A Quote by Jennifer Egan
As a journalist, I have wanted very much to find a way to write about the music industry, and it's been frustrating to me that that's never worked out.
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I have a really good relationship with my label and with people I've worked with since I was younger. I've always had a really good relationship, with both men and women. I think, for me, the way I face sexism in the music industry is when people are like, "Oh, she must not write her own music." That's frustrating, in a way. But it's cool. I'm mostly just like, "Meh." I'm just doing my thing.
I have a general feeling that writers and artists who are in this peculiar situation, of being a persecuted artist, all anyone ever asks about is the persecution. It may well be that's the last thing in the world they want to talk about. There were many years in which every journalist in the world wanted to talk to me, but nobody wanted to talk to me about my work. That felt deeply frustrating because I felt there was an attempt to stifle me as an artist. The best revenge I could have was to write.
I find it very difficult not to write in any sort of Sudanese style. With Sudanese music, there are very specific things that happen with the syncopation of the drums, melodies and stuff. And whenever I write, that's always the first thing that comes out, because I grew up listening to it. It's a part of me, so I try to bring that out in the music. I think that you have to be honest with what you do, and that's the most honest thing that I can do, is to write that way.
I'm a huge music fan. I usually say that if I had been born with a musical inclination, it would've been great. The Beatles changed everything for me, and I wanted to be a journalist for 'Rolling Stone.' I'm a big music fan in a Cameron Crowe way, kind of in a spectator way.
I knew that I wanted to be a singer/songwriter when I was much younger and, um, I've been able to, you know, to realize that dream and I'm very pleased with that...I want to branch out. I want to write. I write poetry...Music is an extraordinary vehicle for expressing emotion-very powerful emotions.
All I've wanted to be is someone people look up to. It's funny - everyone says I'm controversial. I've never worked out what it is about me that's controversial. I've never had a DUI; I've never been in a brawl; you've never seen photos of me walking out of clubs at 5 A.M.
It can be very frustrating and very deflating to be constantly defined and described by other people, so I've stopped reading anything written about me, and I find it much healthier. I just sort of concentrate on what I do and don't worry too much about that.
I try to write about small insignificant things. I try to find out if it’s possible to say anything about them. And I almost always do if I sit down and write about something. There is something in that thing that I can write about. It’s very much like a rehearsal. An exercise, in a way.
If you're in music for the right reasons, you don't pay much attention to the grueling industry. For sure, it's great to have your work appreciated, but it should never be the driving factor. If you don't depend solely on affirmation from the industry to continue to find love in what you do, then you can have as along of a career as you want. I've always been in this for the music and that won't change.
I didn't really want to write about music very much in 'High Fidelity.' I wanted to write about the relationship stuff, and the music stuff is kind of a bit of fun on top and something to frame it with.
The fascination with the music stayed with me for years and I wanted to find out why I liked it so much and to learn the grammar of it, and that's why I tried to write the sheet music down. Writing it down gave me some ideas of other versions of the music and I wrote the first string quartets and piano pieces based on transcriptions.
I wanted to be a musician. I just wanted to be famous because I wanted to escape from what I felt was my limitation in life... And I wanted to write music, and I didn’t know what I was doing and I never had the technique or understanding of it... But I’ve always played the piano and I can improvise on the piano, but the problem is that I can’t write down what I write. I can read music but I can’t write numbers.
I don't want to follow the map of what the music industry does because I've already lived the industry and I still live the industry so I already understand how it works. The industry doesn't really like us around anyway once we get older because we know too much so, that's fine - cut us off - and we'll find another way to get it out there.
There's something very strange about associating me with that prize. I had hoped for it in a more directed way as a journalist. Somehow as a journalist you know there are Pulitzers out there and you can work hard and get one. To win it for Fiction seems unbelievable.
I wanted to find a way of life that allowed me great freedom, not to be stuck. I went to a very traditional school, which prepared people for the army or for banking or for industry, and I wanted to be outside of that.
If you look at somebody like Bach, he didn't need collaborators to write for keyboards, cello, violin or anything else. I feel the same way about my music. The times that I have worked with other people, I've been very unhappy with the results.
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