A Quote by Win Butler

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.
Usually when a song comes to me, I don't ask a lot of questions; I hear something, and I just let it out in song. It's like making a salad. Everything I hear, and everything I am, I mix together in a different way in each song.
I always try to write a song, I never just want to write a record. Originally I was not writing songs for myself. ....And I can say this, most of the people who have recorded my songs are songwriters themselves. ... Even if I don't release it myself, somebody else might hear it and want to record it. When you write a song, it gives it that potential. When you write a song, a song has longevity. ... So I wanted to sing inspirational music, and that's exactly how I approached it-only the words have been changed to declare my relationship with God. Songwriting is my gift from God.
I feel like, these days there's so much music and so many bands, that it's exciting to hear when people go through the whole process with their own sort of system of making the music. It gives it a much more personal individual feel, like unique feel, when somebody has a really idiosyncratic set-up, or they just have what might be considered strange ways of going about the process that yields results that are not just cookie-cutter sounds like everything else... and I think that can only be a positive thing.
Even if I don't release it myself, somebody else might hear it and want to record it. When you write a song, it gives it that potential.
If I ever find myself overwhelmed, it's only because I am overwhelmed by how much more I want to learn. That is what drives me.
When I'm writing a song, it gives me more actual pleasure to hear someone else sing it than do it meself.
I have a thing for Baltimore: the word itself, the place - I don't know where it comes from; it's just a weird city. I have a song called 'Baltimore,' but I'm not from there. I've driven through there a lot. We've played a couple of shows there, but it's not a big market. Some good bands come from there, though. Animal Collective and Beach House.
I'm in three bands, and I love to produce records of other bands, and I have a family that I love. I wanted to be everything for everybody and do all of that... I think I just really beat myself up until I got really sick and needed surgery, because it was physically manifesting itself.
When one tugs at a single thing in nature; he finds it attached to the rest of the world. Variant - When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe. Variant - Tug on anything at all and you'll find it connected to everything else in the universe.
To keep myself anonimys in the press is that I felt was the right thing to do, in terms of making music. It's just about letting people hear it and then deciding for themselves whether they want to find out more and discover it for themselves. Everything stems from that.
But I do believe that's when you do your soul-searching. I think when you have these trials that life gives you, it is an opportunity to find out who you are. Not just who you are when everything's great, but who are you when everything is taken away from you and you have nothing.
There's a lot of hidden gems in the UK. You sometimes have to dig deep to find them, but there's still a lot of great guitar bands out there. So, in a way it makes you appreciate it more, but then a lot of bands do go missing also.
As a songwriter, I do kind of look at 'Santa Monica' as a thing outside of itself, because it isn't just my song. This is a song a lot of people tell me is a part of their high school or college years. That means a lot to me.
Songs give you incredible opportunity to convey a tremendous amount in a relatively short period of time. The first thing that John Powell, our composer, says is, "Is the song engaging you to tap your toe?" If you're not tapping your toe, it doesn't matter what you're doing in the song, it's not going to work. But, if you can get the audience to be engaged by the song, then it gives you the opportunity to accomplish so much, in a very concise way.
The older I get, the more I think it's this listening. You listen for it, and you have a bit of patience. And it'll come until it sounds - to me, the best songs I've written, I think, are ones that I can't hear anything - any of myself in it. It sounds like a cover song, like somebody else's song - really something you've stolen wholesale off a radio that you've listened to in someone else's flat.
When you pray, you open yourself to the influence of the power which has revealed itself as love. The power gives you freedom and independence. Once touched by this power, you are no longer swayed back and forth by the countless opinions, ideas, and feelings which flow through you. You have found a center for your life that gives you a creative distance so that everything you see, hear, and feel can be tested against the source.
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