Urban Sounds Quotes

On a bus, your eyes, ears, and pores are open absorbing in the variety, the wonder, and the magic of the city. It's a wonderful way to get to know the city.

L.A.'s a lot of noise and stuff. You always hear cars and stuff.

People-watching in New York while listening to Bach is kind of amazing.

A lot of times, I walk down the street and listen to people argue, and then I write a song about it.

A city is where you can sign a petition, boo the chief justice, fish off a pier, gaze at a hippopotamus, buy a flower at the corner, or get a good hamburger or a bad girl at 4 A.M. A city is where sirens make white streaks of sound in the sky and foghorns speak in dark grays. San Francisco is such a city.

The great trains howling from track to track all night. The taut and telegraphic murmur of ten thousand city wires, drawn most cruelly against a city sky. The rush of city waters, beneath the city streets. The passionate passing of the night's last El.

For me, God's country is sirens and subways and all kinds of ethnic groups trying to cross the street all at once.

I always thought East L.A. music was so dreamy and languid and kinda greasy.

Sound sounds are terrible in the city, but it's great to listen and to walk and listen to people talk to each other. There are birds. You hear spring. I like listening to the city.

There's something so soothing about the hum of Grand Central Station.

Being in New York, I have fallen in love with walking and listening to podcasts.

A real New Yorker likes the sound of a garbage truck in the morning.

I really didn't try to make an effort to make urban music, but I am a product of my inspirations.

Musically, New York is a big influence on me. Walk down the street for five minutes and you'll hear homeless punk rockers, people playing Caribbean music and reggae, sacred Islamic music and Latino music, so many different types of music.

'City Of Black And White' was me trying to do something more mature, more adult contemporary.

I miss the noise in New York: the sound of taxis and that constant buzz the city has.

The greenish sky glows up in misty reds, The purple shadows turn to brick and stone,The dreams wear thin, men turn upon their beds, And hear the milk-cart jangle by alone.

I grew up in New York City - I grew up surrounded by every sound that you imagine can come from a New Yorker. All of the different boroughs and all of the different sounds.

The screech and mechanical uproar of the big city turns the citified head, fills citified ears - as the song of birds, wind in the trees, animal cries, or as the voices and songs of his loved ones once filled his heart. He is sidewalk-happy.

The truth is there's always a hum of people playing folk music in cities.

People would do the sound of a truck backing up - beeeep, beeeep - as I was sitting down.

It's the change of rhythm which I think is what keeps me alive. In Spain I hear so much noise from my window that can't stand it. In Switzerland it's the lack of noise that drives me crazy.