Top 100 David Byrne Quotes
#1. I knew I wanted to have a doll of myself on the cover. I thought, I wanna see myself as a Ken doll.
David Byrne
#2. I've noticed a lot of younger artists have less fear of doing different sorts of things, whether it's various types of music, or gallery artists moving between video and sculpture and drawing.
David Byrne
#3. I've rarely seen video screens used well in a music concert.
David Byrne
#4. I'm afraid that reason will triumph and that the world will become a place where anyone who doesn't fit that will become unnecessary.
David Byrne
#5. In a certain way, it's the sound of the words, the inflection and the way the song is sung and the way it fits the melody and the way the syllables are on the tongue that has as much of the meaning as the actual, literal words.
David Byrne
#6. Music was an experience, intimately married to your life. You could pay to hear music, but after you did, it was over, gone - a memory.
David Byrne
#7. That's the thing about pictures: they seduce you.
David Byrne
#8. It didn't even occur to me that I'm the last person in the world who should play salsa or Brazilian music.
David Byrne
#9. Having unlimited choices can paralyze you creatively.
David Byrne
#10. 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
#11. Analysis is like a lobotomy. Who wants to have all their edges shaved off?
David Byrne
#12. Rich people will travel great distances to look at poor people ...
David Byrne
#13. One knew in advance that life in New York would not be easy, but there were cheap rents in cold-water lofts without heat, and the excitement of being here made up for those hardships. I didn't move to New York to make a fortune.
David Byrne
#14. As everything becomes digitized, there's the idea that things that can't be digitized become more valuable.
David Byrne
#15. Software constraints are only confining if you use them for what they're intended to be used for.
David Byrne
#17. I read the NY Times but I don't trust all of it.
David Byrne
#18. Temple and cathedral are attractive because they spatially and acoustically recreate the cave, where early humans first expressed their spiritual yearnings.
David Byrne
#19. 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
#20. Something about music urges us to engage with its larger context, beyond the piece of plastic it came on-it seems to be part of our genetic makeup that we can be so deeply moved by this art form. Music resonates in so many parts of the brain that we can't conceive of it being an isolated thing.
David Byrne
#21. Sometimes I write stuff that strangely predicts what's going to happen in my life.
David Byrne
#22. Sometimes the European and North American public like some things to be exotic and kept at arm's length. They don't want sometimes to know that foreign artists are doing something that's at least as relevant as what's being done here.
David Byrne
#23. Yeah, I like to keep myself interested - I'll kind of throw myself into some area that I don't completely know or understand, that I'm not adept at, so I'm forced to swim in order to stay afloat. There's a good feeling that comes from that.
David Byrne
#24. You might say that the universe plays the blues.
David Byrne
#25. We're on a road to nowhere, come on inside. Takin' that ride to nowhere, we'll take that ride. I'm feelin' okay this mornin', and you know, we're on the road to paradise, here we go, here we go.
David Byrne
#26. Artists are notoriously snooty and suspicious of anything coming from the business community.
David Byrne
#27. Music as social glue, as a self-empowering change agent, is maybe more profound than how perfectly a specific song is composed or how immaculately tight a band is.
David Byrne
#28. Music has to be sort of ignorable sometimes.
David Byrne
#29. Science's job is to map our ignorance.
David Byrne
#30. I'd argue that contemporary hip-hop is written (or at least the music is) to be heard in cars with systems like the one below. The massive volume seems to be more about sharing your music with everyone, gratis!
David Byrne
#31. With music, you often don't have to translate it. It just affects you, and you don't know why.
David Byrne
#32. With the advent of recorded music in 1878, the nature of the places in which music was heard changed.
David Byrne
#33. I came to New York to be a fine artist - that was my ambition.
David Byrne
#34. Complete freedom is as much curse as boon; freedom within strict and well-defined confines is, to me, ideal.
David Byrne
#35. Yale, pointed out that once you let yourself see things this way, lots of things become "musical scores" - although they might never have been intended to be played.
