Jenny Lewis Music Quotations

When I was 18, I took a trip to Thailand with a friend. We stayed for a month. Bangkok was very raw for a teenager: there were no cellphones, no Internet, and the only music I had with me was this cassette by Liz Phair. I was writing a lot of poetry, and she embodied a talky style of songwriting that I found very accessible.

I find most modern country virtually unlistenable. I can't relate to the music or the lyrics.

I can't imagine how people will react to my music. For me, it's a really fluid process from one record to the next, but it's really up to the listener.

For me personally, I just try to prove myself in my work. I'm just trying to get better at what I do, and hopefully that will impact women in music, and hopefully the girls in the crowd will see my up there as a bandleader and think, 'Wow, maybe I can do that one day.'

I think a lot of musicians play for the playback. I mean, that's the joy of recording - you want to hear what you've done and what you've contributed - but never listening to that playback kind of removes the intellectual part of making music, and it removes the tendency to be revisionist.

I think regardless of where people are from, country music is a through line.

I write music, really, to make myself feel better.

When you're talking about your own music every day, listening to bands, going to festivals, you can kind of lose sight of your initial connection with music. Instrumental music - especially jazz - helps me refocus.

I've always just had sort of a dark take on life, I suppose, and hopefully, the music transcends that in a way.

It sounds cheesy, but music has saved me in a lot of ways. If I had just continued acting, I don't think I would be alive.

I didn't know anything about music when I started a band. I barely knew how to play a guitar. I didn't know how to produce records. I learned how to play bass guitar and keyboards in Rilo Kiley. I picked up a lot from my collaborators.

I don't write songs, play music and tour, really, for anyone else but myself. It's something that I have to do to stay alive.