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.
David ByrneRead
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.
Interpretation
External factors such as technology and environment significantly influence creativity.
David Byrne highlights the interconnectedness of creativity and external influences, suggesting that elements like technology, the environment, and financial systems play a crucial role in shaping artistic expression, particularly in music. The quote underscores the idea that creativity is not just an internal process but also a response to various external conditions that can enhance or restrict artistic output.
In practice
In a discussion about how music evolves with technology, you can use this quote to emphasize the influence of external factors.
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.
We don't make music, it makes us
The work that lasts over time is the work which still speaks to us when all contemporary interest in that work is extinct.
Well, I feel that we should always put a little art into what we do. It's better that way.
The stage was our school, our home, our life.
To feel most beautifully alive means to be reading something beautiful.
When you try to unravel something you've written, you belittle it in a way. It was created as a mystery.
A lotta cats copy the Mona Lisa, but people still line up to see the original.
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