David Byrne
#36. I'm not suggesting people abandon musical instruments and start playing their cars and apartments, but I do think the reign of music as a commodity made only by professionals might be winding down.
David Byrne
#37. Suburban houses and tin sheds are often the objects of ridicule.
David Byrne
#38. I didn't have any agenda or plan when I started writing stuff.
David Byrne
#39. Some things, I feel like no, I never could have the depth of experience of their own music and culture - but sometimes if I'm collaborating with somebody, they're interested in me bringing my own stuff into their thing, and sometimes that works.
David Byrne
#40. I've been in beautiful landscapes where one is tempted to whip out a camera and take a picture. I've learned to resist that.
David Byrne
#41. Western music in the Middle Ages was performed in these stone-walled gothic cathedrals, and in architecturally similar monasteries and cloisters.
David Byrne
#42. When everything is visible and appears to be dumb, that's when the details take on larger meanings.
David Byrne
#43. There is water at the bottom of the ocean.
David Byrne
#44. People use irony as a defense mechanism.
David Byrne
#45. I meet young people who know me and are familiar with my stuff. They know the package. They might have cherry-picked five or six key tunes. That's how it seems to work. I sometimes wonder if they realise they are not getting the whole context.
David Byrne
#47. Frank Lloyd Wright ... his things were beautiful but not very functional.
David Byrne
#48. Crime is a job. Sex is a job. Growing up is a job. School is a job. Going to parties is a job. Religion is a job. Being creative is a job
David Byrne
#49. I still feel like if I can get a song to work with, say, a basic beat, a rhythm, some chord changes, and a melody, a vocal melody - if it works with that, then I feel it's written and there's something there.
David Byrne
#50. At that time, American radio was a cauldron if impassioned voices - live preachers, talk-show hosts, and salesmen. The radio was shouting at you, pleading with you, and seducing you.
David Byrne
#51. Music eats its young and gives birth to a new hybrid creature.
David Byrne
#52. Performers had to be transparent. Diva behavior was rendered difficult or impractical - the physical situation would have made it look silly. The performers were obliged to interact and mingle with their audience.
David Byrne
#53. 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
#54. I'd like to be known for more than being the guy in the big suit.
David Byrne
#55. Music resonates in so many parts of the brain that we can't conceive of it being an isolated thing. It's whom you were with, how old you were, and what was happening that day.
David Byrne
#56. Sometimes it seems as if writing a group of songs is like getting groceries, or doing the laundry - banal things I do more or less on a day-to-day basis. We deal with the issues involved in our mundane activities as they come up,
David Byrne
#57. When everything is worth money, then money is worth nothing.
David Byrne
#58. Musicians sort of knew this already - that the emotional center is not the technical center, that funky grooves are not square, and what sounds like a simple beat can either be sensuous or simply a metronomic timekeeper, depending on the player.
David Byrne
#59. You create a community with music, not just at concerts but by talking about it with your friends.
David Byrne
#60. Real beauty knocks you a little bit off kilter.
David Byrne
#61. I couldn't talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching.
David Byrne
#62. Some of you people just about missed it
David Byrne
#63. Work aside, we come to New York for the possibility of interaction and inspiration.
David Byrne
#65. I have trouble imagining what I could do that's beyond the practicality of what I can do.
David Byrne
#66. The WASP style was often portrayed on TV and in movies as a sort of archetypical American look, and some of my new friends seemed to subscribe to it. I decided I'd try it too. I'd tried other looks previously, like Glam dude and Amish geezer, so why not this one?
David Byrne
#67. I'm no Lance Armstrong, but I do use a bike to get from place to place in Manhattan, a little bit of Brooklyn.
David Byrne
#68. I think that if they want people to listen to ten or twelve songs, they have to give the listener a reason to listen to ten or twelve songs or to buy ten or twelve and listen to the whole thing instead of just pulling one or two for their iPod or their computer.
David Byrne
#69. Another Elvis will not come along. He got wasted, but it's alright.
