Stephen Malkmus Quotes

I'm pretty self-conscious, so I tend to work in a way where I say what I need to say and get out rather than revisit things. It's kind of a collage style. I realized that it had more emotional weight that way. I'll always be in the developmental stages as far as being a songwriter.

So yeah, it's nothing that I'm doing on purpose, I just think that the more records, the more songs that I write, the more records that I make, you're obviously going to fall into a specific style and thank God it's a style that people are into.

I think early on I avoided singing because it was so personal and I didn't know how to sit in that intimacy. I wrote songs when I was little and I wrote a journal, but I don't think I knew how to let that truth come out yet.

I'm really maturing into soul music. It's not my attempt or karaoke try. I feel like I really embody the music now that I am 36.

I think the narratives on 'Trans,' 'Plans,' and 'Narrow Stairs' moved away from the way I wrote on the first couple of records, which was a lot more impressionistic. I was writing those songs in my early 20s, so I thought I was being more clear than I actually was.

I wrote songs when I was little, and I wrote a journal, but I don't think I knew how to let that truth come out yet.

I wear my heart on my sleeve, and whatever I was giving, it was just coming from my natural place at that time. And you know, some albums I've made, I look back and think they were great, and then some I look at, and I think that wasn't right at the time.

My music's matured so much, I don't have to create any barriers.

Mostly, I just write about feelings that people can relate to. Because, yeah, I don't know who I am, and this is not my sound forever... I'm a human, so hopefully, I will always develop.

So few hip-hop artists have ever advanced. Their songs on their seventh, eighth albums sound exactly like the songs on their first album. More than an artist, I'm a real person-and real people grow. And I wanna just sing my growth.

Writing a song doesn't heal things. Even if the song comes up with a solution, it's still only a theory. Going out and living my lyrics is a whole other deal. That takes courage.

I would never sit and write a song in front of anyone, because you're so vulnerable. I don't know at what point in the process that it becomes acceptable to pass them on. When a song wants to be written, it will be written. When it does come, I will very rarely go back and edit lyrics. I'm quite a rational human being, and the only part of my life that I can't rationalise, or can't make sense of, is how a song gets written or why.

It's not hard to connect with the music on an emotional level and get inside the songs. It's odd, very vulnerable, and slightly embarrassing to be standing and singing and playing music in front of a bunch of strangers.

Initially, I was very much concerned with having absolute control. But as time has gone by, I'm not. I mean, the whole first record was really just how I spent my free time: stoned and drinking coffee in my house, spending three hours on a song.

I'm a guy so I equate vulnerability with fear.

Sometimes it's an external approach where one can learn the skills required, let's say, learn to play the trumpet and in that process other things happen. It's magical: through the process of practicing four hours a day you start focusing on emotion and when you pick up the trumpet it's filled with feeling.

I'm going to make music that reflects me and my life now. So I think people who like my music and who listen to me should appreciate change as well, because I've definitely evolved, and that's a great thing, to celebrate that is what music is all about.

I'm only 49 years old. I'm still in the middle of this whole thing. I don't feel like it's finished at all. I'm still planning to write better songs.

I think we're past the time in history where you have to come out and say, "I'm happy all the time! I'm a joker! I'm a crazy man!" I think people understand that I can turn that switch on but that I'm also a sensitive, normal human being with feelings and I know how to express those too.

You are always growing, so maybe the way that you bring the songs forward and translate them is more mature.

To sing is an expression of your being, a being which is becoming.

It's the scariest thing in the world, going to acting class, because first of all, there's a lot of pressure. I just go back to being that fourth grader who couldn't, like, sit still in her seat.

My songs are like kids. I love them all. I encourage them to grow, to reach their full potential, and then send them out into the world.

The thing that bothers me is that it seems like all the sensitive stuff I write just goes unnoticed . . . the media doesn't get who I am at all. Or maybe they just can't accept it. It doesn't fit into those negative stories they like to write. I'm the kind of guy who is moved by a song like Don McLean's "Vincent," that one about Van Gogh. The lyric on that song is so touching. That's how I want to make my songs feel. Take "Dear Mama" - I aimed that one straight for my homies' heartstrings.

Write about what you're afraid of.