Edie Brickell

Edie Brickell is an American singer-songwriter who became famous with the hit "What I Am" as the lead singer of the folk rock group Edie Brickell & New Bohemians. Wife of Paul Simon.

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• Sail through the sea of sad faces with love.
  Love. Love for everyone.
  Drift like a little boat on a wave.
  • "Big Day Little Boat" on Edie Brickell & New Bohemians : Ultimate Collection (2002)

• I really thought I could give it up... But I really love music, and having a creative outlet is really the best thing you can do for yourself.
  • "Whatever happened to Edie Brickell?" CNN.com (7 January 2004)

• He made me mess the song up when I looked at him... We can show the kids the tape and say, "Look, that's when we first laid eyes on each other."
  • Of her performance of "What I Am" on Saturday Night Live, when she noticed Paul Simon standing in front of a cameraman. "Whatever happened to Edie Brickell?" CNN.com (7 January 2004)

• In a world religion class, everyone was complicating life and existence by over-thinking. I had this sense it's right here, right now. It's who we are and what we feel. It's not this tangled web of psychology and philosophy. I was driving to band practice and started singing that song. I wanted to be real, not adopt some philosophy or role. Instinct is our driving force.
  • On her inspiration for the song "What I Am" in "Edie Brickell, New Bohemians Return to The Fillmore" in San Francisco Bay Times (12 October 2006)

Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars (1988)

• I'm not aware of too many things.
  I know what I know if you know what I mean.
  • "What I Am"

• Philosophy, is the talk on a cereal box.
  Religion, is a smile on a dog.
  • "What I Am"

• Choke me in the shallow water before I get too deep.
  • "What I Am"

• What I am is what I am. Are you what you are — or what?
  • "What I Am"

• The village idiots in her bed
  Never cared that her eyes were red
  Never cared that her brain was dead.
  In the hours that her face was alive
  It was a thing just to be by her side.
  • "Little Miss S."

• Wheels keep on turning and turning and turning
  And nothing's disturbing the way they go around.
  • "The Wheel"

• All your thoughts are in another head.
  Your dreams are sleepin' in a different bed.
  The force that moves you is a circular breath
  of life and death going round and round and round.
  • "The Wheel"

• Maybe you ride a different wave.
  Maybe you catch another ray of the sun
  That I've just begun to feel.
  • "The Wheel"

• I don't believe in hatred anymore.
  I hate to think of how it felt before
  When anger overwhelms your very soul
  It's hard to realize you'll ever know

  Love like we do.

  • "Love Like We Do"

• When I'm all alone it's the best way to be.
  When I'm by myself nobody else can say goodbye.

  Everything is temporary anyway.
  When the streets are wet — the colors slip into the sky.
  But I don't know why that means you and I are — that means you and...

  I quit, I give up.
  Nothin's good enough for anybody else, it seems.

  • "Circle"

• I notice me. I notice you too.
  And there are simple things that we don't even try anymore.

  There's a way out of this.
  Beat the time.
  And every time I turn around
  we got some clever way to put each other down.

  • "Beat The Time"