David Byrne
#70. Punk ... was more a kind of do-it-yourself, anyone-can-do-it attitude. If you only played two notes on the guitar, you could figure out a way to make a song out of that, and that's what it was all about.
David Byrne
#71. I try to devote my afternoons to making music in my home studio, but it's a lot more fun hanging out with musicians and friends, and trying subtly to influence a band than making your own stuff.
David Byrne
#72. A lot of that worked itself out in the recording.
David Byrne
#73. I wanted to find a reason not to be cynical - to have some faith even when nothing around me seemed to justify it.
David Byrne
#74. Performing is a thing in itself, a distinct skill, different from making recordings. And for those who can do it, it's a way to make a living.
David Byrne
#75. A bike is the world's most used form of transportation
David Byrne
#76. I cycled when I was at high school, then reconnected with bikes in New York in the late '70s. It was a good way of getting around the clubs and galleries of the Lower East Side and Soho.
David Byrne
#77. Television sounded really different than the Ramones sounded really different than us sounded really different than Blondie sounded really different than the Sex Pistols.
David Byrne
#78. Life tends to be an accumulation of a lot of mundane decisions, which often gets ignored.
David Byrne
#79. I'm concerned that my technical skills have advanced to the point where I can get closer to what I'm aiming for, which is not such a good thing.
David Byrne
#80. I try never to wear my own clothes, I pretend I'm someone else.
David Byrne
#81. The most common music that you hear anywhere in the world now basically has its roots in that union that happened in the last century, or in the century before that. That kind of music that's groove or beat oriented just didn't exist in lots of cultures before that.
David Byrne
#82. Maybe every city has a unique sensibility, but we don't have names for what they are or haven't identified them all. We can't pinpoint exactly what makes each city's people unique yet.
David Byrne
#83. People will remember you better if you always wear the same outfit ...
David Byrne
#84. You can know or not know how a car runs and still enjoy riding in a car.
David Byrne
#85. I'm not all about money, but, like most musicians, I am about survival.
David Byrne
#86. Real sadness is such an all-encompassing intense thing that it takes you out of your humdrum existence. If you can still function, you want to show it while it's peaking. So when people tell you to cheer up, it's not always the best thing.
David Byrne
#87. The Heads were the only band on that scene that had a groove.
David Byrne
#88. Why not invest in the future of music, instead of building fortresses to preserve its past?
David Byrne
#89. My personal feeling is that human beings have this incredible capacity for denial.
David Byrne
#90. The voting booth joint is a great leveler; the whole neighborhood - rich, poor, old, young, decrepit and spunky - they all turn out in one day.
David Byrne
#91. You may say to yourself: "Well, how did I get here?
David Byrne
#92. Everything's intentional. It's just filling in the dots.
David Byrne
#93. In the future, women will have breasts all over. In the future, it will be a relief to find a place without culture. In the future, plates of food will have names and titles. In the future, we will all drive standing up. In the future, love will be taught on television and by listening to pop songs.
David Byrne
#94. I remember talking with Arcade Fire after their first record, when they were getting all kinds of offers from major labels, and I don't think I gave them any advice. They survived that whole onslaught pretty well anyway without me.
David Byrne
#95. The two biggest self-deceptions of all are that life has a 'meaning'and each of us is unique.
David Byrne
#96. You go to a festival, you know you're not going to play all new material at a festival. The audience is not there for that. I've made that mistake, but you find out pretty quickly.
David Byrne
#97. My take is that the kind of complexity which says we can always generate complexity from simple interactions following for example rules.
David Byrne
#98. It's not music you would use to get a girl into bed. If anything, you're going to frighten her off.
David Byrne
#99. From what I've heard, Paris did a little bit more prep work as far as making bike lanes and all of that stuff. They really did it properly, which New York is getting to little by little.
David Byrne
#100. Do I wear a helmet? Ugh. I do when I'm riding through a precarious part of town, meaning Midtown traffic. But when I'm riding on secure protected lanes or on the paths that run along the Hudson or through Central Park - no, I don't wear the dreaded helmet then.
David Byrne
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