wee hours of the morning, he would reach for his set of sharp awls and blades and begin carving toy soldiers and dolls, one by one. — Karen Marie Moning

Great songs are gone; unsung songs remain. Who will sing them? — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Now the world runs on swiftly to great tidings. And one of men, even of Beor's house, shall indeed come, and the Girdle of Melian shall not restrain him, for doom greater than my power shall send him; and the songs that shall spring from that coming shall endure when all Middle-earth is changed. — J.R.R. Tolkien

The songs that I've written about Africa, and AIDS and HIV and about the power of humanitarian love, those songs, I'm gonna sing them because I know that it's real. — India.Arie

The 'civil rights' revolutionary groups are a case in point. Their goal is not equality but power. The background of Negro culture is African and magic, and the purposes of magic are control and power ... Voodoo or magic was the religion and life of American Negroes. Voodoo songs underlie jazz, and old voodoo, with its power goal, has been merely replaced with revolutionary voodoo, a modernized power drive. — R.J. Rushdoony

There's a certain power in vague language, but I started to get more into the idea of really trying to have a discrete thought in the lyrics and to have songs that were about stuff - to try to make things more coherent. — David Longstreth

Believe in the power of songs, — Emily Haines

My poor little child
Karin Boye
My poor child, so afraid of the dark,
who has met ghosts of another kind,
who always among those clad in white
glimpses those with evil faces,
now let me sing you gentle songs,
from fright they free, from force and cramp.
Of the evil they ask no repentance.
Of the good they ask not for battle.
See, you must know, that all that lives
is deep inside of equal kind.
Like trees and herbs it seeks to grow -
pulled forward by its inner laws.
And trees may fall and flowers wilt
and branches break, their power lost,
still the dream remains - awaits the call -
in every living drop of sap. (205) — Linda Olsson

The healing power of music is vast. Music therapy is in its infancy in Western psychology. If we knew more, we'd be able to do amazing things, and maybe even make permanent changes in the brain's mysterious workings. With a simple song and four chords, you might be able to do something useful, even life-changing. With all the songs you know, you might be a virtual, veritable medicine chest for the right person. — Gary Talley

The girls I dream of are the gentle ones, wistful by high windows or singing sweet old songs at a piano, long hair drifting, tender as apple blossom. But a girl who goes into battle beside you and keeps your back is a different thing, a thing to make you shiver. Think of the first time you slept with someone, or the first time you fell in love: that blinding explosion that left you cracking to the fingertips with electricity, initiated and transformed. I tell you that was nothing, nothing at all, beside the power of putting your lives, simply and daily, into each other's hands. — Tana French

The world is filled with people who are no longer needed - and who try to make slaves of all of us - and they have their music and we have ours. Theirs, the wasted songs of a superstitious nightmare - and without their musical and ideological miscar-riages to compare our Song of freedom to, we'd not have any opposite to compare music with - and like the drifting wind, hitting against no obstacle, we'd never knows its speed, its power. — Woodie Gurthie

That's one of my favorite songs of all time. It's so beautiful. It's an old song, sung by Nina Simone. This is the Cat Power cover. We pushed hard to get it and were lucky. It's so stunning. — Ellen Page

But even I know that love doesn't steer by logic, nor is power distributed evenly. Lovers arrive at their first kisses with scars as wells as longings. They're not always looking for advantage. Some need shelter, others press only for the hyperreality of ecstasy, for which they'll tell outrageous lies or make irrational sacrifice. But they rarely ask themselves what they need or want. Memories are poor for past failures. Childhoods shine through adult skin, helpfully or not. So do the laws of inheritance that bind a personality. The lovers don't know there's no free will. I haven't heard enough radio drama to know more than that, though pop songs have taught me that they don't feel in December what they felt in May, and that to have a womb may be incomprehensible to those who don't and that the reverse is also true. — Ian McEwan

I totally agree with equal rights and women's causes, and most of my songs are woman-power, but I don't want to be labelled at 20 years old. — Meghan Trainor

These are thy glorious works Parent of Good, Almighty, thine this universal Frame, Thus wondrous fair; thy self how wondrous then! Unspeakable, who sitst above these Heavens To us invisible or dimly seen In these thy lowest works, yet these declare Thy goodness beyond thought, and Power Divine: Speak ye who best can tell, ye Sons of light, Angels, for ye behold him, and with songs And choral symphonies, Day without Night, Circle his Throne rejoicing, ye in Heav'n, On Earth join all ye Creatures to extoll Him first, him last, him midst, and without end. — John Milton

There are so many bad songs that have incredible videos. It's pretty amazing, actually. The power of putting images to music is hypnotizing. It's a real power. That's a realm that I've failed at completely. — Devendra Banhart

With Salvage the Bones, Jesmyn Ward has written the best sort of novel-a beautiful, important book that's both unflinching and tender, heartbreaking and triumphant. A lyrical and riveting testament to the strength of the human spirit, as well as the power of family and community. Ward's paragraphs are like songs, lifting us even as the authenticity of this world and these characters keeps the ground in clear sight. This is an extraordinary book by an extraordinary writer. — Skip Horack

Whatever he writes will mean You have not silenced me. Despite all your power, you are not all powerful. Men have often reduced his voice to gasps and weeping. They have crushed the power to speak from his body, from many bodies. But words written down outlive the vulnerability of the flesh. His songs will fly through the air like swallows. Recorded words can be passed along. In one form or another, they will be passed along. Movement is their essential nature. — Karen Connelly

Oh," the girl said, shaking her head. "Don't be so simple. People adore monsters. They fill their songs and stories with them. They define themselves in relation to them. You know what a monster is, young shade? Power. Power and choice. Monsters make choices. Monsters shape the world. Monsters force us to become stronger, smarter, better. They sift the weak from the strong and provide a forge for the steeling of souls. Even as we curse monsters, we admire them. Seek to become them, in some ways." Her eyes became distant. "There are far, far worse things to be than a monster. — Jim Butcher

Away from the goal
Far away I stand from my home.
A home unknown
Where my heart and spirit must go

Thy guidance oh Lord
Thy guidance oh lord
Eternal eternity I beseech
that You will lead me to the goal


Away from victory
far away I stand from victory
Victory unknown; thy spirit divine I know
that You may lead me where I must go


Thy guidance oh Lord
Thy guidance oh lord
Victorious victory I beseech
that You will lead me to a victorious victory

Away from the troubles of life
far away from the troubles; my delight
that You will lead me with thy light
Thy light that rekindles my night


Thy guidance oh Lord
Thy guidance oh lord
Far away from the troubles I beseech
That You will lead me from the troubles of life with Thy light — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

When I was an atheist it was because I rejected authority, and why not reject the supreme authority of God, particularly that boring fucker on Songs of Praise. I could reject him with the unsentimental dispatch of a clipped toenail. When I got clean from drugs and alcohol, I saw that the way I'd always seen the world was limited. It will always be limited. By yielding authority to a benign power, I found a key to transcend previous limitations. — Russell Brand

I clearly remember writing songs [when I was young] and the power that it gave me of feeling like somebody. My whole life changed when I wrote those songs, even before anyone ever heard them. It wasn't a commercial thing. — Gwen Stefani

I can write hundreds of songs on simple power chords. — Miguel

I write poems for myself and I write poetry that gets torn apart and becomes songs. I have a lot of respect for words, the power of words. — Kurt Cobain