Gotye Quotes

I don't understand why Europeans and South Americans can take more sophistication. Why is it that Americans need to hear their happiness major and their tragedy minor, and as jazzy as they can handle is a seventh chord? Are they not experiencing complex emotions?

Music has this emotional thing to it, and it touches people in crazy ways. The power of having that power is something that, once you have it, you don't want it to ever end.

I've had a very, very interesting view of the planet over the last 30 years, touring as excessively as I have. And music is the most evocative, transformative, connective force in humanity, man.

Once I heard how deep music could touch people and what it can make you feel and all of these emotions it could bring out, I was really fascinated with it all.

There are tensions abroad where people don't understand our attachment to the freedom of speech, we've seen the protests, and I would say that in France all beliefs are respected.

My songs were always about the tone of voice rather than the words.

Jazz tickles your muscles, symphonies stretch your soul.

American audiences and European and Asian audiences are so different.

Much as I adore the melodies, I choose a song for what it has to say.

I couldn't live without music. I experienced things through music in different countries where you cannot speak the same language, but the music and the dance relates everything.

I know from my experience in theater that the crowd is different every night; the reactions, the tension. But it's true for film as well, going from country to country and culture to culture. The difference between California and New York responses, for example. It's really fascinating.

I'm always thinking about songs and how I can sing a song that would resonate with my voice, my persona. I want it to be a pleasant experience that's not just about hearing my voice. I remember some singers whose voices were so pretty, it didn't matter what they sang - you loved it.

For my money, Tony Bennett is the best singer in the business. He excites me when I watch him. He moves me. He's the singer who gets across what the composer has in mind, and probably a little more.

You can go to some countries where people may not be able to conversate with you, but they can sing your lyrics word for word.

For a long time, I believed that a great piece of music on its own could do more to stir the soul than any other single art form.

My version of 'Fast Car' is in the same key as the original. To me that is where all the emotion lies.

During 'Torches,' I was more concerned with communicating the spirit of the song than the actual lyrics.

I realized you can be the dopest producer technically, but if the songs don't give you emotion, it doesn't matter.

That's the ideal to me - to make music that is well-crafted and sophisticated technically, but has a soul and a heart that touches a lot of people.

Music is a lot more powerful than anyone gives it credit for. I can sing something right now and make you feel something that you would not feel if I said it. If somebody can sing and connect to people just through voice, just through sonics, capturing an emotion, that's a direct string to somebody's soul.

Maybe in America there's more of an emphasis on food than there should be. But when I look out at the audience during a competition, some people are shocked, but most people are smiling.

I always used to say I'm definitely not a straight-ahead jazz singer, because then there's people who would hear what I do and say, 'Is it jazz? I don't know...' Whatever it is, it really comes down to creating music that makes people feel something.

I try to just encompass the entire feeling and emotion behind the song the best way possible, and if that's 100,000 screaming guitars right in your face, then that's what's going down.

I grew up influenced by different cultures, sounds, feelings, emotions, and I want Premiere Classe to be a representation of that.

It's such an interesting experience seeing how different people react to music and the generosity of some and the craziness of others - people who go see bands in different countries, know all the words to the songs, and get tattoos. It's so unexpected.