This quote by David Byrne speaks to the concept of being in control of one's own environment. He is suggesting that he just listens to the radio when he is in a scenario where he does not have control over the music that is playing. This might be analyzed as a metaphor for how we often discover ourselves in circumstances where we are not in control of our own lives. We may be stuck in a task we don't like, or residing in a place we don't wish to be. By only listening to the radio when he rents a vehicle, Byrne is recommending that he is taking control of his environment and maximizing it. He is selecting to listen to the radio, rather than letting it be selected for him. This quote is a pointer that we can take control of our lives and make the most of our circumstances, even when we don't have total control.
"I wrote a lot of stuff quickly: pages and pages of notes that seemed pretty incoherent at first. Most of it was taken from the radio because -suddenly being a parent- I'd be confronted by the radio giving a news report every hour of the day"
"I think some people record songs and make records a certain way to cater to radio. If you're born to make commercial music that's cool. But if you're born to not make commercial records, maybe you're meant to cater to another market"
"I sing both in my shower and in my car, mostly in my car, because I have this weird thing - whenever I'm singing to the radio - my friends kind of hate it - but I pick out the harmonies in my head, and I'm singing the harmonies to the tracks and I'm jamming it out"
"Well, he doesn't make me laugh. I think I've got a fair sense of humour but I can't really see it in him. I've listened to his show on the radio on a Saturday morning, and that's a load of mince as well"
"Basically, radio hasn't changed over the years. Despite all the technical improvements, it still boils down to a man or a woman and a microphone, playing music, sharing stories, talking about issues - communicating with an audience"
"We didn't have television until I was about eight years old, so it was either the movies or radio. A lot of radio drama. That was our television, you know. We had to use our imagination. So it was really those two things, and the comics, that I immersed myself in as a child"
"There were also horror shows on the radio. Very terrifying and thrilling to me as a kid. They had all these creepy sound effects. They would come on at ten o'clock at night, and I just would scare myself to death"
"Radio is not a partner in the industry. I think that the music industry has continued to depend upon radio, but has ended up pandering to a medium that doesn't care"
