Composition
Eno has also said the album is about "paint a picture of the human trying to survive in an increasingly digital world;" themes that are explored in this song. "Strange Overtones" has been described as "a song about writing a song"—the subject of the song struggles to write innovative music, but is overheard by a neighbor using beats that are "twenty years old." In terms of the genre of music, both Byrne and Eno have called it "electronic Gospel"—the backing tracks are the kind of electronic music for which Eno is known, paired with hopeful and inspiring lyrics from Byrne— this song in particular features an uptempo backing track. Eno had been thinking about Gospel for several years, but couldn't write lyrics to hopeful songs.
Eno considers the album "omething that combines something very human and fallible and personal, with something very electronic and mathematical sometimes." And they tried to "make that picture of the human still trying to survive in an increasingly complicated digital world... It's quite easy to make just digital music and it's quite easy to make just human music, but to try and make a combination is sort of, exciting, I think." Byrne considered his job as lyricist to "bring more humanity" to Eno's instrumentals, which can be "cold and academic."
Read more about this topic: Strange Overtones
Famous quotes containing the word composition:
“Every thing in his composition was little; and he had all the weaknesses of a little mind, without any of the virtues, or even the vices, of a great one.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“Give a scientist a problem and he will probably provide a solution; historians and sociologists, by contrast, can offer only opinions. Ask a dozen chemists the composition of an organic compound such as methane, and within a short time all twelve will have come up with the same solution of CH4. Ask, however, a dozen economists or sociologists to provide policies to reduce unemployment or the level of crime and twelve widely differing opinions are likely to be offered.”
—Derek Gjertsen, British scientist, author. Science and Philosophy: Past and Present, ch. 3, Penguin (1989)
“Modern Western thought will pass into history and be incorporated in it, will have its influence and its place, just as our body will pass into the composition of grass, of sheep, of cutlets, and of men. We do not like that kind of immortality, but what is to be done about it?”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)