"The lights go down, you hear the applause and you're up there, and then everything else is forgotten"
About this Quote
Coming from a working, shape-shifting musician who’s moved through scenes and lineups, the line reads as both devotion and coping mechanism. The subtext is that “everything else” is not abstract; it’s the baggage musicians haul around offstage: uncertainty, industry politics, personal mess, the creeping sense that you’re only as good as the last gig. Onstage, identity gets simplified. You’re not negotiating; you’re being received. Applause becomes proof-of-life, a clean metric in a world that usually grades you in slow motion.
The syntax does the trick. It’s all forward motion: lights, applause, up there. No reflective clauses, no philosophy. That rush mirrors the experience he’s naming: the moment arrives before you can interpret it. “Forgotten” lands like relief, but there’s a faint chill to it, too. If the stage is where everything else disappears, what happens when the lights come back up? The quote captures the seductive bargain of performance: short-term erasure in exchange for perpetual need.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Cuccurullo, Warren. (2026, January 16). The lights go down, you hear the applause and you're up there, and then everything else is forgotten. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-lights-go-down-you-hear-the-applause-and-98420/
Chicago Style
Cuccurullo, Warren. "The lights go down, you hear the applause and you're up there, and then everything else is forgotten." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-lights-go-down-you-hear-the-applause-and-98420/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The lights go down, you hear the applause and you're up there, and then everything else is forgotten." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-lights-go-down-you-hear-the-applause-and-98420/. Accessed 10 Feb. 2026.
