No two people on earth are alike, and it's got to be that way in

Billie Holiday, the voice of sorrow and of fire, once spoke with unshakable truth: “No two people on earth are alike, and it’s got to be that way in music or it isn’t music.” In this simple yet profound saying, she revealed the eternal law of both life and art—that individuality is not a flaw, but the very essence of creation. Just as no two stars shine with the same light, no two rivers flow with the same course, so too no two souls sing with the same song. To erase that difference is to erase truth itself, for without uniqueness, music is no longer alive.

The ancients knew this wisdom well. They believed that each man and woman carried within them a spark of the divine, a soul unlike any other. In the Greek world, this was called the daemon, a guiding spirit that shaped one’s destiny. To ignore it was to live a shadow life; to honor it was to walk in harmony with the cosmos. Holiday, in her words, speaks this same law in the tongue of a singer: if the music does not carry the unique breath of the person, then it is hollow, a mask rather than a voice.

Holiday herself embodied this truth. In an age when singers were expected to follow formulas and polish every note to perfection, she sang with raw emotion, bending phrases, breaking time, filling each song with her lived pain and her fragile hope. Her voice was not like anyone else’s—sometimes cracked, sometimes trembling—but it was alive with her truth. That uniqueness, once criticized, became her immortal gift. She proved by her very being that music without individuality is not music, but imitation.

History gives us countless echoes of this lesson. Consider Louis Armstrong, whose gravelly voice and bold trumpet could not have been mistaken for anyone else’s. At first, many thought his style too strange, too rough, but it was precisely his uniqueness that made him timeless. Or think of the poets of every age—Emily Dickinson, who wrote in a voice unlike any of her time, or Walt Whitman, whose free verse scandalized the formalists. Each carved a place in eternity by daring to be themselves. Holiday’s truth rings across their stories: sameness is death, but individuality is life.

The deeper wisdom of her words is this: individuality is not only the soul of music, but the soul of existence. If all men and women were the same, there would be no growth, no discovery, no beauty. It is the differences—the unique perspectives, voices, and experiences—that create harmony. A choir is not made of one note, but of many, each different, yet joined. So it is with humanity, and so it must be with music. To silence the unique is to rob the world of its greatest gift.

The lesson for us is clear: never fear the sound of your own voice. Do not try to imitate the song of another, for it will ring false. Whether in art, in work, or in life, you are called to give the world your own sound, your own story. That is your music, and without it, the great song of life is incomplete. Holiday reminds us that conformity is the death of art, but authenticity is its lifeblood.

Practical wisdom follows: embrace your individuality in every act of creation. If you write, let your words carry your truth. If you sing, let your voice bear your scars and your joys. If you live, live as yourself, not as a mirror of others. And just as you honor your own uniqueness, honor the uniqueness of others—listen to their voices, celebrate their differences, learn from their songs. Together, these many voices create the true music of the world.

So remember Billie Holiday’s words: “No two people are alike, and it’s got to be that way in music or it isn’t music.” Carry them as a shield against the temptation of imitation and as a call to embrace authenticity. For the greatest art, and the greatest life, are not found in sameness, but in the courage to sound your own note in the eternal symphony of existence.