why I write or what it means
22nd April 2017 | for Creatives | artist in the art, music, writing, reaching your audience, artist's message, Sharon Van Etten |
"When an audience is so massive, do people even know why I write or what it means?'
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interpret it in their own way
"People listen to music and interpret it in their own way, but it's weird when a thing that has helped you through a hard time becomes your career."
the meaning, it's a very personal thing
"It makes me uncomfortable to talk about meanings and things. It's better not to know so much about what things mean. Because the meaning, it's a very personal thing, and the meaning for me is different than the meaning for somebody else."
it was about something else entirely
"Later on I find out what [a lyric] was really about. Lots of times I'll think it's about one thing and as I get a little distance from it—and by distance I mean like, say, seven or eight years—it suddenly becomes very obvious to me it was about something else entirely. It happens especially onstage. Periodically I do something older and I suddenly realize 'God—listen to what this is about. I can't believe that I said this in public.'"
it becomes more meaningful
"As I get older, and I get a view on the lyric a bit more, it becomes more meaningful to me."
bring a novelist's eye to it
"There are certain kinds of songs you write that are just fun songs—the lyric really can't survive without the music. But for most of what I do, the idea behind it was to try and bring a novelist's eye to it, and, within the framework of rock and roll, to try to have that lyric there so somebody who enjoys being engaged on that level could have that and have the rock and roll too."