I sense the world might be more dreamlike, metaphorical, and poetic than we currently believe--but just as irrational as sympathetic magic when looked at in a typically scientific way. I wouldn't be surprised if poetry--poetry in the broadest sense, in the sense of a world filled with metaphor, rhyme, and recurring patterns, shapes, and designs--is how the world works. The world isn't logical, it's a song.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that reality is more imaginative and poetic than scientific logic may indicate.
David Byrne expresses the idea that the essence of the world transcends scientific rationality and is instead rooted in metaphor, rhythm, and patterns, much like poetry. He implies that life possesses a dreamlike quality that resonates with creativity and emotional depth, highlighting that understanding our existence requires an appreciation for its artistic and irrational facets.
In practice
In a discussion about the nature of reality at a poetry reading.
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.
Better guilt than the terrible burden of freedom and responsibility.
All the papers that matter live off their advertisements, and the advertisers exercise an indirect censorship over news.
The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the 'disenchantment of the world.' Precisely the ultimate and most sublime values have retreated from public life either into the transcendental realm of mystic life or into the brotherliness of direct and personal human relations. It is not accidental that our greatest art is intimate and not monumental.
The confidence in another man's virtue is no light evidence of a man's own, and God willingly favors such a confidence.
A consciousness of wrongdoing is the first step to salvation...you have to catch yourself doing it before you can correct it.
He who can be, and therefore is, another's, and he who participates in reason enough to apprehend, but not to have, is a slave by nature.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.