Archinect
anchor

songs about architects

cranny

underworld: mmmmmm skyscraper, I love you.

Jun 22, 05 12:26 am  · 
 · 
Smokety Mc Smoke Smoke

I thought Jerry Harrison of Talking Heads studied at the GSD ....

songs with an urbanist/built environment theme:

Cuatro Puntos Cardinales -- Café Tacuba
Metal -- Gary Numan
Divide and Conquer -- Hüsker Dü
70/80 -- Nightmares on Wax
The L Train Is A Swell Train And I Don't Want To Hear You Indies Complain -- Out Hud
CTA -- Tortoise
Collapse -- Soul Coughing

Jun 22, 05 2:25 am  · 
 · 
MysteryMan

Maybe .38 Special had a song about it - Believe it, or not, One, or two of those guys went to Architecture School.

Dang you, SYMMETRY, you mentioned Architecture In Helsinki first - kudos.

Jun 22, 05 11:54 am  · 
 · 
mm

MysteryMan,

Please give me my proper credit. I mentioned Architecture in Helsinki in my post on 06/15/05 11:50. Symmetry didn't post about AiH until 06/17/05 7:21... I expect a full, public written apology.

thank you.
- mm

Jun 22, 05 1:28 pm  · 
 · 
jitter12

The third little piggy went to Harvard college,
built his house with his architect knowledge.

-Green Jello(y) [damn you Jello!!]

Jun 23, 05 9:32 pm  · 
 · 
atowle

another pavement track called 'grave architecture' off 'wowee zowee' . . .

Jun 24, 05 8:29 pm  · 
 · 
mdler

pixies - build high

Jun 24, 05 8:48 pm  · 
 · 
MysteryMan

Hey MM,
Sorry, I just got here on 6/21! Great site, though.

Jun 24, 05 10:21 pm  · 
 · 
ryanavellanosa

My Architecture Playlist...Here's seven...

1. The Opposing Engineer Sleeps Alone - Guided By Voices
"I am an architect
With only one regret
You'll be the only one
Who hasn't cut me yet"

2. Grave Architecture - Pavement
"come on in...
grave architecture
walk the marble malls
the monuments to those who fall"

 

3. Architectural Nightmare Man - Robert Pollard

4. Souvenir - Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
"It's my direction, it's my proposal, it's so hard,
it's leading me astray, My obsession, it's my creation,
you'll understand, it's not important now"

 

5. Fin - Pavement
"Open call for prison architects
Send me your blueprints ASAP
Stack the walls such that I cannot breathe
Man is breedin' forever, because of the weather
I hope soon to leave from the east"

6. Detroit Has A Skyline - Superchunk
"It was no architect designed this view
He could not have known about you"

 

7. Catastrophe - Rainer Maria
"Catastrophe keeps us together.
We're the architects of the world.
We're taking it all apart.
Do you think we could go on forever
when the architects of the war
are handing out the swords?"

Jul 1, 12 8:18 pm  · 
 · 
Dani Zoe

"Buildings and Bridges" by Ani DiFranco!!! a wonderful analysis of building engineering:

"Buildings and bridges
are made to bend in the wind
to withstand the world,
that's what it takes
All that steel and stone
is no match for the air, my friend
what doesn't bend breaks
what doesn't bend breaks"

Jul 1, 12 8:31 pm  · 
 · 
backbay

waters, wright, and mason (3 of the 4 original members of pink floyd) were architecture students when the bands started.  i don't know if they finished school or not.

all their songs were depressing and the band's leader went insane.

Jul 1, 12 8:54 pm  · 
 · 
Thecyclist

Ha, I could see this on Whose Line Is It Anyway.  When they do the Ho-down, it would be "songs of the architect"...take it away!

Jul 3, 12 2:05 pm  · 
 · 
Broadstreetexpresstrain

As an architect that went to Architecture school during the hey day of the classic old school hip hop days - the eighties baby- I always recall and often recite the lyrics of the R - Rhakim '' I draw a croud like an Architect''- off of the ''Paid in Full Album. I love those earlier references to other old school classic Hip hop artist like Guru, Kool Moe D. And my fellow/sister Philadelphian Bahama Dia

Jul 5, 12 9:07 pm  · 
 · 
eranthis

Ministry's "Jesus Built my Hotrod"....

