William Seward Burroughs II (February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an Amer… Read Full Bio ↴William Seward Burroughs II (February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American novelist, essayist, social critic and spoken word performer. Much of Burroughs' work is semi-autobiographical cut-up stories. He saw all his writing as a single, vast book.

He is generally allied with the Beats, and while he was close friends with the true Beats like Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, his writing never fit with the Beatnik style. His first couple of novels, Junkie (or Junky) and Queer, were written in a style reminiscent of hard-boiled detective novels. As he became more comfortable with expressing himself through writing, his "routines" were assembled into his most famous work, Naked Lunch , published in 1959. His "cut-up" technique, developed subsequently with fellow inventor-poet Brion Gysin, took over his literary style to produce a number of lesser-known works. With the publication in 1981 of the trilogy starting with Cities of the Red Night he embarked on a further development of style aimed at achieving his expressed intent to "write the great American novel".

Such a vast amount could be written about Burroughs' life and legacy; perhaps "lives and legacies" would be more appropriate. His influences are uncountably and immeasurably wide-reaching; it has been argued that without his tape cut-ups, we'd not have thought of sampling and therefore we'd never have had techno. Equally, without his transgressive, libertarian, shocking subject matter, we may never have had punk or industrial. In his later life he was championed and courted by these fringe elements of society and art.

The Examination
William S. Burroughs Lyrics

We have lyrics for these tracks by William S. Burroughs:

A One God Universe You're one of God's better people And you don't know That's …
A Thanksgiving Prayer For John Dillinger In hope he is still alive Thanks for …
Apocalypse APOCALYPSE! Mariners sailing close to the shores of Tuscany …
Curse Go Back One in the morning when the mood started shifting All the…
Dinosaurs Hey man them ain't high heeled sneakers And they sure don't…
Excerpts In this conversation Kanye West and Pharrell Williams candid…
Firecracker Once we rode together In a metal firecracker You told me I…
From Here to Eternity Life can be strange, somethings we forget Or rearrange in ti…
Hymn Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of…

Interlude 2 Well, this is insane Yes, insane Yes, this is insane…
Interlude 2: This Is Insane Well, this is insane Yes, insane Yes, this is insane…
Interview Part 2 Can we pretend that airplanes In the night sky Is like shoot…
Is Everybody In I think I'd like to go back home And take it…
Kill The Badger! At Los Alamos Ranch School, Where they later made the atom…
Last words How many times must a newspaper call Tryin' to persuade me…
Love Your Enemies You can't sleep at night You can't dream your dream Your fin…
MacDougal Street Blues Won't you come along with me To the Mississippi We'll take a…
No More Stalins No More Hitlers Well, you're just in time to be too late I tried…
Old Western Movies A Jedge in the West comin from the South with ruby…
Sexual Conditioning My first reading tonight is an extension and amplification o…
Spare Ass Annie When I became captain of the town, I decided to…
The Brooklyn Bridge Blues Sunrise on Brooklyn bridge The glittering as a promise of an…
The Do Rights Trying to do right But he don't understand Prays every night…
The Do-Rights Take me to heart and I'll always love you And nobody…
The Last Words Of Dutch Schultz That is what caused the trouble. Look out. Please let…
The Lord's Prayer Our Father Who art in Heaven Hallowed be Thy name Thy kingdo…
The Market [Chours] There is no target. mHm What's hot on the market. M…
The Moon Moon river, wider than a mile I'm crossing you in style…
The Purple Better One All my life is falling down (Woah) I got to hold…
The Sermon On The Mount 1 Where the disciples were assembled in fear Of the soldiers,…
Towers Open Fire Chestnuts roasting on an open fire Jack Frost nipping at you…
Twilight's Last Gleamings Ah this text written in collaboration with Kels Elvens in…
Untitled it is too late to feel like a numb skin…
Where You Belong I've been captured by a love I can't explain And…
William's Welcome What are you here for? We're all here to go We're all…
Woman Oh, the measure of her man Is in a woman's eyes She…

