New Orleans Song Quotes

Jimmy said, "We survived slavery. Think about that. Not because we were strong. The American Indians were strong, and they were on their own land. But they have not survived genocide. You know how we survived?" I said nothing. "We put surviving into our poems and into our songs. We put it into our folk tales. We danced surviving in Congo Square in New Orleans and put it in our pots when we cooked pinto beans. We wore surviving on our backs when we clothed ourselves in the colors of the rainbow. We were pulled down so low we could hardly lift our eyes, so we knew, if we wanted to survive, we had better lift our own spirits. So we laughed whenever we got the chance.

Jimmy said, "We survived slavery.... You know how we survived?" ....We put surviving into our poems and into our songs. We put it into our folk tales. We danced surviving in Congo Square in New Orleans and put it in our bots when we cooked pinto beans. We wore surviving on our backs when we clothed ourselves in the colors of the rainbow. We were pulled down so low we could hardly lift our eyes, so we knew, if we anted to survive, we better lift our own spirits. So we laughed whenever we got the chance.

We played like a dead French kiss reincarnated as a saxophone with tendencies to hiss galaxophonic secrets through the tombs of trombones reborn as the lower bones of Bojangles, dancing on base drums prancing like songs of the railroad set free, we played like freedom, stirring on those hills reflected in the back heels of a dancer in New Orleans tapping prosperity

the first published blues was a song called “I Got the Blues,” which appeared in New Orleans in 1908. Its composer was an Italian American named Antonio Maggio, and it began with a twelve-bar section using a melody that is a clear predecessor of W. C. Handy’s “St. Louis Blues.

Jimmie Davis beat the certifiably insane incumbent Earl K. Long, had been all about keeping blacks out of the schools. On inauguration day, Davis (composer of the song “You Are My Sunshine”) rode his horse right into the legislature

everytime you got somethin’ good goin’, look like somebody got to fuck it up.

This book is a song for my fathers—the white one who sired, raised, and coached me, and the black ones who inspired and encouraged me, and enriched my life beyond measure. It also recounts the life and times of a middle-class white boy growing up in New Orleans in the 1950s and ’60s. New Orleans is more than a backdrop to this drama; it is perhaps the central player, for this story could not have taken place in any other city in the world. The

taught me to fish in the little lagoon using a bent pin and a piece of bread. Gerry

then sang a musical version of the Lord’s Prayer in a wavering, contralto voice with bluesy quarter-tone inflections. It was strange, haunting, beautiful. Even

One of his students was an intense young man who was interested in writing fiction. My father lent him some books and talked to him for hours about the art of the novel. The boy went on to write a novel himself, a colorful fantasy about New Orleans, but no one wanted to publish it. He later killed himself. His name was John Kennedy Toole,

but she doted on her grandchildren. Wendy was her favorite. Meme loved to have the kids visit

It was at this bleak moment that Tom Sancton wandered through the French Quarter one evening and passed by the open wrought-iron gate of 726 St. Peter Street.

On the far wall, just behind the drummer, a hand-painted black-and-white sign read Traditional request $1; Others $2; The Saints $5.

There was a siren-song magic about their music

American motor-and-music city of Detroit. Two centuries after the settlement’s founding, Cadillac’s name was a synonym for mass-produced luxury. He thus has the best name recognition today of any French colonist, and his memory resounds in countless song lyrics.

New Orleans would always be New Orleans, he told himself, no matter if it had gone under the waves, no matter if cynical and self-serving politicians had left the people of the lower Ninth Ward to drown. New Orleans was a song and a state of mind and a party that never ended, and those who did not understand that simple fact should have to get passports to enter the city.

Trombone Shorty’s “Hurricane Season” filled every corner of the room, and I found myself bobbing my head along with the beat. This song embodied New Orleans; if you didn’t get that, you did not, absolutely could not, fathom this city.