Adrianne Lenker Quotes

A lot of the songs on '2' are pretty personal, but even if I'm writing about something like that, I still tend to keep it pretty simple and open-ended. I like the idea of people listening to my album and it meaning something to me but maybe meaning something else to them.

I learnt early on that your audience take the songs in the way they want to rather than the way you might want them too.

You finish a film not in the editing, but in the conversations that audiences have with themselves - and in that sense, every viewer is making a slightly different film. And that's wonderful.

The greatest thing about music is putting it out there for people to figure out.

But the greatest thing about music is putting it out there for people to figure out. You want the listener to find the song on their own. If you give too much away, it takes away from the imagination.

The video forum for me has been a source of great consternation because once you start projecting a look to a song, it robs the listener of their ability to adopt that song and make the lyric their own.

What you look for in a picture is a metaphor, something that means something more, that makes you think about things you've seen or thought about.

I think things can have more than one meaning and still connect with people. There's a lot of meaning to the title 'Music For People' and they're all true and they're all accurate.

With most of the songs and music that I've composed, irrespective of the myriad videos made, I was always careful not to overly define the experience, leaving room for people to internalize things for themselves, making their experience more integral.

I always hate explaining away songs, because for me they mean something, and for other people, they'll mean something absolutely different.

At its best, film should be like a ski jump. It should give the viewer the option of taking flight, while the act of jumping is left up to him.

I just really try to stay focused on what the material is wanting to do. My basic assumption is that no one will ever listen to it anyway. It's fidelity to the material. That's my contract: It's me and the material. And if it connects with other people, I'm thrilled.

When you're a writer, your song has to resonate with the person you're writing for in order for them to want to sing it. But if you're an artist, you can sing whatever you want.

I'm not sure plays tell people anything. I think plays include an audience in an experience that is happening in that moment, and that's the specialness. What people take away has almost as much to do with what they bring as what we do.

I want the poem to be an experience - for both the listener and for myself.

Art is supposed to hold up a mirror to its audience and ask, 'What do you believe? What do you think? What do you feel?' and if you look at a painting and it makes you feel nothing, that's a feeling as well.

It's hard to say what an album is about - because each one is usually about a lot of things to me, but then I hope it also can mean a lot of different things to someone else. That's the beautiful thing about music.

The music should speak for itself, and hopefully it will.

The songs always tell you something, but always for different reasons.

I think myself that, rather like books, music is meant to enter into the brain, well via your ears rather than your eyes but, it's - I think a lot more should be left to the imagination.

Seeing a play, listening to music - you'll always contextualize it in your own way. Whoever you are, wherever you are; I think that's really important.

People should be free to take whatever they want from music and I think that over time I realized that different people always find different things in my songs, which is really good.

You hear it said time and time again by successful directors: You have to make a movie for yourself. Don't make it for anyone else. My style of filmmaking happens to be give the audience what they know they don't want, but they want. Ultimately I have to write and direct in a way that let's just say, you don't want to regret making a choice.

When you play a smaller, more intimate venue, you can have real conversations with your audience, take risks, and stay current. You can also change the set list, on how the day feels or how the audience reacts. When you do arena shows, every arena looks and feels the same. You can't see who is in the room.

My goal is to connect with people emotionally. I take life’s experiences and translate them into music — music that hopefully creates an impact on the listener.