David Byrne Quotes

I was constantly in the studio at my home writing ideas that would later become 'Hotel California' or 'Victim of Love.'

I scientifically engineer my music to be as accessible as possible.

Sometimes the song title comes with the songs, other times you just sorta make something up afterwards.

Well, what's interesting, I try not to think about the radio when I'm writing a song. I want people to love the song, and that means it might not be exactly thinking about the radio, but it's thinking about your audience and saying, 'I want people to like this song after it's done.'

I'm not trying to say I'm this artist who is all artsy and that I only write music for myself, because I don't. I write music for other people to enjoy, so I think about if it'd be an idea someone else would like.

I get the music, I get the beats. And I go to the studios and write the lyrics.

I think it's a bit of a myth that if you can read music you can write music. It doesn't work like that.

When I write, I don't really focus on duets or anything like that or whether I'm going to feature this or that rapper. I just focus on just making a great song and figure out the rest later.

I do always the music before the lyrics. The story or an idea for the lyrics appears during the composing process normally, but some other times I already have a strong idea of the story I would like to sing before any music comes to my mind.

I spent the summer of '88 indoors, writing 'Shoot You Down,' 'Bye Bye Badman,' and 'Don't Stop.'

If you want to be a songwriter, you've got to obsess over it.

I played around with GarageBand before, but I'd never actually made a proper song. So it was getting into the studio with him where I made my first proper song. I've always loved creative writing, so I had done that as well.

I'm always interested in writing. I keep music in journals on an everyday basis. I'm always looking for ideas that can be music.

As a songwriter, I go into the studio, and I just try to write a great song.

Certain key words, like, 'break it down,' 'this is how we do it' - they'll always end up on my tracks.

I don't want to focus too much on trying to write a song for radio.

Yes, basically, like you said, I'll work out a chord pattern and work out the lyrics over that.

Songwriting is different from music, although I don't deny now that it would be nice to have a little more background in music theory.

I've been gearing up for this future of writing a lot of new music by digging into my favorite old stuff, and twisting it around and highlighting the things I really love.

I'm definitely interested in making more music and uploading new covers; I like to take suggestions because it's more fun if people know the song.

For a songwriter, you don't really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes. And you try to understand them and take them apart and see what they're made of, and wonder if you can make one, too.

I have to have a guitar sitting around. I sing in the shower. I sing around the house. The music comes secondary. The lyrics come first.

I've always been around musicians and always been the songwriter who doesn't end up playing the music.

I know that when I make a record like The Delivery Man as a contrast to even Il Sogno, this is going to reach a wider audience, because it communicates in that very direct way.

Songwriting is something I really need to work on. I don't have very many songs but I really love it. I would love to be a great song writer some day.