Arlo Parks: What did you want to be when you were growing up?

The question

What did you want to be when you were growing up?

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

This is a standing question in The Guardian's decades-long The Q&A and also recurs independently in career and life interviews.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Arlo Parks

Singer-songwriter and poet; Mercury Prize winner

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

I want to be a voice for the kid. I mean, it sounds quite contrived, but I want to make music that I would have wanted to hear when I was 14.

The Talks, The Talks, 18 September 2021 source ↗

Others on this question

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Shirley MacLaine American actress and author

At three, I knew I was too tall to be a ballerina, so that wasn’t going to happen.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 8 July 2017 source ↗

Malcolm Gladwell Staff writer at The New Yorker; author of The Tipping Point and Outliers

I didn’t want to be anything because I don’t look ahead. Even as a kid I thought it was pointless.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 17 April 2021 source ↗

Miriam Margolyes

I wanted to be a doctor, like my father.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 19 July 2025 source ↗

Ann Dowd American actress

A surgeon. I studied pre-med in Holy Cross College for four years and then I went to acting school.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 15 January 2022 source ↗

More from Arlo Parks

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Question Do you rely on inspiration or discipline to make work? Craft & work

I do, but I never force it out of myself. I’m kind of trying to explore writing as a practice, so you know, I journal every day, I try and do kind of something for the art every day whether that’s reading or watching film or practicing guitar… It kind of ebbs and flows, but I do try and do something creative every day. When it comes to writing poetry or songs, I really have to have an idea or have that desire to get something down. I feel like the best art comes from a sense of necessity and urgency, like I can’t help but talk about this. I can only be in that creative space when I really want to and when internally it feels right.

Recorded The Talks, published interview, 18 September 2021 source ↗

Question Which trait do you most dislike in yourself? Identity & self

I want to be a voice for the kid. I mean, it sounds quite contrived, but I want to make music that I would have wanted to hear when I was 14.