The Internet is just one big gossip chamber - that's why it's so fascinating and entertaining. It's a fabulous platform for superficial communication. Sufjan Stevens More Quotes by Sufjan Stevens More Quotes From Sufjan Stevens We stayed a long, long time, to see you, to meet you, to see you at last. Sufjan Stevens invisible lasts long I think musicians should stay off television generally. I get asked all the time. Those shows are just promoting insipid comedies. Who watches those shows? And whoever does I don't think my music would speak to those people. I don't even want those people to hear what I'm doing. Sufjan Stevens musician people thinking We live in community, and we're created in community. We're created out of the unity of two people, and then we're made into a family. It's just inherent in who we are. Sufjan Stevens community two people I think that music has always been restricted to media. The LP is an antiquated form, and the CD is now an antiquated form, and there's no sense grieving. Music is forever, there will always be songs. It's exciting that we're not limited to the media any more. I don't hold a precious view of my work, that it exists outside of social constructs or the confines of a platform. Sufjan Stevens song grieving thinking Art is... a reflection of a greater divine creation. There really is no separation. Sufjan Stevens separation reflection art If there's any kind of morality, for me, it's about reality; what is reality? I have a hard time distinguishing what is valuable when it comes to the real world and the fantasy world. Like, should I invest my time in the ordinary world or the imaginary world? Sufjan Stevens ordinary-world hard-times real I want to throw my voice more, I want to manipulate melody more... I want to be less deliberate and mechanical... I want less melody. Sufjan Stevens manipulate voice want I remember Detroit feeling really unsafe, feeling scared a lot. Our house was broken into, our car was stolen, we had to get a watchdog, we would get beat up in the street, I had my bike stolen. There was just a lot of real anarchy on the streets and sidewalks. Sufjan Stevens car broken real I've been working a lot on figuring out how to sing differently and better. I want to become a better singer. I want to sing out more. I want to me more extroverted, vocally. Sufjan Stevens working-a-lot singers want The music is the imperative. It has the upper hand. I think all music, even though it's an abstraction, does motivate a particular meaning. Then it's the job of the musician to honor that meaning and to somehow implement lyrical material that can accommodate that emotional environment. Sufjan Stevens emotional jobs thinking There's such a magnitude of record taking. It's so exhaustive. Bandwidth and hard drive space are able to accommodate limitless capacities to take a record of anything and everything. Sufjan Stevens anything-and-everything records space We live in a world that is cruel to the earth itself. Man is a biological terrorist. Sufjan Stevens earth men world I think a lot of my interest in history now isn't so much in places and names and texts and public figures, but more in examining all the nuances and idiosyncrasies of particular stories of everyday people. And if that doesn't happen, then I usually transplant myself and my own stories to a particular historical event. Which is why you'll see me, the first person pronoun, interacting in a song about Carl Sandburg, or you'll find my [sic] interacting with Saul Bellow. It's sort of a re-rendering of history and making it my own. Sufjan Stevens writing song thinking Public school felt like prison - cinderblock walls, fluorescent lights, metal lockers. It was so sterile and unstimulating. Sufjan Stevens wall light school There's a sense of urgency in understanding that your body is not really your own. We can control it to a certain extent through habits and good behavior, but there's so much we don't have control of. Sufjan Stevens behavior understanding body The World's Fair was the precursor to theme parks like Disneyworld, and the really sort of cheap, superficial promotional architecture that you see everywhere in the US. I think there's a danger when you start creating a civilisation that isn't meant to last. Sufjan Stevens creating world thinking One of my strongest memories is my father playing bongos in the living room in Detroit listening to Motown radio. He was this skinny white bald guy, but he was really moved by blues and Motown and funk. Sufjan Stevens white memories father It's nice for me to have a ballet as a kind of platform for creativity, because unlike modern dance or contemporary dance or downtown dance, ballet is formalized, and there's something orthodox about it that I like. I like that there's less emphasis on subversion and innovation. I actually think that my musical vernacular or my musical voice is also less inclined toward innovation and subversion. I think I'm a traditionalist. Sufjan Stevens creativity nice thinking There's nothing cutting edge about what I'm trying to do. I'm not creating a new sound. I'm not like Bjork, who's an alien from another world. I'm of the earth. You could extract any measure of music out of anything I've ever done and you could find its affiliations in music history. Sufjan Stevens cutting done trying I'm no longer beholden to the sacredness of the recorded song as some kind of ultimate standard by which every performance of the song is measured. I like to diversify, that there are multiple versions of every song. And the songs incorporate a lot of improvisation, and an element of chance, and I think that's exciting. There's no one true formulation of a song, they have various manifestations depending on the space we're in. I like that. Sufjan Stevens space song thinking
