"My father was a classical pianist, and my mother was a singer of just about everything"
About this Quote
The subtext is permission. Simon is staking out a lineage that makes her eclecticism feel inevitable rather than opportunistic. In an industry that loves to file women singers into tidy categories - folk ingénue, confessional songwriter, pop siren - she points to a household where categories were already porous. The father provides the architecture; the mother provides the air. That pairing mirrors Simon’s own work: melodically literate songs that still sound like they have lipstick on the collar.
There’s also a quiet gender remix. The dad gets the prestigious label (“classical”), the mom gets the expansive one (“everything”), which reads like a lived reality: men’s artistry often framed as formal achievement, women’s as versatility and labor. Simon doesn’t complain about that; she reframes it as power. If your mother can sing anything, you grow up believing you’re allowed to, too.
Quote Details
| Topic | Family |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Simon, Carly. (2026, January 16). My father was a classical pianist, and my mother was a singer of just about everything. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-father-was-a-classical-pianist-and-my-mother-85635/
Chicago Style
Simon, Carly. "My father was a classical pianist, and my mother was a singer of just about everything." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-father-was-a-classical-pianist-and-my-mother-85635/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"My father was a classical pianist, and my mother was a singer of just about everything." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-father-was-a-classical-pianist-and-my-mother-85635/. Accessed 21 Feb. 2026.
