A Quote by Eleanor Friedberger

I'm such a copycat."I want to try and do this like the Donovan song 'Changes'," or "I want to do this bit from Van Morrison." I don't know how else to illustrate something, because I'm not a super-great musician. In that way, I'm more like the producer.
The producer can put something together, package it, oversee it, give input. I'm the kind of producer that likes to take a back seat and let the director run with it. If he needs me, I'm there for him. As a director, I like to have the producer there with me. As a producer, I don't want to be there because I happen to be a director first and foremost, I don't want to "that guy."
My advice to women who habitually gravitate toward musicians is that they learn how to play an instrument and start making music themselves. Not only will they see that it's not that hard, but sometimes I think women just want to be the very thing they think they want to sleep with. Because if you're bright enough--no offense, Tawny Kitaen--sleeping with a musician probably won't be enough for you to feel good about yourself. Even if he writes you a song for your birthday. Don't you know that a musician who writes a song for you is like a baker you're dating making you a cake? Aim higher.
Around 2010, I kind of looked up and said, I'm 40 years old. You know, I chose music. I don't have a husband. I don't have any kids. Like, I chose music. So, I had to make a decision. Like, do I want to do something else, or do I want to go from journeyman to master? And I realized, I want to be a really good musician.
I just always want a new producer. I'm going to have a new producer on the next one. Because I'm the same person, and I feel like, I know I'm going to bring to it a certain sensibility that's me, and I want to have something different coming out on each album.
I don't miss anything ever. Because to me, missing something is like going backward a little bit. I don't miss being in a punk band. For me, 'SNL' is like... this is gonna sound overly dramatic, but... the way I am, it feels like I'm a soldier, so it was like, 'What do you want me to do? Put me anywhere. Do you want me to do these sketches? Great.'
We just met for the first time and David Byrne was like, "Hey, you want to sing on this song?" and I was like, "Yes, I do want to sing on that song." He's the most legendary dude but I wasn't thinking about how he was a legend when rehearsing. I was just thinking, "Wow, this guy really knows what he wants in his music." And that ended up being the vibe, like "Oh, you wanna try that?" "Yeah, that sounds great!"
I'm looking for things where, like with 'Ten,' I don't look like me, and I'm playing something a bit different. I'm just trying to flex a different muscle and see if it works. I've saved the world and killed monsters and done all that. Now I want to try something a bit different and a bit more challenging.
Poetry is like a portrait of a moment or person, and the poem is almost like looking at a photograph; it slaps you in the face and kisses you at the same time. Nothing else does that, with that brevity. Songs try to do it, but that's three minutes. A poem, you read it and it kind of changes your life and you don't know how it happened and you can never forget it. It's like the best song lyric, the best line from a film-everything in the world that's short and great put together.
In so far as I have any beliefs, I suppose I'm like that old Peggy Lee song, 'Is That All There Is?' I want to believe there's something else going on, but what that something else is I don't pretend to know.
I want to be taken seriously as the type of musician that plays stuff like an electric rake. I mean, how seriously do you take someone like Spike Jones? They take him pretty seriously - a really good musician who made a great contribution in terms of humor, which is part of what I try to do too.
I feel like the word 'influencer' is something that I've - I don't want to say struggled with, but I've kind of, like, expanded on that because I started as a musician. And my following came because of that, so it's always been, like, musician first and, I guess, social-media influencer second.
I want to know what it's like to play in a Super Bowl and win one. My career will be great without it. But, personally, selfishly, I want to know what it feels like.
I don't want that title to come to my hands and be like, 'nah, I don't feel like it was deserved or it wasn't earned or whatever' - not saying that any of my accolades weren't, but I want it to be special. I want it to be super special and just super dope, and even if it's not special to everybody else, at least it is to me.
The first time ever seeing a great talker was The Rock. It took a while for him to develop, but a great talker like The Rock, he was just incredible. Every time he was on the show, you wanted to see exactly what he was going to do which is what I try to do but I don't try to do it like The Rock. I don't want to be like anybody else.I want just want to be the No. 1 Miz.
My philosophy on writing a song for myself is that I always, always, always want to write a song. I always want to write a song. I realize that as a record producer or a singer or whatever I might not, if I recorded on myself or someone else, the first time out I might not give it the right treatment, so that the world or many people will accept it and it'll be a public hit, or anything like that.
If you're working with a producer like Rick Rubin or whatever, you sing each line probably 30 different ways. Each time, they're like, 'Can you try it this way? Can you try it that way?' That's each line in the song, for each song.
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