Whenever I’ve tried to ingratiate myself to an existing community, I tend to give too much, to become whatever it is they want me to be. It’s something I do automatically – I’ve learnt to immediately adapt.
MITSKII 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.
More Mitski Quotes
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I have my privileges, but I do feel like at every turn there is such resistance.
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I always have strong urges to sabotage myself.
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I have a very conveniently photographic memory of emotions – it’s overwhelming, because things don’t fade for me.
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I think music is supposed to be shared.
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I discovered I was an Asian American when I arrived in the U.S. I didn’t identify as that before I came here.
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In my first few years of being in New York, I had a major identity crisis because I’d never stayed in one place for so long.
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I don’t care about making anything new. I make music to express an emotion, and if the emotion is nostalgic, so be it.
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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.
MITSKI -
When you’re young is the one time when you get to indulge in being morose and take yourself most seriously.
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I know for a fact that I’m problematic. I shouldn’t be looked to for any kind of guidance.
MITSKI -
I lived abroad most of my life in insular international communities.
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When someone is a musician – trying to make a living off being a public figure – it’s really easy for people to see me as a face on a screen that doesn’t have a personal life.
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It’s nice to know there’s a big world with many perspectives. I tend to get so stuck in my own small world easily, and going out into the world reminds me that I’m not the center of the world – in a good way.
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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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With solo shows, you have complete control over the set list. If you feel like you want to do something different or do a new song, you can just work it in. You can talk to the audience or not talk to the audience. There’s nothing that’s set.
MITSKI