Art & Creativity Quote by Martha Reeves

Martha Reeves frames music less as entertainment than as exit strategy: a trapdoor in the floorboards of daily life. The phrasing matters. “Always thought” implies a lifelong practice, not a fleeting inspiration; music isn’t a hobby, it’s a coping mechanism honed over decades. And “way out” carries the faintest whiff of urgency. This isn’t about taking the edge off a boring afternoon. It suggests survival, a mental relocation when life’s demands get too loud.

Her target isn’t “work” in the abstract but “ordinary mundane obligations” - the grind of schedules, bills, caretaking, respectability. In the mouth of a Motown-era singer, that grind has specific weight: the expectations placed on working-class Black women, the pressure to be professional, polished, and endlessly resilient while touring, recording, and being marketed as joy itself. The subtext is that music offered not only relief but control. When the world assigns you roles, music lets you author one.

It also hints at a quiet paradox: music is famously labor-intensive, yet Reeves casts it as the opposite of obligation. That contradiction is the point. Art can be disciplined work and still feel like freedom because it converts necessity into meaning. In a culture that romanticizes “escape” as avoidance, Reeves argues for something sharper: escape as agency, a chosen portal where the self gets to breathe.