Frasi di Billie Holiday

“Se non hai amici, non hai niente.”

“Io non mi figuro di cantare. Io mi sento come se suonassi uno strumento a fiato. Cerco di improvvisare come Lester Young, come Louis Armstrong, o qualcun altro che ammiro. Quello che esce fuori è ciò che sento. Non mi va di cantare una canzone così com'è. Devo cambiarla alla mia maniera. È tutto quello che so.”

“Non c'era cotone da raccogliere tra il Leon & Eddie's e L'East River, ma, credetemi, da qualunque punto di vista la guardaste, era vita da piantagione. E noi non andavamo lì per guardare; dovevamo viverci, Fraternizzare coi bianchi era proibito nel modo più assoluto: appena finito il nostro numero; ci toccava scappar via dalla porta posteriore e metterci a sedere nel vicolo, fuori.”

“La mamma e il babbo erano ancora due ragazzi quando si sposarono. Lui aveva diciott'anni, lei sedici, io tre.”

“Non tardai molto a diventare una schiava tra le meglio pagate. Prendevo anche mille dollari alla settimana, ma quanto a libertà non ne avevo più di quando ne potesse avere il più pidocchioso bracciante della Virginia, cento anni fa.”

“Nei due anni che cantai nel complesso di Basie, mettemmo insieme un repertorio d'un centinaio di canzoni e più. E ognuno di noi custodiva questo repertorio, passaggio per passaggio, nota per nota, tutto e soltanto dentro la sua testa.”

“Non si può copiare un altro, e nello stesso tempo pretendere di arrivare a qualcosa. Se tu copi, ciò inoltre è perché il tuo lavoro non ha un sentimento sincero, e senza sentimento nessuna delle cose che fai avrà realmente un valore. Come non ci sono al mondo due persone uguali, così dev'essere anche con la musica, sennò non è musica.”

“Un inedito di Stefano Benni Lady sings the blues”

“Don't threaten me with love, baby. Let's just go walking in the rain.”

“If I'm going to sing like someone else, then I don't need to sing at all.”

“I've been your slave
Ever since I've been your babe
But before I be your dog
I'll see you in your grave.”

“I'm always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where I've been.”

“Them that's got shall get
Them that's not shall lose”

“You can't copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you're working without any real feeling. No two people on earth are alike, and it's got to be that way in music or it isn't music.”

“I never hurt nobody but myself and that's nobody's business but my own.”

“You've got to have something to eat, and a little love in your life before you can hold still for any damn body's sermon on how to behave.”

“You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation.”

“Love is like a faucet: it turns on and off.”

“Lord I love my man, tell the world I do
I love my man, tell the world I do
But when he mistreats me
Makes me feel so blue.”

“Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaf and blood at the root
Black bodies swingin’ in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hangin’ in the poplar trees.”

“Money, you've got lots of friends
Crowding round the door
When you're gone, spending ends
They don't come no more
Rich relations give
Crust of bread and such
You can help yourself
But don't take too much.”

“I ain't good looking
And my hair ain't curls
But my mother she give me something
It's going to carry me through this world.”

“In this country, don’t forget, a habit is no damn private hell. There’s no solitary confinement outside of jail. A habit is hell for those you love. And in this country it’s the worst kind of hell for those who love you.”

“Mama may have, Papa may have
But God bless the child that's got his own
That's got his own.”

“Some men like me talkin' happy
Some calls it snappy
Some call me honey
Others think I got money
Some tell me baby you're built for speed
Now if you put that all together
Makes me everything a good man needs.”

“Somebody once said we never know what is enough until we know what's more than enough.”

“I can’t stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession, let alone two years or ten years. If you can, then it ain’t music, it’s close-order drill or exercise or yodeling or something, not music.”

“Who love my man, I'm a liar if I say I don't
But I'll quit my man, I'm a liar if I say I wont.”

“Imagine if the government chased sick people with diabetes, put a tax on insulin and drove it into the black market, told doctors they couldn’t treat them, and then caught them, prosecuted them for not paying their taxes, and then sent them to jail. If we did that, everyone would know we were crazy. Yet we do practically the same thing every day in the week to sick people hooked on drugs. The jails are full and the problem is getting worse every day.”

“[I]t takes a bad woman to be a good godmother.”

“I've been told that nobody sings the word "hunger" like I do. Or the word "love."”

“If you think dope is for kicks and for thrills, you’re out of your mind. There are more kicks the fuck to be had in a good case of paralytic polio or by living in an iron lung. If you think you need stuff to play music or sing, you’re crazy. It can fix you so you can’t play nothing or sing nothing.”

“Holiday varied the lyrics of this and other songs in her renditions of them; included are some of the major passages of some of the variants.”