"All in all, it's been a wonderful, wonderful ride. I don't plan on stopping anytime soon"
About this Quote
There is a particular kind of confidence that only comes from surviving the music business long enough to call it a ride and still mean it as praise. Teena Marie’s line lands because it refuses the standard pop narrative arc: breakthrough, burnout, comeback, farewell tour. Instead, she frames a career as momentum, not mythology. “All in all” implies the ledger has been tallied - the wins, the industry politics, the scrutiny that came with being a white woman taken seriously inside Black musical tradition - and the verdict is still gratitude.
The double “wonderful” matters. It’s not poetic flourish so much as insistence, like she’s talking herself and the audience out of cynicism. Anyone who followed her path knew the costs: the fight for creative control, label friction, the pressure to prove authenticity in R&B spaces that didn’t automatically grant it. Saying the ride was wonderful doesn’t deny the turbulence; it reclaims it as part of the thrill. That’s an artist’s move: alchemize stress into story.
Then the kicker: “I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon.” It’s less about schedules than identity. Marie presents music not as a phase but as a lifelong posture, a refusal to be filed away as a nostalgia act. In a culture that loves to freeze musicians at their peak era, she asserts an ongoing present tense - not legacy, but continuation.
The double “wonderful” matters. It’s not poetic flourish so much as insistence, like she’s talking herself and the audience out of cynicism. Anyone who followed her path knew the costs: the fight for creative control, label friction, the pressure to prove authenticity in R&B spaces that didn’t automatically grant it. Saying the ride was wonderful doesn’t deny the turbulence; it reclaims it as part of the thrill. That’s an artist’s move: alchemize stress into story.
Then the kicker: “I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon.” It’s less about schedules than identity. Marie presents music not as a phase but as a lifelong posture, a refusal to be filed away as a nostalgia act. In a culture that loves to freeze musicians at their peak era, she asserts an ongoing present tense - not legacy, but continuation.
Quote Details
| Topic | Optimism |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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