Sufjan Stevens Quotes About Songs

Quotes about: Songs

• 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

  Song, Writing, Thinking

• 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, Thinking, Grieving

  Source: thequietus.com

• 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

  Song, Thinking, Space

  Source: thequietus.com

• I'm not beholden to the public, and neither are the public beholden to me or my songs. I'm very much of a populist on those terms, I believe that the song is no longer mine anyway. I like to process the dispossession that happens when you play something live. I don't have a clue as to how these songs are going to plan out, whether they're going to be on a record. I don't know yet.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Song, Believe, Play

  Source: thequietus.com

• It's a mystical quality of music, that music isn't really concrete, and it's communicating abstractions about imaginary worlds. At least, my music's like that. It's not real. It's unreal, it's all fabrication. To write a song about Obama would suddenly break the spell.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Song, Real, Writing

  Source: thequietus.com

• I no longer really have faith in the album anymore. I no longer have faith in the song.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Song, Albums, Have Faith

  "Sufjan Stevens: On the Road to Find Out". Interview with Kate Kiefer, www.pastemagazine.com. November 2, 2009.

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