Everything That Happens Will Happen Today: Difference between revisions

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''Everything That Happens Will Happen Today'' was released with a marketing strategy that involved Byrne creating the vanity label Todo Mundo and hiring Internet startup company Topspin Media to promote the album online using word-of-mouth and Internet sales to market the music. Several formats were created to allow users to have options on how to listen to the music—from free streaming audio to a deluxe package housed in a tin.

In December 2007, David Byrne announced on the BBC music show ''The Weekender'' that he was working with former collaborator Brian Eno on a brand new album of "proper songs," describing it as a "completely different thing" from the experimental ''[[My Life in the Bush of Ghosts]]''. While the two were discussing the 2006 re-release of that album at a dinner party, Eno suggested adding lyrics and vocals to some of his unfinished songs, some of which were eight years old. The duo did not initially plan on making an entire album, but eventually felt confident enough to finish a full collection of songs. Although the two had discussed making an album together for several years, this was their first sincere effort since the early 1980s.

Byrne visited Eno's London studio to listen to the demos and the two decided to collaborate to finish writing the songs, leaving Eno and Peter Chilvers to convert a variety of digital music formats into MIDI, thereby stripping out extraneous information and making them suitable for Byrne to embellish. (Chilvers would be thanked in the liner notes for "Digital Archaeology".) The two continued to work on this and other musical projects for several months and agreed that if the project was not enjoyable, they would abandon it. The duo decided to not announce their new collaboration for fear that they may not complete an album's worth of new material, or that they would end up re-treading their previous collaborations and decide against releasing the new songs.

Eno had several musical compositions, but could not write lyrics to accompany them, whereas Byrne had several lyrics with no accompaniment. Eno wanted to make the vocals the "central event" of the music by pairing gospel singing with unexpected electronic music that also included elements of West African music. The songwriting's emphasis on vocals was partially inspired by Phillip Bimstein. In late 2007, Byrne took a compact disc of stereo mixes of the demos from Eno and spent a year trying to write lyrics to finish the songs, attempting to balance the simple chords that Eno had written with the more complex ones Byrne prefers. Although it was uncharacteristic for Eno, many of the songs were written on acoustic guitar, with the help of Steinberg Cubase. The musicians exchanged Eno's demos with the lyrics and vocal melodies completed by Byrne over e-mail and by June 2008, 14 songs had been recorded. Eno initially gave positive feedback, which encouraged Byrne to continue writing and only became critical as the project was finishing. Toward the end of the recording, Eno sent increasingly challenging tracks to see if Byrne could complete them—the final two ended up on the album as "I Feel My Stuff" and "Poor Boy".

At the outset, Byrne was hesitant to add lyrics to the tracks because they sounded too much like folk music. He characterized the process as very slow and full of trepidation, in part because of expectations from their previous collaboration and also due to the strict division of labor they had between writing instrumentation and vocalization. Eno only provided a few vocal demos and suggested simple changes like adding an extra verse. Byrne made minimal changes to the instrumentation on several tracks and avoided changing chords in the melody to suit his singing style. The duo only worked in the studio together on two occasions, including one full week and a weekend on another occasion and neither partner got a veto in the process of track selection or production.< According to Byrne, the main challenge in this writing technique "was more emotional than technical: to write simple heartfelt tunes without drawing on cliché."

He later explained, "In a nutshell, Brian wrote most of the music, and I composed most of the vocal melodies and lyrics, and then sang them." If Byrne's vocal harmonies were radical enough, Eno would revise the instrumentation to accompany it, but Byrne avoided writing instrumentation and chose to adapt to the instrumentals as written. Using a style similar to the Talking Heads album ''[[Speaking in Tongues]]'', Byrne scatted and murmured some lyrics before they were completed, due to Byrne's preference for the sonic quality of lyrics rather than their literal meaning and his method of writing lyrics using free association. In composing lyrics for the album, Byrne attempted to write keeping in mind what would please Eno as his collaborator. He also attempted to write harmonies for Eno, who decided against singing any lead vocals on the album. Eno does perform backing vocals throughout the album, which he credits on one track as "inhuman&nbsp;piano"

Both musicians continued to work on their own projects during the composition of ''Everything That&nbsp;Happens Will&nbsp;Happen Today''. Byrne [[Big Love: Hymnal|wrote the score for the second season]] of ''Big&nbsp;Love'' and completed his collaborations with [[Fatboy Slim]] on the album and musical ''[[Here&nbsp;Lies&nbsp;Love]]'' and the single "[[Toe&nbsp;Jam]]". Eno produced Coldplay's ''Viva&nbsp;la&nbsp;Vida or Death&nbsp;and&nbsp;All&nbsp;His&nbsp;Friends'' and U2's ''No&nbsp;Line&nbsp;on&nbsp;the&nbsp;Horizon''. Byrne and Eno discussed the former's collaboration with Fatboy&nbsp;Slim and Chris&nbsp;Martin of Coldplay wrote lyrics to the instrumental track for "One&nbsp;Fine&nbsp;Day", but acquiesced when he heard Byrne's version (the band would also adapt another one of Eno's instrumental compositions that Byrne did not finish into a track on ''Viva&nbsp;la&nbsp;Vida''). Once Byrne's version of "One&nbsp;Fine&nbsp;Day" was finished, the two began in earnest writing the rest of the tracks. Byrne initially had a long delay in writing material, but as the project progressed, he began working several hours a day on the album and put his collaboration with Fatboy&nbsp;Slim on hold to finish the songs in the early part of 2008. Since the two did not work together face-to-face as they had in the past, it was harder for them to complete material quickly, and they had to rush to finish two of the tracks at the end of the sessions. He later described the process as easy once details were sorted out and summed up this method as "pure&nbsp;joy" and declared writing collaboratively to be easier than writing solo. He even credited the time between their last collaboration and the transatlantic distance as a strength, since it allowed the two to keep their own schedules. Eno agreed, as it gave him time to focus on a small piece of music without holding up Byrne's progress. Byrne later used a similar approach through 2010 and 2011 in collaborations with [[St. Vincent]] (''[[Love This Giant]]'') and Will&nbsp;Oldham (the soundtrack to ''[[This Must Be the Place (film)|This Must Be the Place]]'').

