120 British Music Quotes

Following is our list of british music quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about english music.

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Famous British Music Quotes

British fashion is self confident and fearless. It refuses to bow to commerce, thus generating a constant flow of new ideas whilst drawing in British heritage. — Alexander McQueen

The consolidation of the music business has made it difficult to encourage styles like the blues, all of which deserve to be celebrated as part of our most treasured national resources. — Bonnie Raitt

It is the clash of two different worlds that makes British-ness unique - we have an aristocratic, noble history, but it is always contrasted with something rebellious. — Christopher Bailey

I couldn't live without my music, man. Or me mum. - Robbie Williams

I couldn't live without my music, man. Or me mum. — Robbie Williams

The British brand is so popular particularly in the US that they put the union jack flag on top of beer bottles because it sells. — Liz Truss

Music can change the world. - Ludwig van Beethoven

Music can change the world. — Ludwig van Beethoven

I love classic rock, rock and roll, that's the top notch. I love soul - bluesy music as well. — Haley Reinhart

Pop changes week to week, month to month. But great music is like literature. — Ravi Shankar

Music is good when it makes you dance. Music is great when it makes you who you are — Tom DeLonge

All great music is contemporary. If it's still alive and kicking, then it's contemporary. If it fades away, it was a period piece. It had its moment, and that was it. — Steve Reich

Music is music; you can't change rock and say well this is punk rock and this is acid rock or rockabilly. — Chuck Berry

I feel there should have been some recognition of the Spice Girls at this year's 25th anniversary. We flew the flag for Britain around the globe in the 1990s and we achieved a hell of a lot. — Melanie Chisholm

Music is an important part of our culture and record stores play a vital part in keeping the power of music alive — Chuck Berry

Life without music is unthinkable. — Leonard Bernstein

music became my refuge and then my salvation. — Lena Horne

Short British Music Quotes

  • All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff. — Frank Zappa
  • Music just ain't what it used to; We used to have songs that you could shoplift or boost to. — Jadakiss
  • The world's most famous and popular language is music. — PSY
  • Being in Blur has allowed me to travel and hear the music that's being made all over the world. — Damon Albarn
  • Music is the soundtrack of your life. — Dick Clark
  • Music is my religion. — Jimi Hendrix
  • Rap music is the only vital form of music introduced since punk rock. — Kurt Cobain
  • We're a bit flashy, but the music's not one big noise. — Freddie Mercury
  • Life without music is no life at all. — Friedrich Nietzsche
  • Music is a defining element of character. — Plato

British Music Image Quotes

British music quote Life is like a piano, the white keys represent happiness and the black shows sadness, but as you go
Life is like a piano, the white keys represent happiness and the black shows sadness, but as you go through life's journey, remember that the black keys also makes music.

British Culture Quotes

In my view the European culture carries a very heavy responsibility for the creation of Israel... it is a product of both British and Stalin's anti- Semitism, but the British never faced their own complicity in its construction. — Tom Paulin

A genial and cultured Arab, Ameen Rihani, whose English is perfect and whose eloquence is astounding. He will discuss with equal eagerness and knowledge the merits of Picasso or Van Gogh, or the Zionist question, or the British achievements in Arabia. — Kenneth Williams

Even modern English people are imperious, superior, ridden by class. All of the hypocrisy and the difficulties that are endemic in being British also make it an incredibly fertile place culturally. A brilliant place to live. Sad but true. — Pete Townshend

British music quote Behind every girl's favorite song there is an untold story.
Behind every girl's favorite song there is an untold story.

They [some countries] borrowed money to go acquire things, Indian power plants and Danish newspapers and British soccer teams. And they did it willy-nilly, and they themselves a story, that Icelandic history and culture and DNA leaves us very well-suited to being investment bankers. — Michael Lewis

I respect the British a lot - their history, their past, their culture. I think it's beautiful, what they have with the monarchy. — Jean-Marc Vallee

The Irish and British, they love satire, it's a large part of the culture. — Ben Nicholson

British music quote The earth has music for those who listen.
The earth has music for those who listen.

