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.
MITSKII 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.
More Mitski Quotes
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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 tend to kind of try to use what’s in my environment to the best of my ability rather than seek out things that I don’t already have.
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I lived abroad most of my life in insular international communities.
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What’s important to me is that my songs can exist without any material anything. It’s very reflective of my ideology.
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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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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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I think growing up the way I did has made me a lot more objective, and that’s important in the process of writing and trying to look at subjective matter that way.
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I think people don’t realize how little of being an artist is making art.
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I actually love the summer. When I went to Miami on tour, I was actually like, ‘I love this place.’
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I could never enter that dream. That all-American white culture is something that is inherited instead of attained.
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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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All I want to do at karaoke is sing Mariah Carey.
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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.
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People started calling me that, and I started being treated in a specific way.
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When I go onstage and am performing the way I want to… I finally feel like myself.
MITSKI