"I want to be a soul singer"
About this Quote
“I want to be a soul singer” sounds almost laughably modest coming from Solomon Burke, a man many would argue already helped write the job description. That’s the first charge in the line: it frames “soul” not as a genre credential you earn once and cash forever, but as a vocation you keep reaching for. Burke isn’t announcing a career goal so much as naming a standard he refuses to treat as settled.
The intent reads as self-positioning. In an era when R&B was getting packaged into neat marketing categories and crossed over into pop polish, Burke stakes his claim on the messy, church-born, grit-under-the-fingernails tradition. Soul, for him, is less about a sound than an ethical promise: you sing like you mean it, you testify, you carry other people’s heartbreak without turning it into decoration.
The subtext is also about legitimacy and lineage. Burke came up through gospel; he was literally a preacher. Wanting to be a soul singer is a way of threading the sacred into the secular without apologizing for either. It’s an insistence that the singer’s authority comes from lived feeling, not from trend alignment or studio sheen. There’s humility here, but it’s strategic humility: the kind that says the work is bigger than the worker.
Context matters because Burke’s career lived in the churn of American music business politics: crossover temptations, label control, shifting radio tastes. The line pushes back against all that. It’s a reminder that “soul” isn’t a retro tag; it’s a discipline, a commitment, and a daily audition.
The intent reads as self-positioning. In an era when R&B was getting packaged into neat marketing categories and crossed over into pop polish, Burke stakes his claim on the messy, church-born, grit-under-the-fingernails tradition. Soul, for him, is less about a sound than an ethical promise: you sing like you mean it, you testify, you carry other people’s heartbreak without turning it into decoration.
The subtext is also about legitimacy and lineage. Burke came up through gospel; he was literally a preacher. Wanting to be a soul singer is a way of threading the sacred into the secular without apologizing for either. It’s an insistence that the singer’s authority comes from lived feeling, not from trend alignment or studio sheen. There’s humility here, but it’s strategic humility: the kind that says the work is bigger than the worker.
Context matters because Burke’s career lived in the churn of American music business politics: crossover temptations, label control, shifting radio tastes. The line pushes back against all that. It’s a reminder that “soul” isn’t a retro tag; it’s a discipline, a commitment, and a daily audition.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
|---|
More Quotes by Solomon
Add to List
