Sharon Van Etten Quotes

Music is a very powerful thing. If I'm angry, I can write a song about it, and it seems to make everything okay.

These are all personal crises, I'm sure, that I manifest in a song format and project into physical situations. You make little stories up about how you feel. It's as simple as that.

If I'm kind of sad or depressed, it doesn't necessarily help me to write a song about exactly what I'm depressed about.

When I write sad songs, I feel like I'm sewing up a scar in me, and the outcome always feels so much better than when I write happy ones.

I've used songwriting as a tool, I've used it as a way of being able to talk about how I feel.

The idea of writing songs because you're depressed and you need to communicate it somehow, that isn't really true for me.

I turned to music originally because of my past and needing a release or an outlet to get out anger or frustration or hurt.

I tend to write songs critiquing myself. The best way for me to deal with stuff is to write a song about it... That's not to say all my songs are like that.

I'm always asked if the songs that I write are therapeutic, and my answer is a quick no. In fact, it could be argued that they exacerbate my neurosis.

People think my work is therapeutic. I don't see it that way. It's not like I'm saving money from a weekly therapy visit by writing down my life.

I've always been one of those people that, if I am angry, I just hold it in. And I always kind of, like, wrote it in a song and put it aside for myself because it helps me get it out. It's almost like exercising; it's almost like that for me.

I only ever really take out my guitar when I'm miserable, which isn't necessarily a very good time to do it.

When something is bothering me, I write a song that tells my feelings.

Music is there to access those dark emotional corners that we don't normally get too close to.

My songs are basically my diaries. Some of my best songwriting has come out of time when I've been going through a personal nightmare.

Writing for me is definitely a form of ventilation - a way for me to cope and deal with emotions. I think it is for any writer.

I write most of my songs when I'm in a bad mood.

There's a lot of rage... you have to express it somehow. If I didn't express it in song, I'd become incredibly violent.

When you listen to records like 'Foreclosure,' that's like me sitting in a room by myself just rapping about things that's running across my mind and things that have been bothering me.

I write songs that are like diary entries. I have to do it in order to feel sane.

I get things out of my system through my songs, but, because they can be about so many different things, it takes me a while to get through them emotionally.

I make music because it helps me. I feel better after I've written a song. I listen to my own songs, and they make me feel and think about stuff I'd done or someone said to me, and I feel a bit better.

My songwriting... it's almost like a kind of self-therapy.

Writing songs has always been a process where I divulge a lot, just because music is a tool for me to sift through and process intense emotions. But having music be my primary occupation has changed how I interact with art.

Creating something beautiful out of pain helps ease the pain. So, that's kind of how I got to songwriting - quite honestly out of desperation.