Words Of Advice For Young People I am sometimes asked if I have any words of…

The lyrics are frequently found in the comments by searching or by filtering for lyric videos

TRACKS

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Most interesting comment from YouTube:

@jacob3155

18w

Here is a list of most of the novels and films Burroughs brings up in this lecture:

Brion Gysin - The Process
Nightcomers film
Jaws 2 film
Apocalypse Now film
Burroughs - A Book of Breathing
Samuel Beckett - Watt
Conrad - An Outcast of the Islands
Conrad - Lord Jim
Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby
Cezanne - paintings
Joyce - Ulysses
The Wicker Man
Stephen King - The Shining
Denton Wells
Paul Bowles - The Sheltering Sky
Jane Bowles - My Sister's Hand in Mine
Celine - Journey to the End of the Night
Alien film
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

All comments from YouTube:

@superfuzzymomma

11y↑23

This is a Master Class on writing! Rest in Peace William - Hope you made it to The Western Lands - VISIONARY SIR!!!

@Blissblizzard

Oh that's SO super, momma, praising a sadistic pedophile.
You should consider teaching mental gymnastics and or moral inversion.
or Stay Fuzzy
... This generation of kids have it worst ever ...

@MeemsBoutique

19w

This man is a walking revolution of thought. I went to his grave and he has a tiny headstone, compared to his father. He deserves the biggest shrine to creative arts.

@patrickmccormack4318

5y↑22

"I'm postulating that the function of art, and I include in this category creative work in science -- that is, creation in the widest sense -- is to put us in touch with what we know and don't know that we know. You can't tell anybody anything he doesn't know already."
-- William S. Burroughs

@Blissblizzard

But never basic human decency, this intellectual masturbation is brought to you from Burrough's Word Salad Bar.

Glass beads to the digital natives from just another boomer trustafarian snuff sex tourist.
Naice!

@bfposner

3y↑6

Such a clear and insightful speaker and thinker.

@stimso

4y↑15

His exercises work. The Job list others, like walking to see certain colors. Not paranoia, but the nexus of consciousness and external events. WSB was a real psychic explorer. Read his experiments and try 'em. Kind of a crank at times, but his hits make up for his misses.

@jacobloving6765

What’s some of these experiments ?

@bestindia7078

19w

@@jacobloving6765 cut up down the dividing line

@68jeffrey72

7y↑5

I love these lectures. Thank you for posting!

@davidsutherland6122

9y↑26

Thank you for posting these lectures. Interesting and informative, to say the least, like his essays. How W.S.B. has gone largely undetected under "Post-Modern" philosophical probes is beyond me. Though Burroughs never addresses Philosophy directly, I can clearly and distinctly hear/read/think his concepts/notions resonating throughout the work of A. Ronell (who has indeed registered his name) and S. Zizek in particular. I don't have anything developed, and beyond the obvious possibility of projection on my part, there's definitely over-lap; "unknown knowns", time, and repetition for example. I'll stop here.

@AndrewStuartBrown

5y↑1

I think being the leading post-modernist author of fiction is to Philosopher what greatest dancer in the world is to being neighborhood boogie-board soloist.

@tobincharles8651

3y↑2

@Andrew Stuart Brown you seem intellectual, congrats!

@tobincharles8651

3y↑2

Look up Nick Land "Lemurian Time War", Deleuze "Societies of control". They directly reference Burroughs. Burroughs works are more modernist than post-modernist, see the first chapter of Deleuze's "A Thousand Plateaus", where the notion of cut-up seems to imply a supertextual dimension in which the cut up parts are unified.

Also, Zizek is really on the border of post-modern thought; He is lacanian and hegelian. Although Lacan is a poststructuralist, his psychiatric views remain more in line with Freud's than postmodern psychologists. Hegel is the apotheosis of philosophical modernity.

@AndrewStuartBrown

3y↑1

I love that. You crack me up.

@aarcvault908

A lot to consider, in any event, gentlemen.
Thanx for replies.

