Brian Eno Quotes
37 quotations by Brian Eno
When I went back to England after a year away, the country seemed stuck, dozing in a fairy tale, stifled by the weight of tradition. |
The philosophical idea that there are no more distances, that we are all just one world, that we are all brothers, is such a drag! I like differences. |
The lyrics are constructed as empirically as the music. I don't set out to say anything very important. |
The basis of computer work is predicated on the idea that only the brain makes decisions and only the index finger does the work. |
Robert Fripp and I will be recording another LP very soon. It should be even more monotonous than the first one! |
People assume that the meaning of a song is vested in the lyrics. To me, that has never been the case. There are very few songs that I can think of where I remember the words. |
One of the interesting things about having little musical knowledge is that you generate surprising results sometimes; you move to places you wouldn't if you knew better. |
Nearly all the things I do that are of any merit at all start off just being good fun, and I think I'm sort of building up to doing something else quite soon. |
My lyrics are generated by various peculiar processes. Very random and similar to automatic writing. |
My guitar only has five strings 'cause the top one broke and I decided not to put it back on: when I play chords I only play bar chords, and the top one always used to cut me there. |
Musicians are there in front of you, and the spectators sense their tension, which is not the case when you're listening to a record. Your attention is more relaxed. The emotional aspect is more important in live music. |
Music in itself carries a whole set of messages which are very, very rich and complex, and the words either serve to exclude certain ones or point up certain others. |
It's not the destination that matters. It's the change of scene. |
In the 1960s, people were trying to get away from the pop song format. Tracks were getting longer, or much, much shorter. |
If you're in a forest, the quality of the echo is very strange because echoes back off so many surfaces of all those trees that you get this strange, itchy ricochet effect. |
If you want to make someone feel emotion, you have to make them let go. Listening to something is an act of surrender. |
If I had a stock of fabulous sounds I would just always use them. I wouldn't bother to find new ones. |
I'm very good with technology, I always have been, and with machines in general. They seem not threatening like other people find them, but a source of fun and amusement. |
I'm not interested in possible complexities. I regard song structure as a graph paper. |
I wanted to get rid of the element that had been considered essential in pop music: the voice. |
I thought it was magic to be able to catch something identically on tape and then be able to play around with it, run it backwards; I thought that was great for years. |
I see TV as a picture medium rather than a narrative medium. |
I often work by avoidance. |
I have a definite talent for convincing people to try something new. I am a good salesman. When I'm on form, I can sell anything. |
I hate the rock music tradition. I can't bear it! |
I had wanted a tape recorder since I was tiny. I thought it was a magic thing. I never got one until just before I went to art school. |
I had a lot of trouble with engineers, because their whole background is learning from a functional point of view, and then learning how to perform that function. |
I felt extremely uncomfortable as the focal point, in the spotlight. I really like the behind the scenes role, because all my freedom is there. |
I enjoy working with complicated equipment. A lot of my things started just with a rhythm box, but I feed it through so many things that what comes out sounds very complex and rich. |
I don't live in the past at all; I'm always wanting to do something new. I make a point of constantly trying to forget and get things out of my mind. |
I always use the same guitar; I got this guitar years and years ago for nine pounds. It's still got the same strings on it. |
For the world to be interesting, you have to be manipulating it all the time. |
For me it's always contingent on getting a sound-the sound always suggests what kind of melody it should be. So it's always sound first and then the line afterwards. |
At the beginning of the 20th century, the ambition of the great painters was to make paintings that were like music, which was then considered as the noblest art. |
As soon as I hear a sound, it always suggests a mood to me. |
Agressive music can only shock you once. Afterwards its impact declines. It's inevitable. |
A part of me has become immortal, out of my control. |