Top 70 Lisa Stansfield Quotes

I was fortunate enough to meet Aretha Franklin but I was so overwhelmed that I just burst out crying.

I don’t want to do something just to be on TV. If I did I might as well just go on and put a meat pie on my head! If I go on TV I want to be doing something I want to do.

You want what you write to be essential.

I do admire a lot of artists now who are completely multi-faceted – they’re doing seven different jobs all at once and it doesn’t seem to faze them whatsoever. It just astonishes me completely and I have nothing but admiration for them.

Let’s face it, I have a fun job at the end of the day.

One of the only things I’ve regretted was saying yes to a TV special, ‘Motown Mania,’ and I said I’ll sing you a Diana Ross song. It was just naff.

That’s a part of human nature that men and women, women and women, whatever your sexuality, you flirt with each other and it’s completely harmless and it doesn’t really mean it crosses a line… You can tell where it is.

People thought I disappeared, but I never went away. Music has always been a priority.

I do really good banana bread. And I make a chocolate cake with fudge icing that’s bloody delicious.

I always really loved soul music but all my friends were into the new romantic scene. I’d go to new romantic clubs and then go home and listen to soul music. I was sort of ashamed of listening to disco and soul music!

It’s like, if someone asks me to do something and it seems like a really exciting project, but I maybe really frightened about it, nine times out of then I’ll say yes imminently because then I can worry after I’ve said yes!

Well, I always leave massive gaps between albums.

I was happy to carry on without children because I was completely immersed in my work and my career. I only heard the clock ticking in my late 30s, and when my mother Marion died the year I turned 40 it hit me with such a force that we ended up having IVF, which turned out to be unsuccessful.

It’s good to write about love because it never goes out of fashion. And I’m quite a romantic.

If you are a soul singer, you are a soul singer. If you are a heavy metal singer, then you are a heavy metal singer. What’s color got to do with it? I don’t go around thinking, ‘I sing soul music and I’m white.’ I just sing the way I feel.

I did work incredibly hard but I think there’s a certain element of luck.

To me to singing is like a freedom. It’s a very therapeutic thing. It’s incredible. I can just lose myself. It’s sort of like meditation.

The Manchester music scene was very male dominated.

Fame made me insecure and insular. I wanted to run away from being me.

I go through phases with money. I’ll spend it liberally and then I’ll panic and won’t spend anything.

I was probably about four when I really wanted to start singing.

I’ve always been very emotional when I sing.

I like to keep everyone happy. I feel like it’s my responsibility to do that.

I think we all suffer the same pain, all feel the same happiness, and we all have the same emotions within us.

Honestly, I think if you don’t have happiness and you don’t have love in your life you can have all the money and all the symbols in the world and it won’t make any difference.

Deeper’ feels like we did when we made the first few albums. It’s got that excitement. It felt like a voyage of discovery.

I work out with weights, do yoga and run on the treadmill at the gym.

Having money hasn’t made me any happier. There are some negatives associated with it too, like having to be away from home when you don’t want to be.

As a rule I start the day with a delicious health cocktail which includes soya protein powder, porridge oats, water, vitamin C, sunflower seeds and honey, plus Dr Udo’s Ultimate Oil Blend for all the essential fatty acids your body needs.

I started to sing professionally when I was about 13 or 14.

I’d like to have more tolerance.

I suppose you have to be careful what you sing, because you might have to do it.

Falling in love is an absolutely beautiful thing to go through, and why people shouldn’t talk about it is beyond me.

You know, Rochdale is a really nice place, but it’s not the most interesting place on the planet.

It’s quite amazing how obsessed everyone is by ‘Strictly Come Dancing.’ I don’t watch it so I don’t know anything about it.

When I make an album I love to spend a long time making it and put my heart and soul into it.

It’s always been the same from a long time ago, it’s people with promises and people dangling carrots and when you’re young and impressionable, and ambitious, you want to believe them. I was always lucky because there was always part of me that didn’t believe these people.

I don’t watch ‘The X Factor,’ I don’t watch ‘The Voice,’ so I wouldn’t want to do them.

A really happy kid. I would go off on my own a lot and live in my imagination. When I got my school report back it always said, ‘Lisa should try a little harder because she always seems to be in a different world from everyone else.’

You can make a whole album on your telephone, you can make an amazing video too!

I love acting, but I’ve always prioritized my music.

I was the first white British woman to reach No 1 on the R&B chart – the American black music chart.

I think women were just accepted more as songwriters when they sat on a stool with a guitar and had scruffy hair. It was quite insulting really, because it was like saying that if you’re pretty and slim and glamorous there’s no way anything could be going on between your ears, you just like doing your makeup.

I knew I’d made it when I was sitting on the bus into Rochdale and there was an old man listening to one of my songs. It was fantastic.

The power of music is a wonderful thing. It can make us happy, make us cry. It can make us forget and make us remember.

I absolutely loved it in Ireland.

Because everyone has love or wants love there are always problems. And if you don’t have problems, you’re probably leading a boring life.

My life isn’t very racy or exciting so I make things up, tell stories. I like telling stories.

Working class people vote Tory because they think it makes them look a bit posh.

I’ve never been a twerking kind of girl. I’ve always relied on my talent.

People come up to me and sing, ‘Been around the world and I-I-I-I… ‘ all the time.

I always remember when I first started out and first became a little bit famous, I went to a celebrity party. For me it was really intimidating.

My mum used to listen to Motown. Diana Ross was my first singing teacher, really. I’d just sing along all the time.

I think that if you hear music young, whatever music you hear influences you. I’m white, but I’ve been influenced by black music.

In Europe, I do see a lot of women who were fans years ago bring their daughters and sons to shows and that’s how my music gets passed down, and I love that.

You never know what to expect in life, so just roll with the punches and make the most of it. Because you’ve only got one life and you may as well have a really lovely time. And try not to hurt anybody on the way.

People get trapped sometimes and they don’t feel they have a voice. And if you can in some way help someone by writing a song, it’s really lovely.

I’ve got a good imagination, so I can see someone arguing over a parking ticket and imagine they’re getting a divorce or something.

You don’t hear that much about me being a white and singing soul music in England, but I get the feeling that in America it’s really a big thing. It’s like, ‘God, look at the color of her skin.’

I’m not the sort of person who if everyone thinks you’re fabulous you thrive on it.

If there’s one thing I wish I’d done differently it would be to have invested money in property.

I’m like two different people. The way I sing comes from the music I listened to when I was younger, from black American R&B singers. My speaking voice is something else. It’s what my mum and dad taught me.

There was a period in music that didn’t suit what I did. I didn’t fit in.

You have to say no to a lot of people and when a lot of people are telling you what you’re doing is a bit rubbish you just have to have the courage to say ‘no it isn’t’ and believe in it.

There are lots of artists I respect and admire.

For me, learning how to sing was just like learning how to speak.

Some women can go 12 cycles of IVF and not have a problem. They love babies. They want to have a baby – it’s all encompassing. I did it just three times and then I was out. I realised that I didn’t want a child.

We were working class, but my mother stopped working at the mill when she married my father and he went on to become an electrical engineer and later a draughtsman. So although we were never rich he was bringing in enough money to be able to splash out occasionally.

I’m a bit of a loose cannon, but it keeps everyone on their toes!

You can’t have artistic freedom if you have to think about seven different aspects of your own job all the time. It must be very, very exhausting.