3 More Replies...

@Meserbee

19w

It is interesting to note creative reading is a practice that is acquired by writing. Otherwise reading alone would be boring. To write is to read and vice versa. Furthermore, developing and applying concepts makes the process indelible. That I think is a successful reader!!

@johncoppola8105

5y↑7

I just now researched the life of William S Burroughs and I was totally shocked by what I learned.

@rabihbourji2069

4y↑1

He killed a person,so did your great grandpa or grandpa,get over it.

@epictetus9221

3y↑1

@The Sickboy How do you know what they found shocking? Arrogant prick

@DarkAngelEU

You're me one week ago.

@MichaelWaisJr

3y↑2

@Epictetus Because it was either 1) That he shot his wife because he couldn’t quite come to terms with his homosexuality yet, or 2) He was a heroin addict. It’s usually either one thing or the other that people who’ve never read him complain about. The point is that he’s human. There are a lot of things that are just bad if not worse that a lot of celebrities who are successful today do. I judge the art, not the artist. I’ve never met the man, he wasn’t a “friend” of mine, neither he nor me asked one another to lend them any money. I really don’t care.

@epictetus9221

3y↑1

@Michael Wais Yeah, but the OP isn't you. Or me.

2 More Replies...

@CyanBlackflower

7y↑21

Although I have not actually read a single book by W.S.B. , having listened to him read some of his works, and watched quite a few videos here on You Tube, I have come to highly respect and love the Man. To me, He is Brilliant, Insightful, Funny, Endearing, and Very Entertaining.

@ryan06105

6y↑6

Why don't you just go ahead and read one of his books? Warning: Naked Lunch may creep you out to no end. I'm still trying to recover.

@joelkavanagh1464

... bux suggestion :: ' nova express " ...

@Blissblizzard

2y↑1

Sadistic pedophiles are especially endearing if you're a starving 8 yo boy.

They leave no written record and didn't live off trust funds

Be careful out there Pollyanna.

@CyanBlackflower

@Wholly Profit Little Boy Blew...
...He Needed the Money!

@CyanBlackflower

2y↑1

It is even MORE advisable, a wise course of action, to refrain from drawing conclusions, until ALL the FACTS have been gathered, and properly processed.
Doing otherwise is a capital mistake. It is reckless, foolish, and dangerous. Nothing good comes of it. I've heard some allegations about certain people all my life. Some may have basis in actual fact, some not. Most is just hearsay and are convoluted, biased imaging of something else entirely.
I personally refuse to play ball, with stupid gossipers who try to come off as being educated, and or informed about things they know NOTHING about for certain. If you want to insinuate something, or call someone out, you had best be able to stand up, with verifiable conviction and back up your claims and words.
I would prefer to TAKE away something of VALUE from the life of this man, that HAS intrinsic value, rather than linger around like a foul odour, engaging in worthless puerile name calling. The man is dead, so he CANNOT make choices that effect the present, living affairs.
I have YET to meet someone without some Dirt on his or her hands. I don't give a FUCK. I haven't the time for the BULLSHIT.
If opening one's mouth has no substance worthy of attention, then the ONLY thing that comes out - says MORE about the one talking, than it does about the one being talked about, no matter WHAT is said. Therefore it is perhaps advisable in such cases, to SAVE FACE ...by keeping the lower portion of it SHUT.

3 More Replies...

@trixie-rg5jj

19w

Im in love with his voice omg so calming

@joelkavanagh1464

3y↑1

... really DO love the man ... the grand-wizard of normality ... able to dis-rupt ALL with straight-foreward sentences ...

@jacob3155

18w

@kikiperry4924

10y↑6

Thank you for posting these recordings. It is wonderful hearing predigital age class room discussions. The transcript offered here is pretty much nonsense. I suppose it was done via a voice recognising software.

@peterbailey411

Kiki perry ...It's done on a tape recorder.... (No Software)...Just magnetic spools of tape that record sound via a Microphone...!!
Which brings me to that joke...Secretary to her Boss.." Can i use your Dicta phone..." Boss says " No !...Use your finger like everyone else ". ... (old phones you dial a number )....

