“It is the best of all trades, to make songs, and the second best to sing them.”出自Hilaire Belloc的一本书<<On Everything>>，原书回目可见：

http://books.google.com/books/about/On_everything.html?id=jngLAAAAYAAJ

Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953)为French-born poet, historian, and essayist，上述文集是Hilaire Belloc的一本散文集，表达了他对各种事物的看法，这句话是他对歌曲的看法。

在《An Interview with Gary Shearston》中，歌手Gary Shearston曾引用该名言。

GARY: The Anglo-French historian, essayist and novelist, Hilaire Belloc, once wrote, “It is the best of all trades, to make songs, and the second best to sing them.” I've always appreciated that observation. If I were to expand on it, I would probably say, “it is the best of all trades, to make songs that inspire hearts, minds and souls to make the world a better place for every single human being inhabiting it, and the second best to sing them and hear others singing them.” That's probably a bit long-winded, but you may get my general drift. Songs born of struggle invariably inspire ways of resolving the struggle that gave them birth. 'Songs of protest' can reveal hidden agendas, stamp them clearly in the' consciousness of people from all walks of life, and lead them to consider, or re—consider, all sorts of ideological positions adopted by one crew or another. The truth will always out and, more often than not, the truth rings truest when carried on the wings of song.（http://simplyaustralia.net/interview-garyshearston.html）

“make a song and dance about”有“小题大作，大吹大擂”的意思，但“make songs”则未有这个意思。

我试意译如下：“最好的职业是写歌，其次是唱歌”。