the song plays the music and the music plays the player and that, consequently, the song, as played, is not the showcase for the player's originality, but a momentary acoustic community in which the players breathe and think together in real time, adding to the song's history, without detracting from its integrity, leaving it intact to be played again. "the thing you learn," Lou Reed told me in an interview, "is that popular music is easy. the song will play itself. so all you need to do is make it sing a little, make it human, and not fucking it up."
Dave Hickey on chet baker