@jeffjones3040

43w

It is true that the harbingers of the future ARE THERE...sometimes we see them, sometimes we don't. Other times we see them but do not recognize them!

@rephlax

11y↑4

could anyone write a script for this ? for me as a german speaking person it is really hard to follow without reading

@soumiatulip

press the CC button

@rmdomainer9042

7y↑10

Thanks! Nice with hours of material. He sounds so alert here. Different pitch in the voice too.

@superfuzzymomma

11y↑6

Most Important Advise from the "the most intelligent man in America" - Jack Kerouac said that. - William Seward Burroughs - 1914-1997

@lisajojo4842

6y↑4

Great upload, thanks a lot!

@amadeobuccinioni

11y↑5

thx very much for this precious upload! RIP Will

@poem

2y↑4

❤️‍🔥
“Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you've felt that way.”
❤️‍🔥

― Charles Bukowski 😎

@letmegoletmego

7y↑9

I am paralyzed between science and art. Under the influence, edging forward.

@Xavonovax

sartre <

@TrashHeapHedonist

addiction is art, not science.

@kellenpotter1170

Addiction may influence certain forms of art but does not define it. Science, however, originates all form, encompassing art, influence, and addiction, thereby reducing insipid demonstrative comments as yours to phlegm.

@Jack1Free

5y↑24

I was in this class, or one just like it, at Naropa 1981-ish...

@MichaelWaisJr

3y↑1

You’re so lucky! I was born in ‘81! Big time Burroughsian since I was 15 years old. I hand-wrote a letter I mailed to him in 1996 (which he may or may not have read). I missed the opportunity to meet him in person or see him live. :(

@MichaelWaisJr

3y↑1

However, I did have a fan sighting of Lawrence Ferlinghetti at City Lights about 15 years ago! He was giving an elderly couple a tour of the building and the “Beat” room where Ginsberg first did his reading of “Howl”! It was so awesome! I was polite and didn’t interrupt him or act like an asshole “fan-boy”, especially since he was busy talking to those two other customers and I just let him do his thing. Was SO cool!!

@Blissblizzard

2y↑1

@Michael Wais If you were 15 you were way too old for his sadistic practices, you must be gutted.

@Blissblizzard

2y↑1

You were in his class, or maybe you were not? Intellectual rigour and eidetic recall right there.

How the elites still dictate culture, this why we are where we are today kids.

Folks will follow trust fund kids like Burroughs to hell and back kissing their feet all the while.

How ironic after all those drugs and paranoia his scattered thought processes are permanently "cut up"

@joenutley135

Fascinating. Actually making me think......unfortunately like most things has lost its allure over a short period of time......and now has become sincerely interesting again. Maybe it's not the narrator

@T-on-the-Tube

3y↑2

Does anyone know if the booklist can be found?

@StarsOnProjectors

9y↑2

Did anyone note the striking similarity between Burroughs' voice and Kurt Vonnegut's?

@OphiuchiChannel

Opiates changes the voice

@AndrewStuartBrown

I don't understand the significance of this perceived similarity.

@MichaelWaisJr

@Voyageur I did not know Kurt Vonnegut ever did opiates. I thought he didn’t like Burroughs’s writing. Are you sure you’re thinking of the same author who wrote “Slaughterhouse Five”?

@MichaelWaisJr

@Voyageur Getting old changes the voice too. So does talking into a fan and pretending you’re Darth Vader.

@OphiuchiChannel

3y↑1

@Michael Wais Idk about Vonnegut was talking about Burroughs

@defoperator7993

7y↑3

he's using all of brion gysin's teaching with the "can't teach someone what they don't all ready know" idea

@hawhawreally4966

7y↑2

I was thinking you can't teach someone something they haven't seen, or experienced.
like teaching someone what rain is who never seen it or how wind can sweep you off your feet when you've never been anywhere. so you saying "you can't teach something they don't, you already know that's a no"

@AndrewStuartBrown

5y↑1

@HAWHAW really An ancient concept, predating either Burroughs or Gysin by a couple thousand years at least.

