Art & Creativity Quote by Virgil Thomson

“Musicians own music because music owns them” flips the usual modern assumption that ownership is a legal fact or a marketplace prize. Thomson, a composer who lived through the rise of mass recording, copyright fights, and the professionalization of “creative property,” is needling the idea that the artist is primarily a proprietor. He’s insisting on a more uncomfortable hierarchy: the music comes first, and the musician’s claim to it is earned only through submission.

The line works because it’s paradox dressed as a simple proverb. “Own” arrives twice, but the second time it changes the temperature of the first. The first “own” sounds like control: authorship, rights, prestige. The second “owns” is closer to possession in the older, almost spiritual sense: music commandeers your attention, your time, your technique, your body. Practice becomes a kind of indenture. Performance becomes evidence that you’ve been claimed.

There’s also a sly jab at romantic genius. Thomson isn’t saying musicians are free, inspired sovereigns; he’s saying they’re workers under a demanding regime. The subtext: if you want to talk about ownership, start with obligation. Your “property” is something that can break you, reorder your life, and still feel non-negotiable.

In Thomson’s cultural moment, when compositions were increasingly treated like commodities, the quote argues for a different moral economy: the right to claim music isn’t granted by contracts alone, but by the depth of your captivity to the craft.