Quotes from Adrianne Lenker

With music, when you finish a record, you are entwined with it throughout your existence in a way which is both interesting and challenging because it's a living form, you have to come back to it.

I am always thinking about records I want to make.

I had a band and I didn't go to high school, all my friends were older than me. It was pretty cool to have such a focus at that age, but also it alienated me from a lot of people my age. So I felt pretty lonely and I didn't really have many friends when I was a kid.

There's a natural separation that kids have to go through with their parents, but then when you put that on top of actually having a career, it gets even more painful.

We lived in 14 different houses until I was 8, renting here and there.

I think I'm learning how to release every day. Recognizing that everything you encounter, touch, or love can become part of you, and in essence never disappears, as long as you can recall it to memory or heart. It's all so connected that we lose everything, but also, we never lose anything.

Mostly I've just been stealing little moments for myself in order to write - in the bathroom at a hotel, or just slipping away for a half an hour. Amidst all of the touring, life has been happening.

I really love crafting albums and thinking of albums as a whole, not just individual songs or singles or just tracks, but a whole entire album.

I like leaving a space hollowed out, where as I change I can inject new meaning in the shell of the songs all of the time. Where anyone who listens can hopefully inhabit them in their own way.

The first song I wrote, when I was 8, was about feeling really angry - like the weight of everything on my shoulders.

Yeah it's mostly driving and taking airplanes but I like the trains - they're probably my favorite mode of transportation. They're smooth, steady, and you've got a lot of room and can walk around.

Like, I'd rather tour maybe six months out of the year, instead of nine.

My dad was basically my manager from ages 13 to 16. I was on this train towards becoming a child pop star. Not that I would have necessarily become a star, but that was the goal.

We're in transit so often and when we're moving from one place to the next and I have to be very alert and present and aware of where we are. You know, just like protecting our gear and making sure we get from one place to the next safely, being around so many people's energies. It's not just like a totally open and relaxed state to be in.

I feel that performing is its own art form, and recording is its own art form, and writing is its own art form, and that they all can happen simultaneously but at different paces.

I'm attracted to wilderness in any sense. Which is why I'm attracted to New York in a way, because I feel like it's a wilderness of people and textures. Just like, there's so much life and richness here. And you can get lost in it.

I hadn't gone to high school. I left Minnesota, I left home, I was on my own. I was seventeen.

I don't really think of Minnesota when I think of home.

My parents divorced when I was 12, and leading up to that it was... not without turbulence.

There's something special in music about the repetition of playing something where it becomes a home and a fortress and a space that you inhabit, like maybe we could move this little thing here, or rearrange the furniture. You're so acquainted with every part of it.

I've felt since I was a kid this desperate longing to be closer to - I don't know what. Just to something bigger, to be in conversation with the mystery of everything.

Some people operate in complete fear that they're gonna lose their stuff and their money. That sounds like hell to me. And then I guess some people operate with hands open, and maybe empty, but at least striving for a deeper understanding of what it means to care.

When you're playing music and you're starting to expose yourself for the first time, there's nothing more powerful than being listened to and being actually heard.

It's kind've a cliche but I like when it's raining. I like the feeling of staying in and not being told I should be outside.