"Soon I discovered that this rock thing was true
Jerry lee lewis was the devil
Jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet"

This got me through many a late night in school when I had to finish about a hundred drawings before a mid-semester review and had nothing.

Jul 5, 12 9:10 pm  · 
 · 
beekay31

Pavement also has a song titled "Grave Architecture".

Whoops, just saw it.  Nevermind.

Jul 5, 12 11:04 pm  · 
 · 
beekay31

Megadeth:  Architecture of Aggression

Always good for a laugh in the studio.

Jul 5, 12 11:12 pm  · 
 · 

"Mansard Roof" By Vampire Weekend

Jul 5, 12 11:23 pm  · 
 · 
beekay31

Archers of Loaf:  All the Nation's Airports

 

Shuffling through all the nations airports

Invalids collide with terrorist scum.

Choking on the lag, the headset's spilling over.

Choking on the lag, the exiles plot.


So shovel under rugs, the ones who notice.

Channel into locks, the pilot's drunk.

The resin in his mouth just means he's hated.

The radio is tapped, the bastard's drunk

.
Channelling through aviation transport.

Derelicts rely on red light slums.

Scandals interlock, linking all the patrons.

And tourists intertwine in effortless lumps.

Jul 5, 12 11:23 pm  · 
 · 
beekay31

Donny Hathaway:  The Ghetto

Talkin' 'bout the gheeeeettooooo.  Sho 'nuff now.

Jul 5, 12 11:48 pm  · 
1  · 
garethcooper9

I have never thought of song about architects. Thanks for the heads up. Now I have to find all the songs you mentioned.

Jul 6, 12 6:11 am  · 
 · 
drums please, Fab?

from Conor Oberst and his excellent album Ruminations, i present the tune Mamah Borthwick about the Taliesin East tragedy and other Wright works:

Just because you got it
You don't have to flaunt it
With an endless stream of famous men
Pretty as a portrait
Look like Mamah Borthwick
On that Shining Brow of Taliesin

Someone might try and burn it down
So you'll have to put the fire out
A fortune spent but that's irrelevant
To build something that's sacred till the end

It costs twenty dollars to visit Fallingwater
It's a perfect house where no one lives
Maybe someone once did but they got evicted
By a bus load full of greedy tourists

And it would take a time machine
To fulfill all of my fantasies
'Cause a hidden dream can be embarrassing
And the only thing that's sacred till the end

Every time I tempt fate
There's a major earthquake
Heard the people scream as the ceiling fell
Every building damaged
Only one left standing
It was Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel

A rumination in my mind
Winding like the ramp at the Guggenheim
And I'm not there yet
But I'm feeling confident to build something that's sacred till the end

Jul 12, 20 1:57 pm  · 
 · 
gibbost

The French band 'Air' is championed by Nicolas Godin who studied architecture.  Godin's first major piece 25 years ago was titled 'Modular Mix'--an homage to Le Corbu.  Their latest album 'Concrete & Glass' is all about how architecture influences music.  If you're a fan of Air, you'll know that much of their music strives to achieve a three-dimensional quality of ambiance and warmth.  

Jul 13, 20 2:20 pm  · 
1  · 
randomised

dEUS - The architect

What is the architect doing?
He is by the riverside
What is he thinking out there?
He is committing egocide
Now isn't that a strange thing?
Well to him it feels just
Well we guess a person's gotta do,
What a person feels he must
He said
I won't throw myself from the pier
I'm gonna go home and shut up for a year
And when the year is over I'll reappear
And have a solution
I've reason to believe that what I find
Is gonna change the face of human kind
And all these years before well I was blind
That's my conclusion
'Cause I'm the architect
'Cause I'm the architect
'Cause I'm the architect
Now the man has understood
That outer space is overrated and too
About all the problems on this earth we should
Worry now to solve them later
And so he's brooding and alluding on a perfect design
He thinks that working on behalf of himself is a crime
He flushes out by the water, a view so divine
He's the architect of his own fate, a man in his prime
He said
I won't throw myself from the pier
I'm gonna go home and shut up for a year
And when that year is over I'll reappear
And have a solution
I've reason to believe that what I find
Is gonna change the face of human kind
And all these years before well I was blind
That's my conclusion
'Cause I'm the architect
'Cause I'm the architect
'Cause I'm the architect
And so he drew himself a pentagon
Thinking it through a geodesic dome
From the coast of Tahiti, to the hills of Rome
Step aside cause the man will take the Nobel prize home
He said
I won't throw myself from the pier
I'm gonna go home and shut up for a year
And when that year is over I'll reappear
And have a solution
Now if these aspirations bother you
Well you are just you, you don't have a clue
I'm sticking to the plan I will see it through
Let there be no confusion
'Cause I'm the architect
'Cause I'm the architect
'Cause I'm the architect



