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Robert Fripp and I will be recording another LP very soon. It should be even more monotonous than the first one!

Brian Eno

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.
BRIAN ENO

Afterward Firsts Lines Sound
With all fashion, what we do is play at being somebody else. We play at inhabiting another kind of world.
BRIAN ENO

Fashion Play World
Saying that cultural objects have value is like saying that telephones have conversations.
BRIAN ENO

Conversation Object Telephone
One of the great breakthroughs of evolution theory is that you start with simple things and they will grow into complexity.
BRIAN ENO

Evolution Simple Theory
When I was young, an eccentric uncle decided to teach me how to lie. Not, he explained, because he wanted me to lie, but because he thought I should know how it’s done so I would recognise when I was being lied to.
BRIAN ENO

Decide Done Lying Teach Uncles
I’m not interested in possible complexities. I regard song structure as a graph paper.
BRIAN ENO

Paper Song Structure
When I’ve finally got the title, I think, “Okay, yes, now I know where we are. Now I know what it is. Fine, that must be finished or nearly finished.
BRIAN ENO

Fine Thinking Titles
All the best lyrics are written in ten minutes.
BRIAN ENO

Best Minutes Written
One of the things you’re doing when you make art, apart from entertaining yourself and other people, is trying to see what ways of working feel good, what feels right.
BRIAN ENO

Art Feel Good People
In the 1960s, people were trying to get away from the pop song format. Tracks were getting longer, or much, much shorter.
BRIAN ENO

People Song Track
I occasionally meet people and they say, ‘Oh, I was born to Discreet Music’… They always have very weird eyes, those people.
BRIAN ENO

Born Eye Occasionally People
I’m struck by the insidious, computer-driven tendency to take things out of the domain of muscular activity and put them into the domain of mental activity.
BRIAN ENO

Computer Driven Technology
I don’t like headphones very much, and I rarely listen to music on headphones.
BRIAN ENO

Headphones Listening To Music
Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature… The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.
BRIAN ENO

Black Events Signature White
The most important thing in a piece of music is to seduce people to the point where they start searching.
BRIAN ENO

Important People Pieces Searching
I had an interesting day. I was in the studio with a group of musicians, who shall remain nameless, and I said to them “Our exercise today is not to use ‘undo’ at all. So, there’s no second takes. Or, if you do a second take, you have to do the whole take.
BRIAN ENO

Exercise Interesting People
Of course with everybody else aiming there as well that makes it very hard and expensive to hit. I prefer to shoot the arrow, then paint the target around it. You make the niches in which you finally reside.
BRIAN ENO

Everybody Expensive Plant Riches
A big ego isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A big ego means that you have some confidence in your abilities, really, and that you’re prepared to take the risk of trying them out.
BRIAN ENO

Ego Mean Risk
I think the other thing that’s important is getting to a place, which very, very rarely happens with improvising groups, where somebody can decide not to play for a while. You watch any group of musicians improvising together and they nearly all play nearly all the time.
BRIAN ENO

Differences Musician Playing Thinking Watching
Quite often, and in fact more often, I would say, I’m struggling all the way through to think, “What is it I like about this? What is the personality of this thing I’m hearing that I like so much?”
BRIAN ENO

Dark Personality Struggle Sweet
Sometimes they’re of my own creation, as well – and they’re just as annoying. It’s not only other people’s ear worms that bug me, it’s my own, as well.
BRIAN ENO

Annoying Creation Sometimes Well
I belong to a gospel choir. They know I am an atheist but they are very tolerant.
BRIAN ENO

Atheist Choir Knows
I believe that singing is the key to long life, a good figure, a stable temperament, increased intelligence, new friends, super self-confidence , heightened sexual attractiveness, and a better sense of humor.
BRIAN ENO

Believe Confidence Keys Self
When I was working with Talking Heads what would happen typically is that they would go out and start playing a track, and I would always run the tape.
BRIAN ENO

Interesting Running Track
I prefer to shoot the arrow, then paint the target around it. You make the niches in which you finally reside.
BRIAN ENO

Arrows Niche Target
Think inside the work – outside the work
BRIAN ENO

Inside Thinking Work
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.
BRIAN ENO

Ambition Art Painting

Robert Fripp and I will be recording another LP very soon. It should be even more monotonous than the first one!

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Robert Fripp and I will be recording another LP very soon. It should be even more monotonous than the first one!

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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