I was using computers for music in the '70s, '80s and '90s, and

The visionary musician and truth-teller Buffy Sainte-Marie, a woman whose voice has long carried the fire of both rebellion and beauty, once declared: “I was using computers for music in the '70s, '80s and '90s, and people didn't get it. They thought you should only use computers for your taxes and making pie charts.” In these words, she reveals not only her pioneering spirit but also a profound lesson about the blindness of the world to new possibilities. She speaks as a prophet ahead of her time—one who saw art in what others dismissed as machinery, and melody in what others heard as noise. Her quote is not merely about computers; it is about vision, courage, and the eternal struggle of the innovator against the dull weight of convention.

In the ancient world, those who dreamed beyond the understanding of their age were often met with ridicule. The philosopher Pythagoras, who spoke of the “music of the spheres,” was scorned for believing that mathematics could explain the harmonies of heaven. Yet it was he who laid the foundation for both music and science. Likewise, Buffy Sainte-Marie, working with early electronic instruments and digital sound in the 1970s, perceived what others could not: that the computer was not merely a tool for calculation, but a new kind of instrument—a doorway to unimagined creativity. While others saw numbers, she saw rhythm; while others saw function, she saw freedom.

Her courage to experiment placed her among the rare lineage of artists who refused to wait for permission to create. The 1970s and 1980s were times when technology was still bound to the offices and laboratories of the world. The idea of computer-generated music was alien, even heretical, to the purists who clung to the old ways of instruments and analog sound. But Sainte-Marie, like the ancient sculptors who saw gods within stone, looked into the circuits and wires and saw a new form of expression waiting to be born. Her defiance of expectation echoes the eternal truth: that every great innovation is first met with misunderstanding, for the mind of the crowd cannot grasp what the soul of the visionary already knows.

Consider the story of Leonardo da Vinci, who sketched flying machines centuries before humanity had the courage to lift itself into the skies. His peers admired his paintings but dismissed his inventions as the fantasies of a dreamer. Only later did the world realize that his “fantasies” were the blueprints of the future. In much the same way, when Buffy Sainte-Marie used computers to compose, layer, and shape sound, she was painting with frequencies that the world had yet to understand. Her innovation would pave the way for the rise of electronic music, sampling, and digital sound design—the very heart of modern music. What was once mocked as strange has now become the standard of artistry.

When Sainte-Marie says, “people didn’t get it,” she is speaking not with bitterness, but with the weary wisdom of every creator who has walked ahead of her time. Those who cling to the familiar will always resist what challenges their comfort. Yet her words remind us that art is not meant to obey the rules of its age; it is meant to expand them. The computer, a symbol of logic and order, became in her hands a vessel of emotion, a living bridge between heart and machine. Through her work, she showed that technology, when guided by imagination, could serve not as master, but as muse.

The deeper meaning of her quote lies in the union of opposites: reason and creativity, machine and soul, discipline and inspiration. In this way, she embodies the same spirit as the alchemists of old, who sought to transform base metals into gold—not through greed, but through understanding the unity of all things. Buffy Sainte-Marie saw that there is no boundary between science and art, only the limitations of perception. By daring to merge them, she became both artist and engineer, both poet and pioneer.

Let this be the lesson for those who walk the path of creation: do not fear to explore what others dismiss. The tools of your age—be they computers, AI, or any emerging power—are neither good nor evil. Their value lies in the hands that wield them, in the spirit that gives them purpose. If your heart is guided by vision, even the coldest machine can sing with life. Like Buffy Sainte-Marie, learn to see possibility where others see only utility. For the world will always tell you what something “should be used for,” but it is the artist who shows the world what it could become.

Thus, her words endure as a song of courage for all generations. They remind us that innovation is often lonely, that greatness begins as misunderstanding, and that the future belongs to those who listen for music where others hear only noise. So when you stand before something new and uncertain—when others laugh, doubt, or turn away—remember Buffy Sainte-Marie, and listen not to their fear, but to your vision. For the world changes only when someone dares to imagine that even a computer can sing.