A Quote by Tom Reiss

While writing 'The Orientalist,' I played a soundtrack that alternated between ragtime and Azeri mugams, Russian operas and German and Italian pop songs from the 1920s and 30s. When I finally finished, I gorged on all my music from the 1960s, 70s, and 80s.

Tom Reiss

Quote Topics

Between Finally Finished German Italian Music Played Pop Pop Song Ragtime Russian Songs Soundtrack While Writing

Quote Author

Tom Reiss
American - Author
Born: May 5, 1964

Italy in the 1920s, Germany in the '30s, East Germany in the '50s, Czechoslovakia in the '60s, the Latin American dictatorships in the '70s, China in the '80s and '90s - all dictatorships and would-be dictators target newspapers and journalists.

Naomi Wolf

I hadn't played any music since freshman year of college, more than thirty years ago, so I had to relearn everything. I started writing songs. Some were dance and trance songs (I listen to them a lot while I'm writing), and some were love songs, because that after all is what music is about - dancing and trancing and love and love's setbacks.

Nicholson Baker

I finally wasn't interested in writing music that played while actors talked.

Andre Previn

I love nostalgic pop music. The '80s especially, to me, is the greatest era of songs. I just love the '80s so much.

Kim Petras

The protest songs of the 1960s and 70s managed to blend political and societal views with music from the heart.

Gregory Porter

I mean, I do consider that my music is pop because Ive been influenced by pop music my whole life; I grew up in the States and 80s pop music was my biggest influence.

Enrique Iglesias

If you go back all the way to the 1920s, filmmakers in Hollywood changed the identity of villains from German to Russian.

Evan Osnos

I was immersed in popular songs of the time, of the '30s and '40s. I was writing songs, making fun of the attitudes of those songs, in the musical style of the songs themselves; love songs, folk songs, marches, football.

Tom Lehrer

I've played Latin, I've played Italian. And I've played the all-around regular girl. I think the thing about the way I look, is that I can look like many different things. People sometimes ask me if I'm Russian. I don't think I specifically look like a Puerto Rican or an Italian. Wouldn't you agree?

Lana Parrilla

I lived in Italy for a number of years and I was really digging around trying to get my hands dirty, trying to learn about Italian music. And what I ended up gravitating towards was this stuff from the '50s and '60s and maybe early '70s, where there were these incredibly talented pop singers that weren't using pop bands.

Mike Patton

In the little rural town I grew up in, I missed out on the pop music of the time, the '80s, and now enjoy in retrospect. It's as an adult that I've opened it up to dance, hip-hop, R&B, and even big pop songs.

Bill Clegg

I studied voice at Yale with Blake Stern from the music school, and he had me singing German lieder and Italian songs.

Michael Cerveris

I grew up with rock and pop music from the 70s and 80s. I had to play guitar in school - it was a music college and we had to take instrument classes there - so I think guitar playing and guitar sounds have always been an influence.