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
call close kindred
When two close kindred meetWhat better than call a dance?
bone foul ladders lie rag shop
Now that my ladder's goneI must lie down where all ladders startIn the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.
best created great literature modern people petty political stocks
We . . . are no petty people. We are of the great stocks of Europe. We are the people of Burke; we are the people of Swift, the people of Emmet, the people of Parnell. We have created most of the modern literature of this country. We have created the best of its political intelligence.
black broken god great passing time-and-time-management tread
The years like great black oxen tread the world, and God the herdsman treads them on behind, and I am broken by their passing feet.
compelled feels imagine lost melancholy passing souls streets walk
This melancholy London- I sometimes imagine that the souls of the lost are compelled to walk through its streets perpetually. One feels them passing like a whiff of air.
driven hate hatred last learns radical recovers soul sweet
Considering that, all hatred driven hence,The soul recovers radical innocenceAnd learns at last that it is self-delighting,Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,And that its own sweet will is Heaven's will.
age-and-aging attendance dance horrible lust plague spur
You think it horrible that lust and rageShould dance attendance upon my old age;They were not such a plague when I was young;What else have I to spur me into song?
man
A man who does not exist,A man who is but a dream.
beloved break deep east girdle hands keeps lie light sleep stars until
Until the axle break That keeps the stars in their round, And hands hurl in the deep The banners of East and West, And the girdle of light is unbound, Your breast will not lie by the breast Of your beloved in sleep
none tread
When we are young we long to tread a way none have trod before
grass hear run wind
I hear the wind a blowI hear the grass a grow,And all that I know, I know.But I will not speak, I will run away.
blow grass hear run wind
I hear the wind a blow I hear the grass a grow, And all that I know, I know. But I will not speak, I will run away.
deep hear lake low sounds water
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore. . . .I hear it in the deep heart's core.
brought cannot century civilization despite hoped illusion life manifold peace raging
Civilization is hoped together, brought under a rule, under the semblance of peace by manifold illusion, but Man's life is thought, and he, despite his terror, cannot cease, ravening through century after century ravening, raging and uprooting, that