We weren't listening to guitar bands, we were thoroughly ashamed of being a guitar band. So we bought loads of keyboards and learned how to use them, and when we got bored we went back to guitars.
Interpretation
The quote reflects a sense of evolution in music and the struggle for originality.
Thom Yorke's quote illustrates the tension that arises within musicians as they navigate their identities and sound amidst evolving musical trends. It highlights the desire to break away from expectations, leading to experimentation with different instruments, like keyboards, while never fully discarding their roots in guitar music. This constant cycle of exploration and return signifies both a search for innovation and a reconciliation with one’s original influences.
In practice
During a presentation on the evolution of music genres, quoting this could emphasize the importance of experimentation.
I'm achingly aware of my own limitations as both part of the human race and as an individual. I'm just, casting this out that, maybe, I'm not so perfect as is the affront I oft put on. After all, the lyric is 'I wish I was special'. I truly just want to be loved and accepted, I think, like all humans.
There's a pervading sense of loneliness I've had since the day I was born. Maybe a lot of other people feel the same way, but I'm not about to run up and down the street asking everybody if they're as lonely as I am. I'd probably get locked up.
People in bands don't have the kind of conversations people might think they have. The best things about being in a band are the things that are unsaid.
I don't think young people are as demoralized as the media and government would like us to think. The obvious sign of that is how strong and how close personal connections are and how much people are able to build a life for themselves, despite all this stuff that's been thrown at them.
I tell you what's really ridiculous--going into a bookstore and there's all these books about yourself. In a way, it feels like you're already dead.
We're at a time when we are being presented with undeniable changes in the global climate and fundamental issues that affect every single one of us, and it's the time we're listening to the most hokey shite on the radio and watching vacuous bullshit celebrities being vacuous bullshit celebrities and desperately trying to forget about everything. Which is fine, you know, but personally speaking, I can't do that.
Where I come from it was really unheard of to be at a party and someone says, 'What kind of music do you make?', and you say, 'Pop music.' You may as well have 'I'm not cool' stamped on your forehead.
As far as I'm concerned, there won't be a Beatles reunion as long as John Lennon remains dead.
Paul Ryan's love for Rage Against The Machine is amusing, because he is the embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades
For a long time I wasn't listening to music, to the rock and roll stuff on the radio, because it would cause me to get sweaty. It would bring back memories I didn't want to know about, or I would get that feeling that I'm not alive 'cause I'm not making it. And if it was good, I hated it 'cause I wasn't doing it. And if it was bad, I was furious 'cause I could've done it better.
To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt, and that's not what I play. I play black classical music.
Learn to play the piano, man, and then you can figure out crazy solos of your own.
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