@eastlynburkholder3559

Learning seems to involve hooking the new information onto something the person already knows, like hooking a fish.

@KajiCarson

11y↑5

Anyone know if Burroughs ever saw Apocalypse Now, and what his thoughts on it were?

@AndrewStuartBrown

Burroughs not only "saw" Apocalypse Now, he lived it. Not speaking figuratively here, either. See the subway muggings and other thievery that runs alll through "Junkie." As well as interstellar gunslinging and banditry in other books. The endgame of all crime is dystopic.

@RexiousX

I know this man is an icon, and much of what he says is useful, but saying that a book with a few good pages only is a good book, and a movie with 5 good minutes is a good movie is utter nonsense

@jaredriley6268

8y↑16

something about This man that is alluring.

@TrashHeapHedonist

he's an unexpected prophet.

@trappaskunk

4y↑3

He was known as a real lady killer.

@Johnconno

45w

'Any of you seen this Alien thing?' 😂

@octemberfury

6y↑11

Haha, I always thought Great Gatsby would make a bad film as well, it isn't very cinematic and the sense of place is really vague.

@AndrewStuartBrown

Long Island and New York City. What's vague?

@MichaelWaisJr

3y↑2

Well the movie was okay. But I mean, come on, did they really have to force-feed all that rap music in the DiCaprio movie that had NOTHING to do with the time period it was set in???

@user-dr8ko8ui5y

31w

The opening is eerie when you consider things like fifty shades of grey

@vemacrinnon9752

Ends a bit abruptly

@stacyanthony3367

10y↑2

If you like Burroughs, you will love wasting talent by Ryan Leone.

@MrYowen88

14:43 is that paranoia or pronoia?

@ahmadalkhaled9204

who was the artist he was talking about, the one with the canveses attacked

@ContraMundumPress

3y↑1

Cezanne

@BatteryExhausted

8y↑2

Ironic that they made a film out of 'Gatsby' lol.

@scottthompson7678

7y↑1

Battery Exhausted that's not irony mate

@BatteryExhausted

7y↑1

Well, old Will suggested it would be impossible to make a film from the book in this lecture. Since irony can be defined as "a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often wryly amusing as a result." (Google) then the fact they did make a film from a book that Burroughs said you could not make a film from is a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is wryly amusing as a result.

So it is exactly irony.

@richardburton4625

Battery Exhausted you gotta be an American.

@BatteryExhausted

Well, I don't use the term 'gotta' my good fellow. You can check out my channel to discover my character.

@metatron7515

6y↑4

"old Will" also talks to a student on this very tape who had seen the 1974 movie, so he was fully aware that it had been made, what is inferred by his speech is that it wouldn't work as a film, at least by his standards. so it's still not irony at all. cheers.

1 More Replies...

@puipui7382

who's canvases were attacked with umbrellas? i can't make out what he's saying.

@lewisbentley3177

7y↑1

Cezanne

@zetetick395

Yeah, Same happened at the first showings of "Waiting for Godot" (The incredible sad funny Human play by Samuel Beckett) - sparking near riots in so-called 'civilized' audiences at the time.....
- Here's a GREAT version of Waiting for Godot, gets better every time I see it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izX5dIzI2RE&list=PL3MwSUFJxVsG_cqKQFEXT3eftAClAtU_u&index=7

@AndrewStuartBrown

5y↑1

@Zetetik - No riots at waiting for Godot. Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, Yes. Godot, no.

@mountaintab77

10y↑2

Lecture from Kansas University?

@untrialser

9y↑6

Naropa University :)

@NaughtyVampireGod

on the nod

@atomspacejunkman134

5y↑1

hey mates

@yukamiyawaki9999

22w

ER, TV SERIES

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Class On Creative Reading - William S. Burroughs - 1/3