The education I received was a British education, in which British ideas, British culture, British institutions, were automatically assumed to be superior. There was no such thing as African culture. — Nelson Mandela

One of the things which separates British and American culture is the reverence for the flag in American culture. — Mark Lawson

American culture is kind of an international culture, isn't it? British culture is a bit more unique. I think funny things are sort of funny around the world, really. — David Walliams

Even though we were influenced by American culture and music, we like the rest of Europe have been colonized with that in the post-war period. At the same time there's a sense of dirty earthiness and Europeanness and Britishness in it as well. — Stephen Mallinder

English Music Quotes

You cannot sing African music in proper English - Fela Kuti

You cannot sing African music in proper English — Fela Kuti

I realised a long time ago that instrumental music speaks a lot more clearly than English, Spanish, Yiddish, Swahili, any other language. Pure melody goes outside time. — Carlos Santana

Our last jam session was this past Christmas. Dad played his harmonica, mom sang in English and Italian, and I played guitar. I'm so happy that we could share that musical experience for one last time. — Tony Visconti

British music quote A real leader faces the music, even when he doesn't like the tune.
A real leader faces the music, even when he doesn't like the tune.

How will the Tower of Babel be undone? How will we understand each other in Heaven? Will we all speak English or Dutch or Latin? No, we will speak music. — Peter Kreeft

When I hear the word independent I reach for my revolver. At this point, what the hell does that mean? The English Patient is an independent film... Hootie and the Blowfish are alternative music. I'm the Queen of Denmark. I don't know what it means anymore. — Jim Jarmusch

The English may not like music, but they absolutely love the noise it makes. — Sir Thomas Beecham

British music quote Art is how we decorate space; Music is how we decorate time.
Art is how we decorate space; Music is how we decorate time.

I quite like American music, like The Fray - I'm a massive fan of them - and The Killers. I also like more acoustic stuff like Ed Sheeran; I like this English songwriter James Morrison and another singer called Ben Howard. — Louis Tomlinson

English music is white - it evades everything. — Edward Elgar

There are two sides of me, the bachata/tropical Latin side and the English pop as well. They're both equally important, so I'll always make sure to keep both roots in my music. — Prince Royce

Until House came along I don't think the English made very good dance records, you know, there were very few really good English Rap records, whereas once House came along all of a sudden we started and now I think we probably lead the world, and have overtaken America in dance music. — Fatboy Slim

British Quotes

His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular. — Idi Amin

On the British Royal Divorce (Charles and Dianna). She is such a sad soul. It is good that it is over. Nobody was happy anyhow. I know I should preach family love and unity, but in their case. . . . — Mother Teresa

The shots that hit me are the last nails to the coffin of british rule in India. — Lala Lajpat Rai

British music quote A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.
A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.

The British Government has no right in Ireland, never had any right in Ireland, and never can have any right in Ireland. — James Connolly

There's something whimsical, satirical, and silly about British humor, which Americans have always enjoyed, and lots of us come over here because we have an audience of people who enjoy it. — Milo Yiannopoulos

The gin and tonic has saved more Englishmen's lives, and minds, than all the doctors in the Empire. — Winston Churchill

British music quote People are like Music, some speak the truth and other are just noise
People are like Music, some speak the truth and other are just noise

The Regulars are coming out! — Paul Revere

We always said that our struggle was not only against the British as representatives of colonialism, it was against all the evil that existed in India. The evil of the feudal system, the evil of the system based on caste, the evil of economic injustice. — Indira Gandhi

I contend that we are the first race in the world, and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race... If there be a God, I think that what he would like me to do is paint as much of the map of Africa British Red as possible... — Cecil Rhodes

Yes, ruling by fooling, is a great British art with great Irish fools to practice on. — James Connolly

American Music Quotes

Jazz is the favorite music [of America]. It is a type of music invented by [American] Blacks to please their primitive tendencies and desire for noise. — Sayyid Qutb

I have this ability to find this hidden talent in people that sometimes even they didn't know they had. — Berry Gordy

