I was always such a people-watcher. I would sit on street corners alone and watch people and make up stories about them in my head. Then, all of a sudden, I was the one being watched.
— Alanis Morissette
The whole celebrity thing is not something I'm overly interested in. I don't pop up at parties. It's just not my thing.
I'll be writing songs till I die. There's just no question.
Unless I really loved it and felt really passionate about it, I would just kind of abort the song and start a new one.
If I could sell 500 million records every time, it would be great. But I've also had the luxury experience of having it when I was a teenager, in a very kind of model version of it.
I didn't have high self-esteem when I was a teen-ager, as I think most teen-agers don't.
For four to six months at a time, I would barely eat. I lived on a diet of Melba toast, carrots, and black coffee.
I'm a liability to them - I'm a woman, I'm empowered, I'm an artist. I've had executives who can't come to my shows they're so scared of me. I've been a thorn in many people's sides just by existing.
But I love to entertain. My vocation is to accrue all these experiences, to write about them, to get them out of my system, to not get sick, and then to share them publicly.
Typically I go in the studio and whatever I'm contemplating that day will wind up being a song. I don't come in with lyrics... I just go in and let it happen.
I wish people could achieve what they think would bring them happiness in order for them to realize that that's not really what happiness is.
I guess what people forget sometimes is that when I write songs, I write them sometimes in about 20 minutes.
I saw music as a way to entertain people and take them away from their daily lives and put smiles on their faces, as opposed to what I see it being now, which is a way for me to actually communicate, and a way for me to tap into my subconscious.
I try to keep a low profile in general. Not with my art, but just as a person.
I'll keep evolving and put that into my songs.
At one point, I was just perceived as only being angry, but now I'm being perceived as angry, peaceful, and spiritual.
At some point, I would like to write a book and other things, but I work best when there is some sort of deadline in my own mind, but not when fifty people or fifty million people are breathing down the back of my neck.
I think some people think I'm a smarty-pants. Some people think I'm intense, some people think I'm super-esoteric and nuts.
Peace of mind for five minutes, that's what I crave.
I started playing piano when I was 6. And I knew that wanted to be involved in that form of expression, whether it was through music, or acting, or dancing, or painting, or writing.
Over the last couple of years, I've really worked toward balancing my life out more, having a little bit more time with friends, family and my boyfriend. There was a period of time when they were way down the list. It was all about music and touring and if everything fell by the wayside, so be it.
The more vulnerable and the more confused the song is, the equal and opposite effect is how I feel after having written it.
I'm really clear about what my life mission is now. There's no more depression or lethargy, and I feel like I've returned to the athlete I once was. I'm integrating all the parts of me - jock, musician, writer, poet, philosopher - and becoming stronger as a result.
As a teen, I was both anorexic and bulimic.
What's that line from TS Eliot? To arrive at the place where you started, but to know it for the first time. I'm able to write about a breakup from a different place. Same brokenness. Same rock-bottom. But a little more informed, now I'm older. Thank God for growing up.
To me the biggest irony of this lifetime that I'm living is that for someone who thrives in the public eye in the creative ways that I do, I actually don't enjoy being in the public eye.
Breakups are a horrible thing for almost everybody I know. For someone who is a love addict, it's debilitating.
You live, you learn.
I happen to be lucky in that I knew what I wanted to do as far as a career since I was nine years old.
I was motivated by just thinking that if you had all this external success that everyone would love you and everything would be peaceful and wonderful.
I could write six songs in one day with everything that's going on.
The thing I always default to is that I'll always be here to write songs.
I love songs that are very autobiographical.
I felt like I was making a record under the radar, and that is my favorite way to do anything.
Music will always be a part of my life. I love music and I don't care how many units I sell.
We're taught to be ashamed of confusion, anger, fear and sadness, and to me they're of equal value to happiness, excitement and inspiration.
I grew up in a very masculine environment. So I was around a lot of men, my brothers and their friends. There was just a lot of guys around.
In the past, I had workaholic issues.
I found that the more truthful and vulnerable I was, the more empowering it was for me.
I still indulge in a glass of wine or chocolate - treats are mandatory. Without deviating from the day-to-day healthy diet once in a while, it wouldn't be sustainable for me, and that's what I wanted: an approach to eating to last my entire life.
Canada has a passive-aggressive culture, with a lot of sarcasm and righteousness. That went with my weird messianic complex. The ego is a fascinating monster. I was taught from a young age that I had to serve, so that turned into me thinking I had to save the planet.
In LA, where I live, it's all about perfectionism. Beauty is now defined by your bones sticking out of your decolletage. For that to be the standard is really perilous for women.
With songwriting I spend a lot of time living life, accruing all these experiences, journaling, and then by the time I get to the studio I'm teeming with the drive to write.
Then I realized that secrecy is actually to the detriment of my own peace of mind and self, and that I could still sustain my belief in privacy and be authentic and transparent at the same time. It was a pretty revelatory moment, and there's been a liberating force that's come from it.
What I try to keep in mind is that there are going to be a lot of articles that are going to be misrepresentative of what I'm about as a person and as a writer.
I see the whole concept of Generation X implies that everyone has lost hope.
Anything I do has to be directly related to my music. If it isn't, I don't really see a point to it.
Down the road, I'll probably have a kid or two or three. And there will probably be political events or spiritual things to comment on, and humor.
I think some fans want everything to stay they same because they want to stay the same.
I was born in '74, so I missed out on all the great early '60s and early '70s.
