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.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that as recorded music becomes less significant, live performances may regain their importance and value.
David Byrne's quote reflects on the evolution of music consumption, indicating that as the tangible formats of music diminish in importance, there may be a resurgence in appreciation for live performances. This shift highlights the unique and ephemeral quality of experiencing music in real-time, emphasizing the emotional connection and shared experience that live music can offer.
In practice
During a talk about the cultural significance of live concerts.
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.
And the night shall be filled with music, And the cares, that infest the day, Shall fold their tents like the Arabs, and silently steal away.
Surrealism will usher you into death, which is a secret society. It will glove your hand, burying therein the profound M with which the word Memory begins.
When writing, I'm not thinking about war, even if I'm writing about it. I'm thinking about sentences, rhythm and story. So the focus, when I'm working, even if it's on a story that takes place at war, is not on bombs or bullets. It's on the story.
Like dancers with choreography or actors with scripts, jazz singers could take material that was known, even loved, then risk interpreting and revising it. They could conceal even as they revealed themselves. Inflection, timing and tonality were their language, at least as much as words.
Throughout the time in which I am working on a canvas I can feel how I am beginning to love it, with that love which is born of slow comprehension.
The one happiness is to shut one's door upon a little room, with a table before one, and to create; to create life in that isolation from life.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.