Jul 13, 20 4:36 pm  · 
2  · 
Markitect

Love this, thanks

Aug 3, 22 9:15 pm  · 
 · 
Markitect

This one wins

Aug 3, 22 9:22 pm  · 
 · 
Non Sequitur

crash - 13 Stones. 

Jul 13, 20 6:51 pm  · 
1  · 
atelier nobody

The Ballad of Charles Whitman

Jul 14, 20 2:39 pm  · 
 · 

Lawyers, guns, and money by the late, great Warren Zevon.  

Jul 14, 20 2:45 pm  · 
1  · 

Not about *architects*, but lyrically about architecture, and the video* is (in addition to being incredibly sexy) very architectural. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb4lgOiHBZo

*Sadly the video version of the song cuts off the excellent bass solo at the end of the album version.

Jul 14, 20 3:15 pm  · 
1  · 
SneakyPete

I really appreciate OK Go's creativity. Their music doesn't do a huge amount for me (talented, absolutely, just not my thing) but their videos and attention to detail always make me happy. That and the fact that my partner and I were both at the same OK Go concert accidentally before we really met is a fun story to tell. They riffed on Les Mis.

Jul 14, 20 3:37 pm  · 
1  · 

Similar, I enjoy their music well enough, though I really, really like a couple of songs, but their videos *always* thrill me.

Jul 14, 20 3:44 pm  · 
1  · 

cam we all just agree that Hammock's soundtrack for the movie "Columbus" wins this hands down?


1. 03:53

2. 02:20

3. 02:22

4. 04:19

5. 02:23

6. 03:00

7. 01:37

8. 01:47

9. 02:39

10. 01:14

11. 04:48

12. 02:22

13. 01:38

14. 04:13

15. 02:30

16. 04:19

Jul 14, 20 4:12 pm  · 
2  · 

Wow, Greg I loved the movie but had no idea the soundtrack exists!

Jul 14, 20 9:29 pm  · 
1  · 

it's funny, i know the band but didn't know about the movie until i saw their soundtrack!

Jul 14, 20 9:49 pm  · 
 · 

Gregory you never listened to this Sessions podcast in which we interview the director?!? https://archinect.com/news/article/150025744/architecture-film-a-conversation-with-kogonada-and-kyle-bergman

Jul 15, 20 9:21 am  · 
 · 

eep! missed that one. i went through a 'i'm done listening to podcasts' phase for a while.

Jul 15, 20 9:28 am  · 
1  · 

OMG Greg I just bought the soundtrack and I'm listening to it and it's making me want to cry! The movie was SO beautiful and heartbreaking and the music is just taking me right back. 

Jul 16, 20 10:29 am  · 
 · 
tduds

Specific songs have been mentioned but I just want to add that I consider all Talking Heads songs (hell, all David Byrne songs) to be Architectural in nature.

A favorite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HV7zBKwzbk


Jul 16, 20 12:47 pm  · 
 · 
SneakyPete

Weird Al came up earlier. While not ABOUT architects, there is one in this song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvUZijEuNDQ

Jul 17, 20 12:57 pm  · 
 · 
Markitect

Besides Bowie's tremendous tribute to architects, the next best imho is Stairs, by INXS.  Little known fantastic song.

Aug 3, 22 10:37 am  · 
 · 
atelier nobody

(OK, he wasn't actually an architect - he was an engineering student, but the line in the song has always given me a chuckle...)

Aug 3, 22 4:31 pm  · 
 · 

Block this user


Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?

Archinect


This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.

  • ×Search in: