Creativity Quote by Bryan Ferry

That little hinge-word "but" does most of the work here, turning a postcard sentiment into a self-diagnosis. Bryan Ferry gives L.A. its due with the breezy opener - "I like" is almost disarmingly polite - then immediately pulls the handbrake: "I shouldn't live there". Not "I can't", not "I won't". "Shouldn't" is moral grammar, the language of self-control, of knowing your own vices and triggers.

Coming from Ferry, the line lands as more than touring small talk. He built a persona on cultivated distance: the tuxedoed romantic, the cool operator who sells glamour while staying just out of reach. Los Angeles is the global capital of proximity to glamour - sunlit, frictionless, always auditioning. The subtext is that L.A. isn't simply a place; it's a climate that can dissolve the very qualities Ferry trades on: restraint, mystery, the measured melancholy that makes his music feel expensive and slightly dangerous.

The intent reads like an artist drawing a boundary between enjoyment and identity. You can flirt with the city, borrow its sheen, even love its ease, without letting it rewrite your tempo. It's also a quiet jab at the industry's geography: L.A. as a machine that rewards constant visibility, where living there can mean living inside the feedback loop of image-making. Ferry's line is a compact manifesto for the outsider who wants the benefits of the dream factory without becoming one more product on the conveyor belt.