(no subject)
Nov. 19th, 2005 09:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elizalavelleBehind the cut is a collection of awesome Sarah Slean quotes from the opening page of littleslean.com. I keep coming accross some that I just love, so I figured I'd save them in here. Read if you like, little bits of light and inspiration
Ok, this song is called Universe, it’s about if you ever have those little problems I described earlier, think about the vastness of the universe, and think about it while laying out on your driveway at night and think about how there’s maybe twenty thousand other people doing the same thing right now. And how we’re so insignificant, but significant at the same time.
Life is this . . . it is magic. You just have to know how to see it. And whenever you can’t see it, it’s because you are creating the poison that’s clouding your eyes. You have to pop your eyeballs out and rinse them off, and then see life for what it is again.
My dad always called me book smart street stupid. He thinks I'm all philosophy and no reality...no pay-the-phone-bill, know-what-day-it-is. He's probably right. Zut alors. That song was written in the studio with some Jameson Irish whiskey and my heart alight with my magical surroundings--the forest, the ghosts, the instruments. 'Night Bugs' came from that too...every night we'd walk home to our on-site cottage to the tune of the (strangely loud) tree frogs and fireflies...
I get frustrated by the sort of ignorant comparisons to any woman who plays the piano... the instrument and my gender does not a musical genre make. So that’s frustrating, but if you were going to be frustrated with ignorance, you would be frustrated your whole life.
They don't want to spend money. and they look at me and go, 'You're not Avril Lavigne, we're not spending 50 grand on another video. Why would we?' It's a Catch-22 with record companies because there's so much risk involved. Especially nowadays, when records aren't selling as they used to. I'm just going to continue to do my thing like all the other songwriters out there. It's who you are, it's what you do. The bumblebee doesn't go, 'Hmm, well, what should I do today? Should I do bumblebee things? Do I have integrity as a bumblebee?' A bumblebee is just a bumblebee.
Refuse to live a cowardly existence. Rage, rage! Like a freight train!
But speaking personally, music saved me. It truly did. I've always been optimistic and I'm pretty much in love with the world, but it saved me, and I can't even describe how. I know that if that opportunity wasn't afforded to other people that it would just be a tragedy. People need to devote time to beauty... stopping and looking at the world and experiencing wonder... and music facilitates all of those things. The greatness of being alive is experiencing it, looking at it, and feeling the beauty of now. That's what music is to me.
There is a fine line between art and commerce. To most label executives, your art is a commodity, which can bring you down at times. Not that all of them are like that, but the ones that are make it difficult for everyone. Then I have to start thinking of it as living off my music-what I love-[and] not as selling myself as a product.
I have a very strong moral sense, and I'm obsessed with living a noble existence. I had to root out a lot of things, personal terrors, hatreds, and sick things that I didn't consider noble. Jealousy, self-pity and fear. It was going to be a lot of painful digging in the muck.
Most Valuable Lesson learned so far: I was about ten years old at the time. I ran across a busy street without looking. When I got to the other side of the street, I just stopped and it dawned on me that I didn't even look when crossing. I also realized that I should not only be careful for me but for other people in my life. We are intricately connected to those around us. I never crossed the street without looking again.
so you see. i am obsessed with beginning. i must constantly begin. must return to my ignorance to become more wise. return to my childhood to retrieve wonder. return to Nothingness to discover all.
My motto is 'unfailing ridiculous hope.' I think that artists should try to say something beautiful, and if I’m going to have that platform, if I get to say something, I want it to be hopeful. Even in the face of odds stacked against you when it is senseless to hope, you should just hope anyway.
I like to think, somewhere deep down, I'm fierce with determination.
I think at this age in particular you don't realize how much you've been collecting your identity by what other people are reflecting back at you. Even if it's what's reflected by your close friends or relatives. Then you come to a point where you go, 'Wait a second, I don't know who I am outside of those ideas they have.' My energy was devoted to trying to make sure people had the right opinion of me, Then I thought 'This is retarded. I want to take all of this away so that whoever is real has a chance to put her head above the window and look around and go, Is it safe for me to come out yet?' And there she'd be, and I'd know what she'd look like finally.
