David Byrne Quotes

I sense the world might be more dreamlike, metaphorical, and poetic than we currently believe--but just as irrational as sympathetic magic when looked at in a typically scientific way. I wouldn't be surprised if poetry--poetry in the broadest sense, in the sense of a world filled with metaphor, rhyme, and recurring patterns, shapes, and designs--is how the world works. The world isn't logical, it's a song.

~ David Byrne

I wouldn't be surprised if poetry - poetry in the broadest sense, in the sense of a world filled with metaphor, rhyme, and recurring patterns, shapes, and designs - is how the world works. The world isn't logical; it's a song.

~ David Byrne

It's a bit like sympathetic magic in a way: the usual Western presumption that 'primitive' rituals mimic what they desire to achieve--that phallic objects might be believed to increase male potency and playacting rainfall might somehow bring it about. I am suspicious of such obvious connections and I suspect that the connections among things, people, and processes can be equally irrational. I sense the world might be more dreamlike, metaphorical, and poetic than we currently believe--but just as irrational as sympathetic magic when looked at in a typically scientific way. I wouldn't be surprised if poetry--poetry in the broadest sense, in the sense of a world filled with metaphor, rhyme, and recurring patterns, shapes, and designs--is how the world works. The world isn't logical, it's a song.

~ David Byrne

Complete freedom is as much curse as boon; freedom within strict and well-defined confines is, to me, ideal.

~ David Byrne

In musical performances one can sense that the person on stage is having a good time even if they're singing a song about breaking up or being in a bad way. For an actor this would be anathema, it would destroy the illusion, but with singing one can have it both ways. As a singer, you can be transparent and reveal yourself on stage, in that moment, and at the same time be the person whose story is being told in the song. Not too many kinds of performance allow that.

~ David Byrne

I like a good story and I also like staring at the sea-- do I have to choose between the two?

~ David Byrne

You might say that the universe plays the blues.

~ David Byrne

Presuming that there is such a thing as progress when it comes to music, and that music is better now than it used to be, is typical of the high self-regard of those who live in the present. It is a myth. Creativity doesn't improve.

~ David Byrne

In the early days, I might have gotten on stage and begun to sing as a desperate attempt to communicate, but now I found that singing was both a physical and emotional joy. It was sensuous, a pure pleasure, which didn't take away from the emotions being expressed—even if they were melancholic. Music can do that; you can enjoy singing about something sad.

~ David Byrne

Recordings aren't time sensitive. You can hear the music you want whether it's morning, noon, or the middle of the night. You can get into clubs virtually, sit in concert halls you can't afford to visit, go to places that are too far away, or hear people sing about things you don't understand, about lives that are alien, sad, or wonderful. Recorded music can be ripped free from its context, for better and worse. It becomes its own context.

~ David Byrne

The mixtapes we made for ourselves were musical mirrors. The sadness, anger, or frustration you might be feeling at a given time could be encapsulated in the song selection. You made mixtapes that corresponded to emotional states, and they'd be avaliable to pop into the deck when each feeling needed reinforcing or soothing. The mixtape was your friend, your psychiatrist, and your solace.

~ David Byrne

The online music magazine Pitchfork once wrote that I would collaborate with anyone for a bag of Doritos.

~ David Byrne

Music written by teams makes the authorship of a piece indistinct. Could it be that when hearing a song written by a team, a listener can sense that they aren't hearing an expression of a solitary individual's pain or joy, but that of a virtual conjoined person? Can we tell that an individual singer might actually represent a collective, that he might have multiple identities? Does that make the sentiments expressed more poetically universal? Dan eliminating some portion of the authorial voice make a piece of music more accessible and the singer more empathetic?

~ David Byrne

Any kid will tell you that, yes, their music is both an escape and a survival mechanism, and that sometimes the music givesbthem hope and inspiration. It doesn't just placate and pacify.

~ David Byrne

Music eats its young and gives birth to a new hybrid creature.

~ David Byrne

According to the science writer Philip Ball, when it was pointed out to musicologist Deryck Cookethat Slavic and much Spanish music use minor keys for happy music, he claimed that their liveswere so hard that they didn’t really know what happiness was anyway.

~ David Byrne

It was a uniform that signified that one was a kind of downtown aesthete; not necessarily nihilistic, but a monk in the bohemian order.

~ David Byrne

There's always room for Jell-O

~ David Byrne

I don't care how impossible it seems.

~ David Byrne

There are two conversations going on at the same time: the story and a conversation about how the story is being told.

~ David Byrne

Everyone was doing that in their own way, rejecting things and moving on. It's just a part of discovering who you are; it's nothing special.

~ David Byrne

There's a good chance that you might be inspired by ideas that originate outside of yourself.

~ David Byrne

One forgets that part of one's performance is one's history—or sometimes the lack of it. You're playing against what an audience knows, what they expect. This seems to be true of all performers; there's baggage that gets carried into the venue that we can't see.

~ David Byrne

I pick up a copy of Newsweek on the plane and immediately notice how biased, slanted, and opinionated all the U.S. newsmagazine articles are. Not that the Euro and British press aren't biased as well--they certainly are--but living in the United States we are led to believe, and are constantly reminded, that our press is fair and free of bias. After such a short time away, I am shocked at how obviously and blatantly this lie is revealed--there is the 'reporting' that is essentially parroting what the White House press secretary announces; the myriad built-in assumptions that one ceases to register after being somewhere else for a while. The myth of neutrality is an effective blanket for a host of biases.

~ David Byrne

The radio was shouting at you, pleading with you, and seducing you.

~ David Byrne

Simplicity is a kind of transparency in which subtle nuances can have outsize effects.

~ David Byrne

I also realized that there were lots of unacknowledged theater forms going on all around. Our lives are filled with performances that have been so woven into our daily routine that the artificial and performative aspect has slipped into invisibility.

~ David Byrne

Powerpoint presentations are a kind of theater, a kind of augmented stand-up. Too often it's a boring and tedious genre, and audiences are subjected to the bad as well as the good.

~ David Byrne

I like to combine the dramatic emotional warmth of strings with the grooves and body business of drums and bass.

~ David Byrne

Punk was defined by an attitude rather than a musical style.

~ David Byrne

It's a fundamental, social attitude that the 1% supports symphonies and operas and doesn't support Johnny learning to program hip-hop beats. When I put it like that, it sounds like, 'Well, yeah,' but you start to think, 'Why not, though?' What makes one more valuable than another?

~ David Byrne

The true face of smoking is disease, death and horror - not the glamour and sophistication the pushers in the tobacco industry try to portray.

~ David Byrne

With pop music, the format dictates the form to a big degree. Just think of the pop single. It has endured as a form even in the download age because bands conform to a strict format, and work, often very productively, within the parameters.

~ David Byrne

My favorite time of day is to get up and eat leftovers from dinner, especially spicy food.

~ David Byrne

It's not always been a happy marriage. I guess I wanted a quick fix.

~ David Byrne

To some extent I happily don't know what I'm doing. I feel that it's an artist's responsibility to trust that.

~ David Byrne

I read the NY Times but I don't trust all of it.

~ David Byrne

Real beauty knocks you a little bit off kilter.

~ David Byrne

On a bike, being just slightly above pedestrian and car eye level, one gets a perfect view of the goings-on in one's own town.

~ David Byrne

You can know or not know how a car runs and still enjoy riding in a car.

~ David Byrne