Quote

Songwriting is reliant on inspiration, which ideally you don't have that much control over. Songs kind of half make themselves, and then you have to finish them.

Win Butler

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Win Butler
Age: 44
Born: 1980
Born: April 14
Banjoist
Composer
Guitarist
Mandolinist
Musician
Poet
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Songwriter
Houston
Texas
Edwin Farnham Butler III
Make
Finish
Songs
Inspiration
Control
Half
Song
Much
Reliant
Kind
Ideally

More quotes by Win Butler

Image
I find myself a lot more open to bands if I just hear their song. It gives you an opportunity to engage with the thing itself and not be overwhelmed by everything else that surrounds it.
Win Butler
Image
I always find live shows on film kind of boring. Even my favorite ones, I kinda zone out for most of it. It's just so different seeing a band in the flesh and then watching a film of it, even if you have a hundred cameras and it's shot from every angle. There's just a communal, visceral thing that never translates very well.
Win Butler
Image
There's the idea that you have to know how to solve the world's problems in order to feel that something is morally wrong. I'm always back and forth between optimism and depression about the situation.
Win Butler
Image
Being in a rock band, I feel a certain responsibility to have a weird haircut. I mean, who else gets to do that?
Win Butler
Image
I try not get too self-aware when writing lyrics.
Win Butler
Image
I think you have to want to be really famous. It's a lot easier to sabotage your career than to have a career to sabotage.
Win Butler
Image
Whenever you do anything or say anything, you're opening yourself up to criticism. But that's okay.
Win Butler
Image
I don't think the emotional quality is the defining quality of the music but it's definitely something that people have picked up on a lot
Win Butler
Image
If I was a cabinetmaker or a commercial fisherman, it would be the same question - how to connect to my world. The job we do affords us the opportunity to have people listen to what we say. But a lot of people have a similar situation: They're trying to find a way to do some good.
Win Butler
Image
What I miss [about church] is being forced to be in community with people that aren't the same as me.
Win Butler
Image
Actual patriotism has to do with loving a place enough to try and improve it.
Win Butler
Image
It seems like the record industry made so much crazy money in the 1960s that everyone wanted to get in on it. Now it's just become very corporate. So all of these people who despise music end up being in charge.
Win Butler
Image
When I was living in Boston I worked in this store that played the college radio station. I had to listen to it all day, and I didn't care for most of it.
Win Butler
Image
While there are so many beautiful Baroque churches and it's a beautiful artistic tradition, it almost gets hideous and grotesque if you push it further. You can take something beautiful and overdo it.
Win Butler
Image
In the UK, tons of records are now sold in grocery stores, because there are no record stores - it's iTunes or the grocery store. And almost every band that had an impact on me was on a major label. There's value in people actually hearing things, as well.
Win Butler
Image
There's an obligation to let people know where their money is going, so the tour has an educational aspect, mostly as a way to thank people. But the most practical use is to raise money and do the research to figure out the proper ways to spend it. You want to make sure that the money doesn't just go somewhere where it does more harm than good.
Win Butler
Image
A lot of stuff is dark in a way, but unless you're really looking at a situation for what it actually is, it's hard to be hopeful - or meaningless to be hopeful about it unless it's actually based in a real possibility.
Win Butler
Image
I think filmmakers all secretly wanna be musicians and all musicians secretly wanna be filmmakers.
Win Butler
Image
The Flaming Lips have been on Warner Bros. forever, and certainly everything I heard growing up was on a major label in some way, from the Cure to Radiohead to Bjork.
Win Butler
Image
I think of hip hop as a mass media, radio, MTV thing. It’s been extremely relevant over the last 10 years and rock music is just not anymore—-a tear rolls down my cheek as I say that.
Win Butler