Music, for centuries and centuries, was used to teach everything. It was used to teach language, mathematics, history. The news was music. Everything traveled by song. It was used to teach ethics. It was used to create conscience, probably more than anything.
T Bone BurnettListen, the story of the United States is this: One kid, without anything, walks out of his house, down the road, with nothing but a guitar and conquers the world. And we've done that again, and again, and again โ Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Jimmy Rogers, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters.
T Bone BurnettPeople make art on the sides of buildings, and they'll make art on the sides of trains. They'll make art wherever they decide to make art. The technology that people are working with now will be replaced in 10 years, so that's not where your future is, if you're a musician.
T Bone BurnettLet the business take care of itself. If you get involved in the business, every hour that you're involved in business is an hour that you're not practicing. And every hour that you're not practicing is another hour further away from where you want to be.
T Bone BurnettI think, especially among the New York intelligentsia at that time, that there was a reason Bob Dylan went to New York to happen, because there was a culture developed there around the ideas of civil rights, around the idea of democracy growing out of Emerson and Thoreau, these ideas of the fanfare for the common man.
T Bone Burnett