I am getting to the point where the only love worth being in is the love worth singing about.
If you believe in chakras - head and heart - I think singing opens them up, like a wide open door.
I actually started singing those songs six or seven years ago, when I was an opening act for Frank Sinatra.
I loved singing. But can you imagine my voice in an opera house?
Then I trained as an opera singer for four years before I started singing professionally as a pop act.
When I did 'Opportunity Knocks' at 14, it was singing in other people's voices. So I'm more comfortable doing that.
I think 'Easy Rider' might have been the first time that someone made a film using found music instead of an orchestral score. No one had really used found music in a movie before, except to play on radios or when someone was singing in a scene.
I always said, 'A blind dog with three legs could get a standing ovation for singing 'I'm Still Here!'
You never imagine that the Green Bay Packers were going to be in something you wrote or singing 'Bootylicious.'
I started off as a kid singing with my dad. My dad was my best pal. But he had seven kids, and I was the only one who was kind of interested in what he was playing and singing at the piano. And he was not only my dad, but he was my best pal, and I was interested in doing whatever he wanted to.
When I'm singing I'm always trying to get to the highest point possible. I'd fly to the top of Buckingham Palace to sing to the queen.
St. Petersburg is a wonderful city. You have wonderful parks, birds singing in the trees, manatees in the water, pelicans. So it's like this little paradise on Earth.
Look at Kate Bush, Patti Smith, Yoko Ono - three really private people, but when they're on stage or when they're singing, they let go like no one else.
I felt like an outsider, so listening to a bunch of outsiders' music like Bjork and Patti Smith made me feel better. But at the same time, I didn't have anyone singing specifically 100% about things I could relate to.
One of my initial memories of being taken over by music was watching Paul McCartney on TV play a tribute to John Lennon. He was playing piano by himself and singing 'Imagine,' and I remember feeling an anxiety and shortness of breath.
People think that I popped out of my mother's womb singing 'Chasing Pavements'.
My aunt, Rosie Gaines, sung with Prince - 'Diamonds and Pearls.' And at the time, I didn't realize how big of a song that was. I just thought, 'Oh, that's my auntie singing with Prince. That's cool.'
It's taken me other places, but it was the impulse to write that led me to singing. I'm not a musician. I never thought of performing in a rock n' roll band. I was just drawn in. It was like being called to duty - I was called to duty, and I did my duty as best as I could.
I was a little bit wary of playing Nicholas. In the script, which I think is true of the novel and the film, he's the only character not singing and dancing in a musical style. Playing someone who is the personification of good is a little difficult.
I'm also taking singing classes as well, not that I ever plan to sing in public in my entire life. I actually have a phobia of singing, so I decided to take some singing lessons to help me get away from the phobia.
