Agnes Obel Quotations

The best thing about Berlin was that I got to be surrounded by people who pursue their ideas for themselves.

Feelings such as loneliness, longing or love are sometimes hard to put into words; maybe that's why we all love music, because it resonates with something we can't share.

I love Denmark. But it is a very safe place, and it is easy to let the state look after everything for you.

When I started working on my own music, I didn't have the chance to record in a big music studio, so I had to record everything myself.

I really believe it's not bad to look back within music. I don't mean retro, but using your own memories to make a song because our memories are what make us who we are.

I don't have the feeling of being motivated by anger, revenge or frustration.

Sometimes I feel like a melody doesn't have anything to do with me, but it's just something that comes, is accumulated from me playing on the piano, and then this little creature just appears.

Even though music is something I travel around doing, it is also a very private thing. A sort of escapism.

I learned that music should be fun and should be a way to express yourself - that there arent really any rules.

I love the conversation between film and music.

I'm very happy that I got introduced to music only as something you got pleasure from.

The piano and the singing are two equal things to me - maybe not inseparable but very connected. You can say they are like two equal voices.

I've heard from other artists that people are a little bit more reserved in Northern Europe, which comes across at concerts, where the audience may be quieter. So this means less hecklers, but maybe it also means that people may not be as open about how they felt. I'm not so sure this is especially true of Denmark, but it's what I've heard.

I don't have a classical-music mentality. I haven't been taught that way, and it doesn't fit my character, either.

I don't have a daily routine at all.

I wish my parents had been more strict and made me learn more instruments.

It's always difficult to know if a song needs more than piano, and I worry about my tendency to go in a sparse direction.

My mum is a big collector of art.

The orchestral or symphonic music never interested me.

When I was in bands, I always liked the demo best.

Everything that has a spare piano is 'like Satie' and everything with strings is 'filmic,' Sometimes I get annoyed when they say my stuff sounds 'like Satie'. No, it doesn't. At least, I don't think so.

I have a difficult relationship with jazz. My parents really love it, and I went to a school where jazz was considered the best thing ever, so I had to leave it be for a long time. But now I'm rediscovering it. I'm approaching jazz in a different way.

I used to get very nervous before a concert. It's okay when you are in a band. You can kind of disappear. But when it's just you... yes, that was difficult. I would not say it is easy now. But when you do it for a long time, you do learn to cope.

What I discovered in Berlin was this immense freedom because it felt like you could start any kind of project and nobody would care... and that's what I sort of adopted to my own.

With 'Philharmonics,' I had to do a lot of interviews, and it was like I was corrupting something. In many ways, I've said everything in the song. And either I can't go back to what it was because it's changing when I play it, or I still haven't figured out what the song is about.

On the last album, I didn't want to disturb the melody with too many stories. This time, I wanted to know if I was able to create images with words, with the sound of words.(...) I think that’s a good thing when the one who is listening, is feeling it in a different way that the one who creates. We are all listening with different perspectives.(...) I don’t want to impose my subjectivity to the listener.