Arcade Fire’s Will Butler inspired by Bob Dylan to write a song a day from February 23.
“It was partly inspired by Bob Dylan, who used to announce that certain songs were based on headlines,” Butler says of the project.
“It would be a song he wrote in two weeks or something, such as The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll, which is one of the greatest songs ever. So I’ve set myself an impossible bar.”
He declares that he has been reading the (UK) Guardian newspaper every day. “It’s a cruel thing, but sometimes you read something and think, ‘Uh oh. I could make something really meaty out of that.’ Something like the Dominique Strauss-Kahn trial – my God, that’s the gnarliest story in the world, but it’s interesting.
"Or you might read a science headline and think, ‘The universe is so much bigger than I thought it was.’ There’s something really beautiful in that.”
Each of the new songs will premiere on the Guardian newspaper’s site.