There's a category for me. I like to be referred to as a good singer of good songs in good taste. — Sarah Vaughan

Regardless of what you play, the biggest thing is keeping the feel going. - Wes Montgomery

Regardless of what you play, the biggest thing is keeping the feel going. — Wes Montgomery

Silence is a sounding thing, To one who listens hungrily — Gwendolyn B. Bennett

The standardization of world culture, with local popular or traditional forms driven out or dumbed down to make way for American television, American music, food, clothes and films, has been seen by many as the very heart of globalization. — Fredric Jameson

British music quote Music is the emotional life of most people.
Music is the emotional life of most people.

The blues are the roots and the other musics are the fruits. It's better keeping the roots alive, because it means better fruits from now on. The blues are the roots of all American music. As long as American music survives, so will the blues. — Willie Dixon

The further jazz moves away from the stark blue continuum and the collective realities of Afro-American and American life, the more it moves into academic concert-hall lifelessness, which can be replicated by any middle class showing off its music lessons. — Imamu Amiri Baraka Jones

The further jazz moves away from the stark blue continuum and the collective realities of Afro-American and American life, the more it moves into academic concert-hall lifelessness, which can be replicated by any middle class showing off its music lessons. — Amiri Baraka

The blues will always be because the blues are the roots of all American music. — Willie Dixon

British Film Quotes

I don't care to analyze acting. On the other hand there is a fascination because distributors are putting out British films. You get films here with great performances you'll never see again. Why compare. We should go after the businessmen. — Tim Roth

I'm not at all fed up with British films, but I am fed up with playing upper-class people. — Kristin Scott Thomas

It's weathered many a storm, but the British film industry is, thankfully, still afloat. — Peter Capaldi

British music quote One good thing about music. When it hits you, you feel no pain.
One good thing about music. When it hits you, you feel no pain.

Racing cars which have been converted for road use never really work. It's like making a hard core adult film, and then editing it so that it can be shown in British hotels. You'd just end up with a sort of half hour close up of some bloke's sweaty face. — Jeremy Clarkson

There just seems to be more acceptance now of... other kinds of British films, than the picture-postcard ones. — Tim Roth

I'm somebody who is very, very proud to have been a part of the British film industry all my life and to have kind of been involved with a very important piece of British film history. — Daniel Radcliffe

British music quote Without music, life would be a mistake.
Without music, life would be a mistake.

Youre only supposed to blow the bloody doors off! — Michael Caine

My father in the film - which we probably haven't seen in previous movies, and in British Asian movies you could probably count on one hand - he says exactly why, actually why he's frightened for his daughter. He came to this country, England, and had a bit of a crappy time. — Parminder Nagra

Film-makers should remain true to their principles and never compromise, there is a real revival in the British film industry but there is a danger that we will become colonial servants of Hollywood. We need to maintain our own integrity. — Mike Leigh

British films are all "room with a view and a staircase and a pond." — Ben Dreyfuss

British History Quotes

My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time... Go home and get a nice quiet sleep. — Neville Chamberlain

While we remember that we are contending against brothers and fellow subjects, we must also remember that we are contending in this crisis for the fate of the British Empire. — John Burgoyne

We fight to exist. Personally, I am not ashamed of fighting to exist. We are doing no very extraordinary thing to fight simply because we do not wish to be enslaved or exterminated. — Donald Woods Winnicott

British music quote One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain
One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain

Most of our people have never had it so good. — Harold MacMillan

I went back in British history. Some 204 people died there after a mine collapsed in 1838. In 1866, 361 miners died in Britain. In an explosion in 1894, 290 people died there. — Sayings

The long-established and noble rule of Law, one of the greatest products of the character and tradition of British history, has suffered a deadly blow. Blackmail has become respectable. — Robert Menzies

Israel was born out of Jewish terrorism. Jewish terrorists hanged two British sergeants and booby-trapped their corpses. — Gerald Kaufman

Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest. — Mahatma Gandhi

As the British Constitution is the most subtle organism which has proceeded from progressive history, so the American Constitution is the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man. — William E. Gladstone

The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators. — Thomas B. Macaulay

People Writing About British Music

Name Quotes Likes
Read quotes by Chuck Berry

Chuck Berry
quotes on life, music and education

51 1164
Read quotes by Alexander McQueen

Alexander McQueen
quotes on fashion, nature

78 1053
Read quotes by Bonnie Raitt

Bonnie Raitt
quotes on love, life and friendship

121 361
Read quotes by Christopher Bailey

Christopher Bailey
quotes on leadership, love and education

13 124
Read quotes by Robbie Williams

Robbie Williams
quotes on life, happiness and love

101 529
Read quotes by Liz Truss

Liz Truss
quotes on trust, government and socialism

35 1

More British Music Quotes

When I was younger, I was in love with everything about the British Isles, from British folklore to Celtic music. That was always where my passions were as a young girl, and so I studied folklore as a college student in England and Ireland. — Terri Windling

I was born in the '60s and grew up in the '70s - not exactly the best decade for food in British history. It was horrendous. It was a time when, as a nation, we excelled in art and music and acting and photography and fashion - all creative skills... all apart from cooking. — Heston Blumenthal

[Being in the States] is almost like being on a holiday. It's kind of annoying because everyone's like "Oh, you're so obsessed with America," but it's not really that. I just really enjoy being here - I'm not the first British artist to make music here and be inspired by the country. — Marina and the Diamonds

Before Cliff (Richard) and The Shadows, there had been nothing worth listening to in British music. — John Lennon

Bill Monroe spoke of bringing 'ancient tones' into his music with echoes of British and Irish fiddle and bagpipe music, while also delving deeply into American blues, gospel, folk hymnody, and hill country dance music. To that gumbo, he added the invigorating rhythms and harmonies of hot jazz. It was a new kind of American music, named in honor of his band The Blue Grass Boys to be known, simply, as bluegrass. — Paul Zollo

I don't think the Bonzo Dog could have evolved in America, nor could the old Nice: because of their musical discipline. This is one thing that British groups do have, a sort of discipline. Sometimes it can get a bit soulless, but on the whole I think it's preferable to the American alternative. — Jon Lord

I was never too keen on the British music press. They've called us a supermarket hype, and they used to suggest that we didn't write our own songs. — Freddie Mercury

My biggest poetic influences are probably 20th-century British and Irish poets. So I suppose I'm always listening for the music I associate with that poetry, the telling images, the brevity. I want to hear it in my own work as well as in the poetry I read. However, I think I'm generally more forgiving of other poets than myself. — David Starkey

I have to admit, I am aware of my Latin roots now. In the past, people couldn't place me. They thought that I was Danish or English or French. They never got that I am Italian. I'm not typical, maybe because my visual education was very mixed. There was a lot of London in my aesthetic: The Face, i-D, British music, and a lot of British fashion . . . But I really enjoy this contrast. I can go from Lady Gaga to Brian Eno in a split second. — Italo Zucchelli

Back in those days, all us skinny white British kids were trying to look cool and sound black. And there was Hendrix, the ultimate in black cool. Everything he did was natural and perfect. — Ronnie Wood

The British ballads became a new kind of form in their hand. And out of them came the blues, a new kind of song of commentary and satire, a song form which, after all, has become the main musical form of the whole human species. — Alan Lomax

There's always peripheral things that you like that you don't know, but starting with whatever his British influences are, are some of my favourite artists, and the American things are what I grew up on as well. In the end, for me, it's those foundations of the music business - those things that are a lot of the foundations of what music today is. You can hear a bit of all of those things that we talk about in almost all music today. — Paul Weller

I was in Britain that year [1963] and some music publishing people in Denmark Street in London suggested me to the BBC. So I found myself in front of a British television show, which was a nice surprise. — Gordon Lightfoot

Everybody was in tears. You turned on the radio or the television, and it was nothing but Gainsbourg. With typical British music journalist disdain, I just figured it was a testament to how poor French pop was if there was this much fuss about a guy who had one hit record, 'Je T'Aime (Moi Non Plus)'. — Sylvie Simmons

We are devastated to learn of the death of Alexander McQueen, one of the greatest talents of his generation. He brought a uniquely British sense of daring and aesthetic fearlessness to the global stage of fashion. In such a short career, Alexander McQueen's influence was astonishing - from street style, to music culture and the world's museums. His passing marks an insurmountable loss. — Anna Wintour

I was brought up on choirs and brass bands. They formed the music of my childhood. When I heard the Treorchy Male Choir at the Royal Variety Performance it brought back such happy memories. You have your own eminent place in the history of British music. You stand for excellence in a great tradition and your work for charity is both an example and an inspiration. — Michael Parkinson

Being British, I don't really have a way of expressing myself in conversation. Music transcends language. — James Blunt

I'm English and I am British. I don't know if I feel part of a music scene. Musically, I have as many feelings and affinity with Americans or Canadians, or all sorts of people as I do with English people. — David Gilmour

That's one of the good things about a lot of the young British bands, they are mixing all styles of music. I think that's very good because that's very now. — Mick Jagger

We thought being offered the M.B.E. [Member of the Order of the British Empire] was as funny as everybody else thought it was. Why? What for? We didn't believe it. It was a part we didn't want. We all met and agreed it was daft. — John Lennon

I didn't like any British music before The Beatles. For me, it was all about black American music. But then I became a successful pop singer, even though the kind of music I liked was more elitist, which is what I'm trying to get back to. — Lulu

The British often shy away from any cinematic interpretation of real sex. They sometimes have what I call "subtle sex," which is really introspective and has soft music in the background. Either that or it's played for comedy. The British are kind of hung up about sex. They find it kind of titillating and they make jokes about it because they're nervous. — Steve Coogan

Pop managers are fixed in the dramatic stock character repertoire too, ever since the first British pop film musical, Wolf Mankowitz's 'Expresso Bongo' of 1959, with Cliff Richard as Bongo Herbert and Laurence Harvey as his manager. The key components were cast as X parts gay, X parts Jewish and triple X opportunistic. — Peter York

Dizzee's just my childhood hero. He's definitely the inspiration. He's got himself to a very good place. He's defied the expectations of what British black urban music was like. He was the first person who made the rest of Britain realise it wasn't just a one-album-type situation. You've got to take your hat off to somebody like that. — Tinie Tempah

I have been long associated with British music. I have favoured it as my alternate music next to American. — Leonard Slatkin

When I was 13, listening to Choice FM, I would listen to a lot of R&B from America, and whenever a British person tried to do it, it didn't really work, they just sounded like they were trying to copy that whole style. Now the music sounds British, something real rather than an imitation. — Katy B

The British like any kind of music so long as it is loud. — Thomas Beecham

I've always liked country music. It's a certain aspect of America that goes back to the British Isles and the influence is very native to America. — Sayings

I didn't really see the British punk movement, if that's what it was, as wildly original, because I had been listening so intently to all the New York music since 1973, really. — Steven Morrissey

I've never got on with the British press because they've always given me such a hard time. Once they build a band up they just want to do people down. They shouldn't concentrate on the colour of someone's shirt they should listen to the music. — Andrew Eldritch

The great British blues guitarists of the Sixties - people like Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and Peter Green - could play like virtuosos, but they also understood the importance of energy and intensity — Joe Perry

It is quite untrue that British people don't appreciate music. They may not understand it but they absolutely love the noise it makes. — Thomas Beecham

You certainly don't hear any country music on pop radio today. But for a while you did, and it was a lovely thing to have all the different genres of music cohabitating the Top 40 - the folk sound, The Beatles, the British sound, the Motown sounds, that kind of light country - it was a welcome relief after a few hard rock records. Everyone was sharing the airwaves, and I think it was a beautiful time for American music. — Jimmy Webb

The only thing that could possibly save British politics would be Margaret Thatcher's assassin. — Steven Morrissey

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