A biography for Carter Burwellhasn’t been written yet.
“I'm one of those people who is actually inspired by a deadline. I might not sleep for many days on end, it may not be good for my health, but it definitely helps.”
“When the systems we expect to help us actually hurt us, we have tragedy.”
“In mainstream romantic comedies, I'm usually tearing my hair out. It's just a devastatingly difficult genre for me.”
“I write music to please myself. Hopefully the director's enjoying it too.”
“I think I've only done one horror movie, Psycho III. That was a walk in the park compared to a romantic comedy.”
“A carefree quality is a whole aspect of life that I will never understand. I don't think I have ever been carefree and can't see the pleasure of it.”
“I don't generally find myself listening to the music of a film unless there's something awfully wrong with it.”
“Any film which views the darker side of life, which is death with a sense of humor, is very much to my taste.”
“New Yorkers may think they're on some cutting edge, but that's not especially true. It is, however, the most exciting heterogeneous mess of a town I've ever seen.”
“Learning how to improvise really awakened my interest in music.”
“All my music is very simple in that melody is usually clearly stated.”
“I had piano lessons when I was a kid, like most people. And hated them, like most people. And quit, like most people.”
“Los Angeles is an industry town, and it has great facilities and personnel. The disadvantage is that everyone there seems to talk about the same subject matter.”
“John Barry was the first film composer I was aware of. As a teenager I owned several of his Bond soundtracks.”
“If not bliss, ignorance can at least be fun.”
“Hopefully each film can be given a musical voice of its own, which is not to say that the instrumentation is always unique, but that the relationship between the sound and the image is unique.”
“The flow of Guiness into the studio was inspirational as well as nutritive.”
“Death is always around the corner, but often our society gives it inordinate help.”
“I think being a little nuts is helpful.”
“Performing written music, even when I've written it, is not very interesting to me.”