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.
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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I don’t want to be elitist.
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Everything is so chaotic and messy in the world, and I have always felt kind of dirty.
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My personality’s very obsessive-compulsive. I tend to fixate a lot.
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When I started making music, I was like, ‘This is something I can believe I was meant to do.’
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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 have this thing about being acknowledged and accepted by institutions.
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There’s this myth that women are supposed to compete with each other or something, or we’re supposed to hate each other, and that’s totally not productive.
MITSKI -
Then you start to realise, ‘Oh, I’m bending a lot,’ and they’re just standing there existing, and I’m bending around them. But you can’t blame them: they don’t realise it; that’s just how they already existed. It’s hard.
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I don’t think I have the kind of creativity to write fiction.
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I really just care about making music and how I can make it next.
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I think what’s hard for me is not that I don’t get downtime to chill, it’s that I don’t get time to make music.
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I don’t set out to write something. I more just write, and later on, I discover what it’s about.
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When you love someone and care about them, you want what’s best for them, and it’s always the hardest thing to realize maybe you aren’t what’s best for them, how hard you try.
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I’ve stopped wanting a home, I think, because I’ve been on tour all my life, basically.
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I’m punk, but I love gold.
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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.
MITSKI -
I’m so smart. I am good at doing math really quickly in my head.
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I’ve been asked whether I have a hobby, and have felt strangely offended that anyone would assume I have the time.
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Oftentimes, the most important decisions I make are the ones I don’t put much thought into.
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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.
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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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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 don’t want to be a musician’s musician. I want to be an everyone’s musician.
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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.
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I remember I took a music course in junior year of high school, and some girl brought in ‘Teardrops On My Guitar,’ and she was like, ‘Isn’t this song great?’ And everyone was like, ‘Who’s Taylor Swift?’ And now, every time I listen to Taylor Swift, I remember that moment.
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On tour, I don’t drink, because I don’t think in any other job you are supposed to get to work and drink whisky.
MITSKI