Why not invest in the future of music, instead of building fortresses to preserve its past?
Interpretation
Investing in future creativity is more beneficial than clinging to past achievements.
David Byrne's quote emphasizes the importance of innovation and progress in the arts, particularly music. Instead of focusing on protecting and preserving past traditions, he advocates for investing in new ideas and creativity that can shape the future of music, suggesting that growth and evolution are essential for artistic vitality.
In practice
During a lecture about the evolution of music, this quote can highlight the importance of embracing new genres.
Forces that you might think are utterly unrelated to creativity can have a big impact. Technology, obviously, but environment, too. Even financial structures can affect the actual content of a song. The making of music is profoundly affected by the market.
When things get so absurd and so stupid and so ridiculous that you just can't bear it, you cannot help but turn everything into a joke.
I certainly agree that putting everything into little genres is counterproductive. You're not going to get too many surprises if you only focus on the stuff that fits inside the box that you know.
You create a community with music, not just at concerts but by talking about it with your friends.
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.
I find rebellion packaged by a major corporation a little hard to take seriously.
I'd love to tell actors about all the things they don't need to worry about. Less is more. If you have it inside, you don't need to show too much. People pick up on things.
The true work of art is born from the 'artist': a mysterious, enigmatic, and mystical creation. It detaches itself from him, it acquires an autonomous life, becomes a personality, an independent subject, animated with a spiritual breath, the living subject of a real existence of being.
The beautiful is as useful as the useful." He added after a momentβs silence, "Perhaps more so.
Saints have no moderation, nor do poets, just exuberance.
Invention presupposes imagination but should not be confused with it.
The best thing about writing has been the writer's life, the sense of being expressed, the ownership of the day, the entirely specious sense of freedom we have, however slave we are to some boss or other. I wouldn't trade it for any other life.
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