Melody Quotes
More Melody Quotes
An iron hand has stilled the throatsThat throbbed with loud and rhythmic gleeAnd dammed the flood of silver notesThat drenched the world in melody.
joyce kilmer— "To a Blackbird and His Mate Who Died in the Spring"
I wrote a little song for you With a melody I'd borrowed put to words that didn't rhyme To repeat what you already knew; As the stones thrown at your window tapped in syncopation, You kept a distance out of fear you'd break, But what good's a single windchime, hanging quiet all alone?
aaron weiss— In a Market Dimly Lit.
And over the pond are sailing Two swans all white as snow; Sweet voices mysteriously wailing Pierce through me as onward they go. They sail along, and a ringing Sweet melody rises on high; And when the swans begin singing, They presently must die.
Heinrich Heine— Heinrich Heine, Early Poems, Evening Songs, No. 2.
Yoga is like music. The rhythm of the body, the melody of the mind and the harmony of the soul creates the symphony of life.
— BKS Iyengar, in “Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freed]om”, p.xxi
A pretty girl is like a melody That haunts you night and day.
— 1919 'A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody'.
The song is ended But the melody lingers on.
— 1927 Song from Ziegfeld Follies.
Good melody is never out of fashion
robert bridges— A Practical Discourse on some Priciples of Hymn-singing Collected Essays no 22
Nature hav no music; nor would ther be for theeany better melody in the April woods at dawnthan what an old stone-deaf labourer, lying awakeo'night in his comfortless attic, might perchancebe aware of, when the rats run amok in his thatch?
robert bridges— Book I, lines 83-87.
His range is so Handelian that he can give the people a universal melody or march with as sure a hand as he can give the Philharmonic Society a symphonic adagio, such as has not been given since Beethoven died.
edward elgar— George Bernard Shaw, in Music and Letters, January 1920.
It did something to me. I thought it was the most glorious melody.
elaine paige— Regarding the song "Memory"; as quoted in "Cover Story; Broadway's 'Cats': Restaged for Eternity (And We Thought They Were Kidding!)" by Peter Marks in The New York Times (1 November 1998)
l'd been getting bored with the stereotyped changes that were being used all the time at the time, and I kept thinking there's bound to be something else. I could hear it sometimes but I couldn't play it. ... I found that by using the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with appropriately related changes I could play the thing I'd been hearing. I came alive.
charlie parker— On his personal stylistic breakthrough, quoted in Hear Me Talkin' to Ya (1955) edited by Nat Hentoff and Nat Shapiro, . p 354
Solos I kind of [couldn't] care less about. I know most people probably think that's what I care most about, but it's really the melody playing that is the cornerstone of what I'm working on.
joe satriani— As quoted in Guitar Magazine (August 1997)
Instead of thinking in terms of chords, I think of voice-leading; that is, melody line and bass line, and where the bass line goes. If you do that, you'll have the right chord. [These voices] will give you some alternatives, and you can play those different alternatives to hear which one suits your ear... Keep the bass line moving so you don't stay in one spot: if you have an interesting bass line and you roll it against the melody, the chords are going to come out right.
paul simon— As quoted in "Paul Simon's Workshop at the Guitar Study Center" by Richard Albero and Fred Styles in Guitar Player (April 1975), p. 20
Pure and undimmed, thy angel smile Is mirrored on my dreams, Like evening's sunset-girded isle Upon her shadowed streams: And o'er my thoughts thy vision floats, Like melody of spring-bird, notes; When the blue halcyon gently laves His plumage in the flashing waves.
benjamin, park, sr.— To a young girl
Sing us a song you're the piano man Sing us a song tonight. Well we're all in the mood for a melody And you've got us feeling alright.
Billy Joel— Piano Man
Oh, could you view the melody Of every grace And music of her face, You'd drop a tear; Seeing more harmony In her bright eye Than now you hear.
Richard Lovelace— Orpheus to Beasts. Compare: "There is music in the beauty, and the silent note which Cupid strikes, far sweeter than the sound of an instrument; for there is music wherever there is harmony, order, or proportion; and thus far we may maintain the music of the spheres", Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, Part ii, Section ix; "The mind, the music breathing from her face", Lord Byron, Bride of Abydos, canto i, stanza 6.
Max Müller is a Vedantist of Vedantists. He has, indeed, caught the real soul of the melody of the Vedanta, in the midst of all its settings of harmonies and discords the one light that lightens the sects and creeds of the world, the Vedanta, the one principle of which all religions are only applications.
max müller— Swami Vivekananda, in "On Professor Max Müller" in the Brahmâvadin (6 June 1896)
I phoned Prince out of the blue, hummed a melody, and he listened," ... "I hung up, and he came over within the hour. He listened again, and I said, 'Do you hate it?' He said, 'No,' and walked over to the synthesizers that were set up, was absolutely brilliant for about twenty five minutes, and then left. He was so uncanny, so wild, he spoiled me for every band I've ever had because nobody can exactly re-create not even with two piano players-what Prince did all by his little self.
stevie nicks— (on "Stand Back") Musician, issue 123-128 (1989), p. 84.
A letter depends on how you read it, a melody on how you sing it.
isaac leib peretz— A Gilgul fun a Nign, 1901. Alle Verk, vi. 33.
Thy voice Is a celestial melody.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Masque of Pandora, Part V.
Lend me your song, ye Nightingales! O, pour The mazy-running soul of melody Into my varied verse.
james thomson— James Thomson, The Seasons, Spring (1728), line 574.
The nightingale appear'd the first, And as her melody she sang, The apple into blossom burst, To life the grass and violets sprang.
Heinrich Heine— Book of Songs, New Spring, No. 9.
One nightingale in an interfluous wood Satiate the hungry dark with melody.
Percy Bysshe Shelley— Percy Bysshe Shelley, Woodman and the Nightingale.
In the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column: In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge— Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Ovidian Elegiac Metre.
Seek to make life henceforth a consecrated thing; that so, when the sunset is nearing, with its murky vapors and lowering skies, the very clouds of sorrow may be fringed with golden light. Thus will the song in the house of your pilgrimage be always the truest harmony. It will be composed of no jarring, discordant notes; but with all its varied tones will form one sustained, life-long melody; dropped for a moment in death, only to be resumed with the angels, and blended with the everlasting cadences of your Father's house.
— J. R. MacDuff, p. 159. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
What fairy-like music steals over the sea, entrancing our senses with charmed melody?
Wilson— Mrs. M. C. Wilson, What Fairy-like Music.
Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart, filled it, too, with melody that would last forever.
— Bess Streeter Aldrich in "Song of Years".
(melody: Grandfather, I think this belongs to you.) NOOOOOOOOOO! (Triton: Never again will you or yours threaten my family! There will be no escape for you... Ever!)
— Who: Morgana
— Source: The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea
— Note: Melody threw the trident to Triton, which in turn allowed him to freeze Morgana inside a block of ice, causing her to sink into the abyss below. It can also be noted that while she is sinking, she manages to mutter the word "Mommy" as she sinks to her death.
And grant that when I face the grisly Thing, My song may trumpet down the gray Perhaps Let me be as a tune-swept fiddlestring That feels the Master melody and snaps.
— John G. Neihardt, Let me live out my Years.
