“Profound beauty and mystery”: Elliot Page lists his favourite songs
Growing up, Elliot Page enjoyed exposure to music similar to that of many of his peers. With a mix of his own favourites and those played by his parents, Elliot recalled falling in love with the Bodyguard soundtrack and Annie Lennox’s Medusa. At the same time, his parents introduced him to a broader spectrum of legends, from Cat Stevens to his dad’s jazz-leaning inclinations like Shirley Horn.
In Page’s view, enjoying art is a type of euphoria. A good piece of music or a well-written book has the power to enlighten, uplift, and make him feel more understood in a convoluted society. Falling in love with literature also made him feel more attuned to who he was as a person and inspired him to explore the art form through his own expression.
“For me, euphoria is simply the act of waking up, making my coffee, and sitting down with a book and being able to read,” he once told Esquire, alluding to the simplicity of enjoying something so effortlessly inspiring as a part of his daily routine. Most of Elliot’s favourites, perhaps unsurprisingly, centre around real stories and memoirs, suggesting a deeper fascination with stories he relates to beyond the world of acting.
When it comes to music, Page feels a similar sense of deep attachment. During an interview with radio station KCRW in 2013, Page shared some of his favourite songs of all time, along with a handful of reasons why he became so endeared to the tracks and music through the different cornerstones of his life. One track in particular, Cat Power’s ‘Fool’, was one of the first Elliot felt “floored” by, namely because of the deep, melancholic emotions it exudes from the outset.
At the same time, Page recalled the song coming out at the same time “when I was really falling in love with music and sort of getting those deep inexplicable emotions from it”. In fact, Page felt so endeared by the song that it followed them onto movie sets, infiltrating their approach to acting and altering they mindset while accessing different characters: “She’s probably the songwriter I’ve listen to the most on set as an actor,” Page said, adding: “It immediately gets me to a lot of specific emotional places.”
Page also fell in love with Adam Hurst’s ‘Stone Bridge’ for similar reasons, though this song became more closely associated with his upbringing and the land his father owned in Nova Scotia. Growing up, Elliot once recalled spending a lot of time in the woods, feeling the emotions of loneliness and inexplicable peace, as conflicting as that might have been. “There’s something about being in the woods and being in that place specifically that has such profound beauty and mystery, but also evokes so much sadness,” Page said, reflecting on the profound nature of ‘Stone Bridge’.
The others that Page named follow a similar pattern, with the actor pointing out the similarities of longing within each track, like Youth Lagoon’s ’17’ and Balam Acab’s ‘Dream Out’. While discussing another favourite, Gillian Welch’s ‘I Made A Lovers Prayer’, Page said: “I think, to me, the greatest love songs are the ones that are the most truthful and contain sadness.”
To Page, many of these moments of fleeting beauty are ones enjoyed alone or intimately, creating experiences that evoke deep reflection and meaning in the otherwise vacuity of life. As someone who has never felt a complete sense of belonging, at least not for the longest time, it’s understandable why Page’s list of favourites is filled with ones he described as the ideal backdrops to moments of quiet contemplation.
Elliot Page’s favourite songs:
- Cat Power – ‘Fool’
- Adam Hurst – ‘Stone Bridge’
- Youth Lagoon – ’17’
- Balam Acab – ‘Dream Out’
- Gillian Welch – ‘I Made A Lover’s Prayer’