National identity is a very precarious, almost dangerous label because it is simply too general. I think the attributes we attach to Canada are very noble, but not everyone in Canada embodies those ideals.
You have to look like you. That should be the priority. You have to look like you, and talk like you, and be you. It's so hard when people are screaming at you from all angles. And this isn't just for a singer-songwriter, it's for everyone. Everyone is being told at all turns who they are. 'You are this person, so you buy this list of products.' That I reject, and I try to move away from it, but it's almost impossible in this day and age. I needed to peel away all these layers of who I assumed I was, and who other people assumed I was. I needed to peel those off, and just be this raw little nugget. A person, a simple human being.
Canada does a fantastic job of simply being. It’s this sort of Buddhist puzzle like, ‘How do I find myself? How am I myself?’ And the answer to it is so simple — ‘shut up and just be.’ Canada is — to me and internationally — regarded as this very gentle, peaceful land and I think it’s important for us to repel the tastes and whims of the South. I know it infects us through the media but it’s important for us to sort of keep that at bay because it is powerful.
I find this country a refuge. We’re getting more influenced by America every day, especially in the world of culture, which is being affected by commerce. But Canada has maintained a sort of autonomy in that world, which allows us to create people like Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and Neil Young. There is so much intellect and fire. People are alive here and I think that people here aren’t trying to turn music into the next dollar as much as our neighbours to the south.
I am not religious of any sense. Maybe I’m a spiritual person but I’m not a religious person in that I don’t have the icons and the books that are associated with whatever religion that people say they are. I find that Christianity and other religions have good stories, and good ideas, but the way they come across or the way people interpret them are very disappointing in the end. They are not human enough. That is supposed to be the reason that Jesus is such a great thing is because he’s actually a man. And I don’t see that. I’ve read the bible and a bunch of other religious texts and I value them for their stories and their goodness that they try to bring across but I find that it fails people on a regular basis. I think that when people lean on that it can be dangerous.
I hope we are always ridiculous with hope.
~Sarah Slean
Ok, this song is called Universe, it’s about if you ever have those little problems I described earlier, think about the vastness of the universe, and think about it while laying out on your driveway at night and think about how there’s maybe twenty thousand other people doing the same thing right now. And how we’re so insignificant, but significant at the same time.
Life is this . . . it is magic. You just have to know how to see it. And whenever you can’t see it, it’s because you are creating the poison that’s clouding your eyes. You have to pop your eyeballs out and rinse them off, and then see life for what it is again.
My dad always called me book smart street stupid. He thinks I'm all philosophy and no reality...no pay-the-phone-bill, know-what-day-it-is. He's probably right. Zut alors. That song was written in the studio with some Jameson Irish whiskey and my heart alight with my magical surroundings--the forest, the ghosts, the instruments. 'Night Bugs' came from that too...every night we'd walk home to our on-site cottage to the tune of the (strangely loud) tree frogs and fireflies...
I get frustrated by the sort of ignorant comparisons to any woman who plays the piano... the instrument and my gender does not a musical genre make. So that’s frustrating, but if you were going to be frustrated with ignorance, you would be frustrated your whole life.
They don't want to spend money. and they look at me and go, 'You're not Avril Lavigne, we're not spending 50 grand on another video. Why would we?' It's a Catch-22 with record companies because there's so much risk involved. Especially nowadays, when records aren't selling as they used to. I'm just going to continue to do my thing like all the other songwriters out there. It's who you are, it's what you do. The bumblebee doesn't go, 'Hmm, well, what should I do today? Should I do bumblebee things? Do I have integrity as a bumblebee?' A bumblebee is just a bumblebee.
Refuse to live a cowardly existence. Rage, rage! Like a freight train!
