Tuesday, May 14, 2019

How David Bowie Used William S. Burroughs’ Cut-Up Method to Write His Unforgettable Lyrics #ArtTuesday

Great insight into David Bowie’s creative process.

Via Open Culture:

You can see how Bowie performed his cut-up composition in the 1970s in the clip above, in which he demonstrates and explains his version of the method. “What I’ve used it for, more than anything else, is igniting anything that might be in my imagination,” he says. “It can often come up with very interesting attitudes to look into. I tried doing it with diaries and things, and I was finding out amazing things about me and what I’d done and where I was going.”

Given what he sees as its ability to shed light on both the future and the past, he describes the cut-up method as “a very Western tarot” — and one that can provide just the right unexpected combination of sentences, phrases, or words to inspire a song.

Learn more!


Screenshot 4 2 14 11 48 AMEvery Tuesday is Art Tuesday here at Adafruit! Today we celebrate artists and makers from around the world who are designing innovative and creative works using technology, science, electronics and more. You can start your own career as an artist today with Adafruit’s conductive paints, art-related electronics kits, LEDs, wearables, 3D printers and more! Make your most imaginative designs come to life with our helpful tutorials from the Adafruit Learning System. And don’t forget to check in every Art Tuesday for more artistic inspiration here on the Adafruit Blog!

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