music
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as a writer of one- to two-minute songs, I’m not interested in holding on to something for very long, or walking back into the past too deep. I’m in it for the permission to be transient. it’s like this with singing, too. the whole idea of holding a note is strange to me. singing isn’t…
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I can be swamped by my feelings, like a kid wearing a t-shirt a few sizes too big. this is the way I feel when I make up songs, the way I felt making up this one.
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my songs have a way of letting me know what’s going on. they accompany me through depression and dependency. they make me feel less alone. they help me feel some light, and even sometimes a little beautiful.
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leaving a lover, leaving a party, anything you leave, saying good-bye any time, has an ending. with a song, it’s hard to know when. because it’s a small invention. with no conclusions. when I write a song, I’m not theorizing anything. nothing comes together at the end, except the end and the beginning. a return to something as it…
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I was four when began to play music. suddenly, I understood silence. silence is the language of the beginning of a song, when I hold an intruding melody to my chest for the first time. it vanishes at the sound of my voice. it’s the language of the question when I search for a musical phrase and I ask…
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I never know when or how a song is going to end. I do know it has a way of bending. the end of the beginning bends to the beginning of the end. it’s something that eludes formula and analysis. I can’t tell you how many times I have sung “loss,” and how often it was “love” that…
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the only place an artist really exists (and can forever) is in the imagination of other people. you exist there the way they want you to. of course, other people never want exactly what you want, and see things the way they do. (though secretly i wish for someone to see me exactly as i…
cookie nieves 