Tracy Chapman Quotes & Sayings (Page 5)

“I learn all these things about the record talking about it after it's finished.”

“As a child I always had a sense of social conditions and political situations. I think it had to do with the fact that my mother was always discussing things with my sister and me - also because I read a lot.”

“Growing up in Cleveland, I learned about singing from my mother, who had once sung professionally and who admired Mahalia Jackson and Aretha Franklin.”

“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.”

“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!”

“I think of the audience the way I would think of another person: You meet someone, then you take it from there; you see what's interesting to both of you.”

“Music was never just a hobby for me. I'd pick up a guitar every day to work on whatever I was writing at the time. I would put my ideas in songs the way some people might put them in diaries or journals.”

“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.”