The Best David Byrne quotes

There’s more good music being made now than ever before. — David Byrne

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

If anything, a lot of electronic music is music that no one listens to at home, hardly. It’s really only to be heard when everyone’s out enjoying it. — David Byrne

With music, you often don’t have to translate it. It just affects you, and you don’t know why. — David Byrne

I found music to be the therapy of choice. I guess it is for a lot of people. — David Byrne

We tend to mistake music for the physical object. — David Byrne

Singing is a trick to get people to listen to music for longer than they would ordinarily. — David Byrne

It’s not music you would use to get a girl into bed. If anything, you’re going to frighten her off. — David Byrne

The imminent demise of the large record companies as gatekeepers of the world’s popular music is a good thing, for the most part. — David Byrne

Why not invest in the future of music, instead of building fortresses to preserve its past? — David Byrne

I’ve rarely seen video screens used well in a music concert. — David Byrne

Western music in the Middle Ages was performed in these stone–walled gothic cathedrals, and in architecturally similar monasteries and cloisters. — David Byrne

Some artists and indie musicians see Spotify fairly positively–as a way of getting noticed, of getting your music out there where folks can hear it risk–free. — David Byrne

You create a community with music, not just at concerts but by talking about it with your friends. — David Byrne

Before recording technology existed, you could not separate music from its social context. — David Byrne

We don’t make music–it makes us. — David Byrne

People probably heard a greater quantity of music, and a greater variety, on these devices than they would ever hear in person in their lifetimes. — David Byrne

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

As music becomes less of a thing––a cylinder, a cassette, a disc––and more ephemeral, perhaps we will begin to assign an increasing value to live performances again. — David Byrne

Ninety percent of all music is always crap, and when too many people decide they’re going to have guitar bands, then ninety percent of them are going to be crap. It’s just a given law. — David Byrne

People are renovating places and opening ambitious new venues. That’s one thing that music does. It gets people out of their houses, and gets them hanging out together. — David Byrne

What do we need music to do? How do we visit the land in our head and the place in our heart that music is so good at taking us to? — David Byrne

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

I think sometimes–not always–I write songs that are accessible. — David Byrne

The world isn’t logical, it’s a song. — David Byrne

Doing the box set is one of those things where you get to rewrite your own history to some extent. We could take out some of the songs that we felt weren’t as strong as some of the others, so you look better. — David Byrne

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

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

Still, making music is its own reward. — David Byrne

A lot of cities are making a real effort, neighborhood by neighborhood, to make themselves into a place where life can be pretty good. — David Byrne

I’m proud of ‘Stop Making Sense,’ but it’s a little bit of an albatross; I can’t compete with it, but I can’t ignore it either. — David Byrne

The making of music is profoundly affected by the market. — David Byrne

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

I’m very much into making lists and breaking things apart into categories. — David Byrne

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

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

Sometimes it’s a form of love just to talk to somebody that you have nothing in common with and still be fascinated by their presence. — David Byrne

There are plenty of people who are, I think, completely racist who love hip–hop. — David Byrne

I love getting out of my comfort zone. — David Byrne

People in Latin America… love America from afar and emulate America in some ways but also hate a lot of things that America does to them. — David Byrne

When you fall in love, you feel like a missing piece of a puzzle that’s been found. — David Byrne

I love writing. I don’t claim to be great at it. Occasionally I get a good sentence off. But I love the activity. — David Byrne

I try to write about small things. Paper, animals, a house… love is kind of big. I have written a love song, though. In this film, I sing it to a lamp. — David Byrne

Sometimes I write stuff that strangely predicts what’s going to happen in my life. — David Byrne

It’s more about the stuff you think about when you’re getting from place to place on a bicycle than it is about actually riding the bicycle. — David Byrne

People hear about stuff from their friends or a magazine or a newspaper. — David Byrne

I didn’t have any agenda or plan when I started writing stuff. — David Byrne

It seems almost backwards to me that my music seems the more emotional outlet, and the art stuff seems more about ideas. — David Byrne

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. — David Byrne

You are the Michelangelo of your own life. The David you are sculpting is you. — Rhonda Byrne

You are the masterpiece of your own life. You are the Michelangelo of your own life. The David you are sculpturing is you (Dr. Joe Vitale) — Rhonda Byrne

The two biggest self–deceptions of all are that life has a ‘meaning’and each of us is unique. — David Byrne

The assumption is that your personal life has to be a mess to create, but how much chaos can you allow in before it takes over? — David Byrne

Most of our lives aren’t that exciting, but the drama is still going on in the small details. — David Byrne

Life tends to be an accumulation of a lot of mundane decisions, which often gets ignored. — David Byrne

People are already finding ways to make their music and play it in front of people and have a life in music, I guess, and I think that’s pretty much all you can ask. — David Byrne

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

I like a good story and I also like staring at the sea–do I have to choose between the two? — David Byrne

I’m not all about money, but, like most musicians, I am about survival. — David Byrne

If I’m feeling that I have an angle or something to say or something where in a way I’m having a conversation with myself, that’s immensely pleasurable. — David Byrne

There’s a pervasive feeling that when somebody sings a song and records a song on a record, that it’s their true feeling. — David Byrne

There’s still a feeling that uncensored emotions make a good song. They don’t. Pure emotion is just somebody screaming at you, or crying. It doesn’t communicate anything. — David Byrne

My personal feeling is that human beings have this incredible capacity for denial. — David Byrne

Deep down, I know I have this intuition or instinct that a lot of creative people have, that their demons are also what make them create. — David Byrne