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!’
MITSKIMiyazaki movies were what I was raised on. I’ve watched them since I was very young, and I’ve been greatly shaped by them.
More Mitski Quotes
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When I go onstage and am performing the way I want to… I finally feel like myself.
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I think people don’t realize how little of being an artist is making art.
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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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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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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.
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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 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 real influences are out of my control, which are the things that entered my brain when I was a kid growing up.
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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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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 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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I always have strong urges to sabotage myself.
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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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I’m Japanese, and I’m also white American, and neither camp wants me in their camp.
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Miyazaki movies were what I was raised on. I’ve watched them since I was very young, and I’ve been greatly shaped by them.
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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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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 one hand, I think it’s very important to talk about race and talk about gender, because if it’s not talked about, then we won’t progress.
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Tour isn’t good for writing, but it’s good for inspiration.
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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 know for a fact that I’m problematic. I shouldn’t be looked to for any kind of guidance.
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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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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 lived abroad most of my life in insular international communities.
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A lot of musicians talk about how they were into music from the start; they always wanted to be musicians. It wasn’t like that for me. I didn’t think of it as a job or a career – it was just something that was constant.
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I can’t read in a car, because I’ll get sick. It’s almost instant.
MITSKI