Born in Suffolk, Eno studied painting and experimental music at the art school of Ipswich Civic College in the mid 1960s, and then at Winchester School of Art. He joined glam rock group Roxy Music as synthesiser player in 1971. After recording two albums with Roxy Music, he departed in 1973 to record a number of solo albums, coining the term "ambient music" to describe his work on releases such as Another Green World (1975), Discreet Music (1975), and Music for Airports (1978). He also collaborated with artists such as Robert Fripp, Cluster, Harold Budd, David Bowie on his "Berlin Trilogy", and David Byrne, and produced albums by artists including John Cale, Jon Hassell, Laraaji, Talking Heads and Devo, and the no wave compilation No New York (1978).
Eno has continued to record solo albums and work with artists including U2, Laurie Anderson, Grace Jones, Slowdive, Coldplay, James Blake, and Damon Albarn. Dating back to his time as a student, he has also worked in media including sound installations and his mid-70s co-development of Oblique Strategies, a deck of cards featuring cryptic aphorisms intended to spur creative thinking. From the 1970s onwards, Eno's installations have included the sails of the Sydney Opera House in 2009 and the Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank in 2016. An advocate of a range of humanitarian causes, Eno writes on a variety of subjects and is a founding member of the Long Now Foundation. In 2019, Eno was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Roxy Music.
Eno is frequently referred to as one of popular music's most influential artists. Producer and film composer Jon Brion has said: "I think he's the most influential artist since the Beatles." Critic Jason Ankeny at AllMusic argues that Eno "forever altered the ways in which music is approached, composed, performed, and perceived, and everything from punk to techno to new age bears his unmistakable influence." Eno has spread his techniques and theories primarily through his production; his distinctive style informed a number of projects in which he has been involved, including Bowie's "Berlin Trilogy" (helping to popularize minimalism) and the albums he produced for Talking Heads (incorporating, on Eno's advice, African music and polyrhythms), Devo, and other groups. Eno's first collaboration with David Byrne, 1981's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, pioneered sampling techniques that would prove to be influential in hip-hop, and broke ground by incorporating world music into popular Western music forms. Eno and Peter Schmidt's Oblique Strategies have been used by many bands, and Eno's production style has proven influential in several general respects: "his recording techniques have helped change the way that modern musicians;– particularly electronic musicians;– view the studio. No longer is it just a passive medium through which they communicate their ideas but itself a new instrument with seemingly endless possibilities."
Whilst inspired by the ideas of minimalist composers including John Cage, Terry Riley and Erik Satie, Eno coined the term ambient music to describe his own work and defined the term. The Ambient Music Guide states that he has brought from "relative obscurity into the popular consciousness" fundamental ideas about ambient music, including "the idea of modern music as subtle atmosphere, as chill-out, as impressionistic, as something that creates space for quiet reflection or relaxation." His groundbreaking work in electronic music has been said to have brought widespread attention to and innovations in the role of electronic technology in recording. Pink Floyd keyboardist Rick Wright said he "often eulogised" Eno's abilities.
Eno's "unconventional studio predilections", in common with those of Peter Gabriel, were an influence on the recording of "In the Air Tonight", the single which launched the solo career of Eno's former drummer Phil Collins. Collins said he "learned a lot" from working with Eno. Both Half Man Half Biscuit (in the song "Eno Collaboration" on the EP of the same name) and MGMT have written songs about Eno. LCD Soundsystem has frequently cited Eno as a key influence. The Icelandic singer Björk also credited Eno as a major influence.
Mora sti Fotia (Babies on Fire), one of the most influential Greek rock bands, was named after Eno's song "Baby's on Fire".
In 2011, Belgian academics from the Royal Museum for Central Africa named a species of Afrotropical spider Pseudocorinna brianeno in his honour.
The Roil the Choke
Brian Eno Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
And broke the soil
And phrased the stroke
That takes the oil
And stoked, erased and foiled the lake
And smoked and boiled the grazing snake
The roil, the choke, the cakes of praise
The spoils that break now cloak the days
The flaking glaze of royalty broke
He raises, stakes, admires, stokes
The flowery blaze, the fiery pokes
The lyrics to Brian Eno's song The Roil the Choke are both cryptic and evocative, as Eno often likes to be. The opening lines - "He raised the stake/And broke the soil/And phrased the stroke/That takes the oil" - suggest a scene of industrial exploitation, with someone driving stakes into the earth to drill for oil. The subsequent lines - "And stoked, erased and foiled the lake/And smoked and boiled the grazing snake" - add further elements of destruction and ecological devastation, as the drilling contaminates a nearby lake and poisons the wildlife.
The later lines in the song - "The roil, the choke, the cakes of praise/The spoils that break now cloak the days/That wake the coil of blazing coke/The flaking glaze of royalty broke" - suggest that this exploitation is not just environmental, but also political and economic. The "cakes of praise" and "spoils" that arise from the drilling are a reference to the rewards and profits that come to those who control such resources, even as they cause harm to the world around them. The final lines - "He raises, stakes, admires, stokes/The flowery blaze, the fiery pokes" - may be an ironic commentary on the ways in which such exploitation is celebrated and valorized, even as it causes destruction and harm.
Overall, the lyrics of The Roil the Choke seem to capture the complex and often contradictory nature of human interactions with the natural world, and the ways in which our systems of power and exploitation often come at a cost to the environment and wildlife around us.
Line by Line Meaning
He raised the stake
He raised the level of commitment and risk
And broke the soil
And started something new and disruptive
And phrased the stroke
And found the right words or actions to achieve a specific goal
That takes the oil
That extracts the valuable resources or benefits
And stoked, erased and foiled the lake
And manipulated a complex system to his advantage
And smoked and boiled the grazing snake
And took advantage of others' trust or vulnerability for personal gain
The roil, the choke, the cakes of praise
The chaos, the suffocation, the false compliments
The spoils that break now cloak the days
The rewards that come at a cost and mask the true consequences
That wake the coil of blazing coke
That ignite the passion and drive for power and success
The flaking glaze of royalty broke
The fragile facade of status and wealth shattered
He raises, stakes, admires, stokes
He asserts himself, takes risks, esteems his accomplishments, and fuels his ambition
The flowery blaze, the fiery pokes
The attractive facade, the aggressive tactics
Contributed by Peyton T. Suggest a correction in the comments below.