Mitski Quotes

I only know the lyrics to songs that I listened to between the ages of 11 and 15.

Popular music formed the soundtrack of my life.

My father was not really into popular music; I had to learn about that for myself.

I just don't get that new hot music. I don't know anything about all these groups like U2.

I didn't know much about him, and I wasn't a big country music fan. I listened to the Beatles and David Bowie, so I didn't know a lot about him.

I wasn't a rock 'n' roll girl. I said, Neil Young, Neil Young, where do I know that name from?

But I knew - in the old days, if a song was a good song, I don't care if it was 'Yellow Submarine' or, you know, or 'The Times They Are a-Changin' or 'Don't Be Cruel', you knew it, you know? You heard that song, and you were talking about it, and you knew it.

Dick Clark was a really great influence in my career; he helped me a lot with his whole organization, and they were awesome to me at all different points - but one thing that I really disagreed with him on was when he said that what I do, pop music, is a disposable art form.

I was born at the beginning of rock and roll. I got to experience the entire evolution of popular rock and roll music even before it started.

Classical music only really came into my life in 1969. I wish I had heard classical music and church music when I was a teenager or even as a child.

I don't think of myself as a folk singer per se, but I really like blues and string-band music. When I started listening to records when I was a teenager, the folk boom was going on.

I was listening to music long before rock 'n roll.

I think your teenage years define your musical roots forever. You're always looking for a theme for your high school years.

I'll never forget when I was, like, 17, and 'Highway to Hell' came on the radio, and I was like, 'Dude, listen to that guy's voice!'

I have this massive love for the whole culture of pop music. It's my fascination, my ongoing passion.

I have a 6-year-old, and his thing is to turn on Radio Disney in the car, and I get such an allergic reaction to listening to that music and the context into which it falls. I'm really working on him about that.

You can still make music that people love, but there won't be more innovation. I started listening to electronic music a long time ago. But mostly I listen to rap. I think rap is the most interesting.

The public, hearing pop music, is, without knowing it, also soaking up jazz.

I got hooked into folk music by accident, because that's what white college kids liked when I was a child.

Most of my ukulele heroes were traditional players from Hawaii, like Eddie Kamae and Ohta-san. There may not be uke stars in popular culture, but there are certainly pop stars that play uke - George Harrison, Eddie Vedder, Taylor Swift, Train, and Paul McCartney.

I still love it. I love lots of other music, too, and always have, but punk's the soundtrack of my youth. I think you never escape the music you're listening to and seeing when you're seventeen, eighteen, nineteen years old.

My dad always played a lot of music, so I heard him playing all the time, and then I decided that I wanted to learn to play guitar, so I got an acoustic and started taking lessons. I wanted to be able to shred like Yngwie Malmsteen.

The music that is played on the radio all the time or written about in magazines has nothing to do with musicianship.

I just felt like I'd rather listen to even the worst metal song more than most current pop music.

I don't know any Beatles songs. My dad never listened to Elvis or Sting or Bowie. Any band name that's on a t-shirt, I probably won't know their music, like AC/DC or whatever. I don't know what that is. As a kid, I would sing along to artists like Tania Maria.