I wanted to take up guitar because playing piano is a little harder. Carrying a keyboard around is harder, and finding a real piano is much harder, and I wanted to play live more, so I figured a guitar would be easier to carry around.
MITSKIOften I’ve had problems automatically bending to a lover’s will, becoming what I know they want me to be. Immediately, I learn all the music they love, listen to it, study it, instead of being like, ‘This is what I love!’
More Mitski Quotes
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I think music is supposed to be shared.
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I created this ‘ideal America.’ Finally I came to the U.S. and realised, ‘Oh, I don’t belong here, either.’
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I’m so smart. I am good at doing math really quickly in my head.
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My father was obsessed with folk music from around the world, and I think the countless artists who performed them are my biggest influences.
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I was one of those girls people called ‘intense.’
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I always have strong urges to sabotage myself.
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You always want what you can’t have, and that all-American thing, from the day I was born,
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Maybe this is a made-up belief to preserve myself, but I do believe that everyone has a purpose, and my purpose is to put out music that means something.
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All the time. I feel like I’m not taken seriously.
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I think it’s our responsibility as artists to not only fight for our art but fight for the communities that are the reason we’re able to continue making art, especially since, in Brooklyn’s case, we as artists somehow made it ‘cool’ enough for the bigger money-making industries to start taking over.
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The whole ‘grunge-girl’ comparisons certainly are the easiest to pick out, and I appreciate that music journalists are rushed.
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I understand that, because there are so many musicians, you have to make artists into brands, but I sometimes feel like I have to be some kind of non-human icon in order for people to listen to my music.
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I took a few piano lessons as a kid, but it didn’t last; I just learned piano from doing it over and over on my own, because I didn’t have many friends, and there was always a keyboard in the house.
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Often I’ve had problems automatically bending to a lover’s will, becoming what I know they want me to be. Immediately, I learn all the music they love, listen to it, study it, instead of being like, ‘This is what I love!’
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I don’t really listen to pop-country, but I like really, really old country that’s closer to folk. Like Johnny Cash, who is considered country.
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Being an outsider makes you a really good writer.
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You can never learn enough about music.
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Sometimes when I perform, and it’s obvious the audience is just there to party, or if I feel a wall between me and the audience, I get existential about it.
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When you’re doing something you’re not used to, you kind of realize that you’re still a kid: even though the whole world around you sees you as an adult and you’re expected to act like an adult, you still haven’t actually grown up.
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I don’t think I’m alone in this: I’m obsessed with trying to not only be happy but maintain happiness, but my definition of happiness is skewed more towards ecstasy rather than contentment.
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I think my whole identity is formed around not knowing where I’m from. It might even be that I find comfort in that confusion.
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I think the pressure gets to me when I play shows and there’s more people in the audience than I’m used to.
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I’m punk, but I love gold.
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Being an outsider at all times is both unhealthy and useful, because you become much more objective about things.
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I really just care about making music and how I can make it next.
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My personality’s very obsessive-compulsive. I tend to fixate a lot.
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