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
fall needs adam
It's certain there is no fine thing Since Adam's fall but needs much laboring.
strong soil said
John Synge, I and Augusta Gregory, thought All that we did, all that we said or sang Must come from contact with the soil, from that Contact everything Antaeus-like grew strong.
eye feet fire
Processions that lack high stilts have nothing that catches the eye. What if my great-granddad had a pair that were twenty foot high, And mine were but fifteen foot, no modern stalks upon higher, Some rogue of the world stole them to patch up a fence or a fire.
dream imperfection deformity
There is no deformity But saves us from a dream.
ideas breakfast poet
Even when the poet seems most himself . . . he is never the bundle of accident and incoherence that sits down to breakfast; he has been reborn as an idea, something intended, complete.
dream memories air
From dream to dream and rhyme to rhyme I have ranged / In rambling talk with an image of air: / Vague memories, nothing but memories.
peace morning wings
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet's wings.
writing our-words inevitable
Our words must seem to be inevitable.
garden jenny sides
Locke sank into a swoon; The Garden died; God took the spinning-jenny Out of his side.
journey numbers progress
Life is a journey up a spiral staircase; as we grow older we cover the ground covered we have covered before, only higher up; as we look down the winding stair below us we measure our progress by the number of places where we were but no longer are. The journey is both repetitious and progressive; we go both round and upward.
long ancient dies
Things thought too long can be no longer thought, For beauty dies of beauty, worth of worth, And ancient lineaments are blotted out.
heart body tranquility
Nothing but stillness can remain when hearts are full Of their own sweetness, bodies of their loveliness.
memories fire ashes
What's memory but the ash That chokes our fires that have begun to sink?
rogues fine worst
O what fine thought we had because we thought that the worst rogues and rascals had died out.