But speaking personally, music saved me. It truly did. I've always been optimistic and I'm pretty much in love with the world, but it saved me, and I can't even describe how. I know that if that opportunity wasn't afforded to other people that it would just be a tragedy. People need to devote time to beauty... stopping and looking at the world and experiencing wonder... and music facilitates all of those things. The greatness of being alive is experiencing it, looking at it, and feeling the beauty of now. That's what music is to me.
There is a fine line between art and commerce. To most label executives, your art is a commodity, which can bring you down at times. Not that all of them are like that, but the ones that are make it difficult for everyone. Then I have to start thinking of it as living off my music-what I love-[and] not as selling myself as a product.
I have a very strong moral sense, and I'm obsessed with living a noble existence. I had to root out a lot of things, personal terrors, hatreds, and sick things that I didn't consider noble. Jealousy, self-pity and fear. It was going to be a lot of painful digging in the muck.
Most Valuable Lesson learned so far: I was about ten years old at the time. I ran across a busy street without looking. When I got to the other side of the street, I just stopped and it dawned on me that I didn't even look when crossing. I also realized that I should not only be careful for me but for other people in my life. We are intricately connected to those around us. I never crossed the street without looking again.
so you see. i am obsessed with beginning. i must constantly begin. must return to my ignorance to become more wise. return to my childhood to retrieve wonder. return to Nothingness to discover all.
My motto is 'unfailing ridiculous hope.' I think that artists should try to say something beautiful, and if I’m going to have that platform, if I get to say something, I want it to be hopeful. Even in the face of odds stacked against you when it is senseless to hope, you should just hope anyway.
I like to think, somewhere deep down, I'm fierce with determination.
I think at this age in particular you don't realize how much you've been collecting your identity by what other people are reflecting back at you. Even if it's what's reflected by your close friends or relatives. Then you come to a point where you go, 'Wait a second, I don't know who I am outside of those ideas they have.' My energy was devoted to trying to make sure people had the right opinion of me, Then I thought 'This is retarded. I want to take all of this away so that whoever is real has a chance to put her head above the window and look around and go, Is it safe for me to come out yet?' And there she'd be, and I'd know what she'd look like finally.
National identity is a very precarious, almost dangerous label because it is simply too general. I think the attributes we attach to Canada are very noble, but not everyone in Canada embodies those ideals.
You have to look like you. That should be the priority. You have to look like you, and talk like you, and be you. It's so hard when people are screaming at you from all angles. And this isn't just for a singer-songwriter, it's for everyone. Everyone is being told at all turns who they are. 'You are this person, so you buy this list of products.' That I reject, and I try to move away from it, but it's almost impossible in this day and age. I needed to peel away all these layers of who I assumed I was, and who other people assumed I was. I needed to peel those off, and just be this raw little nugget. A person, a simple human being.
Canada does a fantastic job of simply being. It’s this sort of Buddhist puzzle like, ‘How do I find myself? How am I myself?’ And the answer to it is so simple — ‘shut up and just be.’ Canada is — to me and internationally — regarded as this very gentle, peaceful land and I think it’s important for us to repel the tastes and whims of the South. I know it infects us through the media but it’s important for us to sort of keep that at bay because it is powerful.
I find this country a refuge. We’re getting more influenced by America every day, especially in the world of culture, which is being affected by commerce. But Canada has maintained a sort of autonomy in that world, which allows us to create people like Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and Neil Young. There is so much intellect and fire. People are alive here and I think that people here aren’t trying to turn music into the next dollar as much as our neighbours to the south.
I am not religious of any sense. Maybe I’m a spiritual person but I’m not a religious person in that I don’t have the icons and the books that are associated with whatever religion that people say they are. I find that Christianity and other religions have good stories, and good ideas, but the way they come across or the way people interpret them are very disappointing in the end. They are not human enough. That is supposed to be the reason that Jesus is such a great thing is because he’s actually a man. And I don’t see that. I’ve read the bible and a bunch of other religious texts and I value them for their stories and their goodness that they try to bring across but I find that it fails people on a regular basis. I think that when people lean on that it can be dangerous.
I hope we are always ridiculous with hope.
~Sarah Slean
