I disoriented myself from everything about being a human being and just played and played and played and sang and sang and sang.
I want to be ripped apart by music. I want it to be something that feeds and replenishes, or that totally sucks the life out of you. I want to be dashed against the rocks.
I'm convinced part of the reason I got signed is because of who I am, and it makes me sad.
I started writing when I was 13. I got my first electric guitar when I was 13, but I'd always been singing. I had my first little acoustic when I was six. But I started being in bands when I was 13.
The people who raised me musically are my mother, who is a classically trained pianist, and my stepfather.
I don't really go on what people say so much; I go on their voice. I go on their energy at the time. I go on how close their arms are folded into their chest.
When I was 12, I decided to become a musician. 'Physical Graffiti' was the first album I ever owned.
I'm not 'Grace.' That album is like a brick onto itself. It's like a coffin that I put certain feelings and observations in so that they can be capsulized forever. I wanted to put them there so I would be free to move on.
If you're going to write, then write a novel with a Haitian woman in it and try and describe her accurately. When you can do that, you can write about people.
I'm far from being a consummate artist. I mean, this is just my first album, and the work is very new. I'm just beginning, and I'm certainly not worthy of demigod status. There's absolutely no danger of me reaching that.
I don't choose the songs; the songs choose me.
The words come from here. From memories, from dreams, from people I've known. I'm always writing and reflecting on life. I want to suck it all in.
The music comes from within and outside. Within is the big mystery of life; we've all got it.
The thing about a music career is that it ain't over until the fat lady sings. Look at all the times people threw in the towel on Dylan - or Neil Young. Remember when Young was doing things in the '80s like 'Trans' and the rockabilly album and being completely lambasted by critics who now think he is wonderful again?
Words are really beautiful, but they're limited. Words are very male, very structured. But the voice is the netherworld, the darkness, where there's nothing to hang onto. The voice comes from a part of you that just knows and expresses and is.
The most audacious thing I could possibly state in this day and age is that life is worth living. It's worth being bashed against. It's worth getting scarred by. It's worth pouring yourself over every one of its coals.
The only goal is in the process. The process is in the thing with little flashes of light: those are the gigs, the live shows... it's the life in between. That's all I've got.
The Smiths hasn't been equaled. That goes for the composition of the songs, the lyrics, and the performance.