Tracy Chapman Quotes
"With other people, you're always swapping music. Somebody is always listening to something you've never heard. It's a great way to hear all sorts of new things."
- Tracy Chapman
(Related: Music, People, Listening)
"When you feel like you've had a good show, you go backstage and you talk to yourself about it, and if you have a bad show you talk to yourself about it."
- Tracy Chapman
(Related: Talk)
"We all must live our lives always feeling, always thinking the moment has arrived."
- Tracy Chapman
(Related: Feeling, Thinking)
"We have more media than ever and more technology in our lives. It's supposed to help us communicate, but it has the opposite effect of isolating us."
- Tracy Chapman
(Related: Technology, Effect, Help, Media)
"Songwriting is a very mysterious process. It feels like creating something from nothing. It's something I don't feel like I really control."
- Tracy Chapman
(Related: Control, Nothing)
"Some things remain fragments, just the lyrics and melodies or a line or two or a verse."
- Tracy Chapman
"People's real hopes and dreams can be distorted and misdirected and packaged until you're not sure what you really want or what you even really need."
- Tracy Chapman
(Related: Dreams, People, Want)
"My older sister encouraged me from early on and bought me one of the first guitars I had. She listened to all of the crappy songs that I wrote when I was 8 years old and encouraged me to keep doing it."
- Tracy Chapman
(Related: Sister, First, Old, Songs, Years)
"Love's a recurring theme through my work."
- Tracy Chapman
(Related: Work, Love)
"I'm a hopeful cynic."
- Tracy Chapman
(Related: Cynic)
"I often write either really early in the morning, or really late at night."
- Tracy Chapman
(Related: Night)
"I learn all these things about the record talking about it after it's finished."
- Tracy Chapman
(Related: Talking)
"I end up writing about all kinds of things. I never make an attempt to write about anything in particular. I don't have a little list of topics to write about."
- Tracy Chapman
(Related: End, Writing)
"I dressed up as a veterinarian for a Halloween costume party. I had the lab coat. I got a couple of stuffed animals for patients and put bandages on them."
- Tracy Chapman
(Related: Animals, Party)
"Everyone is looking for connections between the songs. I don't usually approach a record as a concept. There's no overriding theme I'm trying to represent. It's all about the individual songs."
- Tracy Chapman
(Related: Songs, Trying)
"At this point in my life I'd like to live as if only love mattered."
- Tracy Chapman
(Related: Life, Love)
"After it's finished, sometimes I can trace a path that goes back to the possible source of inspiration."
- Tracy Chapman
(Related: Inspiration)
"You have to pay attention to the moment and make it the best it can be for you. I've been trying to do that. It's really made a major difference for me. I'm a happier person."
- Tracy Chapman
(Related: Attention, Difference, Trying)
"I see some recurring themes: things that feel threaded together, some symbolic references, and songs about some of the big questions, like death. There are a lot of references to weather, too!"
- Tracy Chapman
(Related: Death, Questions, Songs, Weather)
"The songs are not necessarily autobiographical. A lot of songs are a combination of influences. It might be some part of my life, or something I've felt, or something somebody's told me. It all comes together."
- Tracy Chapman
(Related: Life, Songs)