Wednesday, April 1, 2009

David Byrne



My own ambition is to write a song that sounds like I stole it---like 'I' didn't write it, but it has always been there. To get the 'I' out of the song is the ultimate compositional coup, whether in music or design. Having a non style is more slippery amusing and surprising to one nice recognizable look. It's a way of staying half-awake, or noticing things, enjoying things and learning to love things---especially the vernacular and banal things that have been relegated to the garbage heap of design.

From Tibor Kalman: Perverse Optimist, 1998