I can’t make hard street music for the rest of my life. Your references change.
The frontiers of a book are never clear-cut: beyond the title, the first lines, and the last full stop, beyond its internal configuration and its autonomous form, it is caught up in a system of references to other books, other texts, other sentences: it is a node within a network.
One of the first places where I started to respond to song lyrics was in reggae music. A lot of what I was responding to were references to the Old Testament. It was not that I had to adapt the lyrics to the sound. Reggae and the Old Testament are bound up together. There wasn’t anything that I had to do.
I was greatly influenced by ‘The Goons’ and ‘Monty Python’ reconstituting what comedy was – it could come from a funny word, not just a set up and a pay-off. I liked the zaniness; they were satirical, slightly saucy and very literary in their references.
My life before children I don’t really remember. I’ve heard references to it, but I really don’t remember.
Fairy tales are with us day in and day out, not just in commercials, but references in the theater, movies, museums, schools, etc.
It’s always a huge red flag for me when somebody’s reticent or reluctant or a little slow in providing thoughtful references that are a testament to them as a person and their professional accomplishments.
During the campaign for re-election, Barack Obama at least made vague references to a willingness to accept $3 trillion of reduced spending in exchange for a $1 trillion dollar tax increase.
The odds of having films made which star women… Everyone still references one movie: ‘Bridesmaids!’
I did a series called Ned and Stacey for two years for Fox back in the 90s. I was writer on it as well as a producer, and it was very important to me that there were no contemporary references.
I think being a foreigner and talking about Hollywood allowed me to use some cliches and some references that an American would maybe not use.
I spend much more time looking at art history and at different references to art than I do at actual objects.
I’m reverent toward my sources. History is a team sport, and references are how you support your teammates.
I never get tired of ‘It Was A Good Day’ references or jokes or anything like that. It’s just, you know, keeping my biggest hit alive. Nothing wrong with that.
‘Sesame Street’ is awesome – not only because they teach, edify and entertain kids but because they savvily make it possible to do so with parental engagement, because the show is loaded with references for Mom and Dad.
I’ve never set out consciously to write American music. I don’t know what that would be unless the obvious Appalachian folk references.
If you Google me, you’ll find plenty of ‘dumb blonde’ references – even though I graduated with honors from Stanford and studied at Oxford University. I don’t let it bother me.
It’s funny: sometimes with ‘Spaced,’ people would try and read too much into something I’d done, with the references meaning something more than they do.
I couldn’t imagine what it’s like to be a journalist talking about music. You’re left with empty descriptions; you probably have to make up a sort of weird cocktail of band influences and references to other music to get your point across.
Horror movies travel pretty well anyway. They’re like action movies: People overseas can watch them and enjoy them, and they’re not so culturally specific in terms of their references, and they can follow a good scary story.
What makes ‘Pootie Tang’ the motion picture enjoyable is its no-brow ambitions; it’s a joke action film. It slides through enough African-American pop culture signifiers to raise laughs out of those who will appreciate the references; it revels in more cheese per square inch than a soul food diner.
I’ve always been committed to tuning out the trends of drag and doing styles and fashions and performances that are really true to what I love, to the movie references I’ve always loved, fashion that speaks to me for whatever reason – no matter what people say.
Most Americans I play for are clueless as to who Richard Ramirez was, so you can imagine how audiences in Portugal react. I’m not saying they don’t enjoy the music; I’m just saying they’re a little lost on some references.
French schools follow a national curriculum that includes arduous surveys of French philosophy and literature. Frenchmen then spend the rest of their lives quoting Proust to one another, with hardly anyone else catching the references.
I strive to use references that may still make some kind of sense once our age has passed into history. That robs my writing of a certain connectedness to my time, but potentially might allow it to make sense to people who are not in this time.
We’re expressing ourselves through references to anime and things like that, but SoundCloud music is just music that happens to be on SoundCloud.
References help you to start but what’s after that? If you can’t prove yourself, if the audience doesn’t accept you, you stand no chance. When I started off my father told me ‘remember if you can’t prove yourself no one will invest crores on you.’
You have Vampire Weekend who have more African references musically than most African-American artists.
Fashion is all about references. All these names being thrown around.
There are a lot of Grinches out there that would like nothing better than to take any references to religion out of the holiday season.
Social media listening tools make it easy to track brand references and mentions, and these functions can still be handled ably by a small, dedicated team.
Famously, Anne Boleyn was not a beauty: she was more about quirkiness and an innate sensuality, and there are a lot of references to her eyes. Which sends out a great message for women, because life is not about the aesthetic all the time.
As a young girl, I definitely struggled with knowing what to do with my hair. I was just in a neighborhood that had mostly white people, and the hair norm was long and sleek and straight. My hair naturally was curly, and I didn’t have that many references.
No references to the need to fight terror can be an argument for restricting human rights.
‘The Simpsons’ basically – and ‘Futurama’ – are really smart shows. They’re kind of disguised as these goofy animated sitcoms, but the references within the shows, if you’re paying attention, are pretty smart and pretty sophisticated.
I can see now that a concept or even a feeling makes no sense unless out of our substance we spin around it a web of references, of relationships, of values.
I grew up watching ‘Ghostbusters’ and ‘Knight Rider’ and Hot Wheels commercials. When I got to college, having never set foot in America, I knew more American pop-culture references than my friends did.
My character in ‘Fanaah’ has a cool and crazy look at the same time. I’m very particular about my accessories and clothes and love discussing and working on the look with the team. We all work on it together and gather loads of references.
I draw cinematic and photography and art references from everywhere. That’s part of my job. So yes, you watch films, you see artists for palettes, photographers for mood.
I started off in this business in 1998, and I didn’t fit in. There was no place for me, and I always felt like an oddball. Nobody really understood my work or what I wanted to do in my references.
One of the first places where I started to respond to song lyrics was in reggae music. A lot of what I was responding to were references to the Old Testament. It was not that I had to adapt the lyrics to the sound. Reggae and the Old Testament are bound up together. There wasn’t anything that I had to do.
I tend not to have any references to anything. I just jump into the script in front of me. If you reference too much, you have no idea if the performances are right.
From politics to getting replaced by another actor or not getting references, I’m done with all of it.
I think it’s kind of difficult to write a good Christmas song because you have a narrow framework of references that you have to work within, and at the same time you want to do something that’s personally original and hopefully somewhat unique.
BASE jumping is skydiving from fixed objects, like buildings, antennae, bridges and earth – meaning mountains, cliffs. It’s for sure – for me – it’s the ultimate feeling of being in free fall, with all the visual references.
Logic obviously is important. You need to be able to figure things out, to go to the end of a particular problem. But intuition is very important because it references things that logic alone cannot.
I always imagine, and try to be on the lookout, for new things, for references that can inspire me creatively so I can showcase things that people haven’t done before or that are new.
I love learning how people hear my music because everyone has different references.
I probably have the most fun thinking up original vehicles. I usually consider details such as how to get into them and where their engines are. When you draw a real-world car, you have to obtain some references. I’d hate to have someone point out that I’m wrong. But if it’s something I invented, I can have it my way.
I don’t know if I change my act from century to century. Sometimes I’m onstage doing imitations and references to people who have been dead for 50 years.
