I was in school for jazz voice, which is the dumbest way to spend $35,000 a year. I just felt like a rip-off of good jazz singers. I didn't feel like I was being anything special, and I always wanted to be special. It's like you know you have something inside you that's gonna make you different than everybody else and make you somebody in this life, but you wish you could figure out what it is, because at most things, you're either mediocre or really, really bad.
Nellie McKayIn the hierarchy of instruments, if you're a harpist, you're considered someone with a brain much more than if you're a singer.
Nellie McKayThe civilised cultures are the most cruel. It's the same with education - often it breeds sadistic forms of cruelty.
Nellie McKayI'm just kind of sick of music. I don't know what I want to do. It's not that I feel suicidal or anything, but I just want to end this life. I just want to be somebody else now. Sometimes I feel like that. You always think, "If I just cut my hair really short and dye it brown and put on a little goatee, no one would know it was me, and I could..."
Nellie McKayI have trouble with any kind of focus or concentrating, or getting anything done at all, really.
Nellie McKayI'm glad I got a record contract, because all of a sudden everything you were doing before that made you a stupid person now makes you a smart person.
Nellie McKayIn the hierarchy of instruments, if you're a harpist, you're considered someone with a brain much more than if you're a singer. Even though singers, particularly singers who can play piano... If you go to the office of career development, you can get a gig much easier. Still, musicians tend to look down on you. I think they've got some nerve, because if they could sing, they would do it, but most of them can't.
Nellie McKay