[[File:Valentino Deng & Dave Eggers in San Mateo 10-1-08 1.JPG|alt=A young black man in glasses and a suit (Valentino Achak Deng) sits to the right of a Caucasian man with wavy black hair wearing a white shirt (Dave Eggers)|thumb|The story of Valentino&nbsp;Achak&nbsp;Deng (left)—as told by Dave&nbsp;Eggers (right) in the 2006 novel ''What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng''—inspired Byrne to write hopeful lyrics.]]

The two were inspired by gospel&nbsp;music and both have described their music as "electronic&nbsp;gospel"—in particular the tracks "Life&nbsp;Is&nbsp;Long" and "One&nbsp;Fine&nbsp;Day". In addition to subtle Biblical themes in the lyrics, Eno was influenced by gospel musicality, which he initially discovered through Talking Heads while working on ''[[More&nbsp;Songs&nbsp;About&nbsp;Buildings&nbsp;and&nbsp;Food]]'' by listening to "Surrender&nbsp;to&nbsp;His&nbsp;Will" by Reverend&nbsp;Maceo&nbsp;Woods and The Christian&nbsp;Tabernacle&nbsp;Choir. For several years leading up to this project, Eno had primarily listened to gospel&nbsp;music—even joining a gospel&nbsp;choir—and was attracted to the music's unrestrained vocals and lack of pessimism as well as its inclusive nature. Eno had been thinking about gospel for several years, but could not write lyrics to hopeful songs.

While Byrne considers the music "[un]like any contemporary gospel record that you would hear out there," it is "informed by that feeling and those kind of lyrics, which allude to hope in the face of despair." Eno also considers the album "something that combines something very human and fallible and personal, with something very electronic and mathematical sometimes." The music combines electronic and gospel influences 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&nbsp;music and it's quite easy to make just human&nbsp;music, but to try and make a combination is sort of, exciting, I think." Tracks such as "My&nbsp;Big&nbsp;Nurse" combine apocalypticism and comfort, blending hopefulness and despair.

The instrumental demos were primarily written in major&nbsp;chords, which Byrne considered slightly "ominous" and surprising from Eno. In spite of this, Byrne's lyrics ended up being hopeful and spiritual, with themes of redemption—what he considers "optimism in spite of the dread." The tension between optimism and pessimism and the spiritual themes quickly emerged over the course of a year in which Byrne was writing lyrics, which he has speculated might be an antidote to being "completely pessimistic and cynical about politics and the state of the world;" for instance, "The&nbsp;River" is about the effects of Hurricane&nbsp;Katrina. He has also cited the political climate of the Iraq&nbsp;War, the beginning of the late-2000s recession, the policies of the George&nbsp;W.&nbsp;Bush administration, and his 2004 divorce from [[Adelle&nbsp;Lutz]] as factors that inspired him to create uplifting music. As he explained, "I was surprised that's what came out... The tracks are very different from what I would have done myself. I lean toward things that are more complicated." Eno also thinks the album is much better than the songs he imagined when composing them solo.

Eno has also said the album is about "paint[ing] a picture of the human trying to survive in an increasingly digital world" and Byrne considered his job as lyricist to "bring more humanity" to Eno's instrumentals, which can be "cold and academic." Themes of humanity struggling with technology are apparent on several tracks and Byrne has characterized the "overall vibe" of the album as "We're going to get through this. Humanity will prevail." The lyrical content includes "a sinister inflection" but "many songs feel fairly uplifting and the overall tone is hopeful." Byrne focused on mundane events and attempted to write in a style that was "simple but not corny, basic but heartfelt." His inspiration in writing lyrics for "One&nbsp;Fine&nbsp;Day" was the story of Valentino&nbsp;Achak&nbsp;Deng as told in Dave&nbsp;Eggers' ''What&nbsp;Is&nbsp;the&nbsp;What''—the two are thanked in the liner notes and Byrne had previously performed at a fundraiser for Eggers' 826&nbsp;Valencia. The story of the Lost&nbsp;Boys of Sudan is emblematic of the spiritual themes of the album as they go through "all kinds of unrelenting horrors, but [are] eternally hopeful and even cheerful, in a way that defies all logic." The music on this album also expresses homesickness—a lyrical trend that is apparent in Byrne's work with Talking&nbsp;Heads.