William Butler
William Butler
Multi-instrumentalist for the band Arcade Fire who plays bass, synth, guitar, and percussion. He has also worked on movie soundtracks, like the one for Her.
ProfessionGuitarist
Date of Birth6 October 1982
childhood
The things that have been told us in our childhoodAre not so fragile.
marble melancholy sacred seek shadow wander
See how the sacred old flamingoes come,Painting with shadow all the marble steps:Aged and wise, they seek their wonted perchesWithin the temple, devious walking, madeTo wander by their melancholy minds.
dome fury human man mere
A starlit or a moonlit dome disdainsAll that man is;All mere complexities,The fury and the mire of human veins.
english men mine send
Did that play of mine send outCertain men the English shot?
dream rightly whatever
Well, to see rightly is the whole of wisdom, whatever dream be with us.
brutal fed grown heart
We had fed the heart on fantasies,The heart's grown brutal from the fare.
beat obeyed truth william
That William BlakeWho beat upon the wallTill Truth obeyed his call.
fire mould
I would mould a world of fire and dew.
blest cast flows great laugh sweetness
When such as I cast out remorseSo great a sweetness flows into the breastWe must laugh and we must sing,We are blest by everything,Everything we look upon is blest.
die grass grows heavenly lonely opened rust school since soul threshold
You have to die because no soul has passedThe heavenly threshold since you have opened school,But grass grows there, and rust upon the hinge;And they are lonely that must keep the watch.
die grow love mouth shall truth wine
Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That's all we shall know for truth Before we grow old and die
middle pride reckless shake sides themselves wicked
Where, where but here have Pride and Truth,That long to give themselves for wage,To shake their wicked sides at youthRestraining reckless middle age?
dance-and-dancing dancer
Who can tell the dancer from the dance?
cannot choice choose embody forced heavenly intellect man perfection raging refuse second truth
Man can embody truth but he cannot know it. The intellect of man is forced to choose perfection of the life, or of the work, and if it take the second must refuse a heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.