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Talking Heads.... 70?!?
May. 16th, 2022 11:05 amDavid Byrne turned 70 over the weekend. I don't know why that strikes me, harder and with more significance, than knowing that Paul McCartney is almost 80 or that Stevie Wonder just turned 72. Those are voices of the 1960s, which I associate with growing up. I've always viewed Talking Heads as one of the soundtracks of truly coming of age in late 70s college days.
Talking Heads '77 was a revelation. It was one of the early crestings of the New Wave of music that cleared out the dregs of disco, the pretentiousness of prog, and, in my own case, the interchangeability of KansaStyxJourneyBadCompanyBoston that had defined my mid-70s musical taste until then. Beginning with David at the Rhode Island School of Design, his music was adventurous and the lyrics compelling. Before discovering it, I'd thought that another New England album of that year, Boston's first, was something new and cool and hey, they played Cornell with a pre-Van Sammy Hagar opening! I think I cheaped out of that one, and most of the ones on that list except Joe Jackson, who oddly is back in Ithaca two nights from now.
In that era, Talking Heads played Night Court, a dive bar in downtown Ithaca, more in line with the Mudd Club and CBGB's they would later immortalize in song. I wasn't there for that one, either, and can't even find a record of it happening. Yet I know it did, because my future roommate Jim snagged a promo poster for it that followed us to four apartments over the final three years.
They weren't much on the radio, but Jim also brought their debut LP into my life:
Not much of a cover to look at, but neither was the White Album. Start to finish, it is near perfection of chords, rhythms and words. No one song did it- "Psycho Killer" became the most famous but never broke above 92 on the Billboard singles chart- but an amalgamation of optimism, cynicism and self-reflection carried through both sides. The eleven songs almost all contain at least one line I can remember verbatim without cheating (tracks 2 and 4 required cheating while I checked my work on the others):
1. "Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town" Stockbroker made a bad investment when love has come to town!
2. "New Feeling" Meet them all over again, everyone's up in my room
3. "Tentative Decisions" I wanna talk as much as I want, I wanna give the problem to you
4. "Happy Day" I want to talk like I read before I decide what to do
5. "Who Is It?" (That and "what is it" is pretty much the whole song)
6. "No Compassion" Talk to your analyst, isn't that what they're paid for?
7. "The Book I Read" I'm embarrassed to admit it, it hit the soft spot in my heart
8. "Don't Worry About the Government" It's over there, it's over there
9. "First Week/Last Week… Carefree" I, heard the voice first last week
10 "Psycho Killer" Qu'est-ce que c'est?
11. "Pulled Up" Mommy daddy come and look at me now....
Not bad for an old guy. Only a couple of mondegreens stuck in my memory (I always heard the line in track 9 as "heard the gospel last week"), and the lyric site has a few bonus tracks I don't know that they added to a 2005 reissue. Even so, this was the album that helped turn me from a useless classic rock addict into the connoisseur of eclectic I remain.
Also, the potential purveyor of election fraud. Sometime in Cornell years, the cross-town college radio station ran a contest to name the Top 92 Rock Songs of All Time. "Stairway" and "Free Bird" and "Born to Run" were the obvious leaders, but this was a town later to be branded with KEEP ITHACA WEIRD. Pre-internet as it was, the ballot boxes were literal. One was in the main Cornell student union, and my roommates and I stuffed the shit out of that sucker with votes for "Psycho Killer." I believe we got it all the way to number 5, and the sound of shock in the jock's voice as the opening beats played under- "Would you believe the Talking Heads?!?"- made the effort totally worth it, no matter how psychotic it may have been.More Songs About Buildings and Food was the album that followed, and then Remain in Light, my last of their vinyl albums, with the African influences coming to the forefront with the beat of "I Zimbra." I finally bucket-listed them when they played UB in 1983. Three more albums followed with some of their biggest and most memorable songs, I think I saw Jonathan Demme's concert concept of them called Stop Making Sense (we've seen it since). Soon after, the Heads were dead as a band, but Byrne continued to experiment, to expand, to excel.
Now he's 70. In terms of how much older than me the difference is, well, same as it ever was, but that just reminds me of my own mortality. In the years between my current age and now his, he's done a one-man Broadway show, turned a concept album into a Public Theater show, done numerous fundraisers and talks, and hosted SNL for his first time ever.
Eight years, Ray. Aim for that goal and you'll go fa (fa fa, fa fa fa fa fa fa).
Talking Heads '77 was a revelation. It was one of the early crestings of the New Wave of music that cleared out the dregs of disco, the pretentiousness of prog, and, in my own case, the interchangeability of KansaStyxJourneyBadCompanyBoston that had defined my mid-70s musical taste until then. Beginning with David at the Rhode Island School of Design, his music was adventurous and the lyrics compelling. Before discovering it, I'd thought that another New England album of that year, Boston's first, was something new and cool and hey, they played Cornell with a pre-Van Sammy Hagar opening! I think I cheaped out of that one, and most of the ones on that list except Joe Jackson, who oddly is back in Ithaca two nights from now.
In that era, Talking Heads played Night Court, a dive bar in downtown Ithaca, more in line with the Mudd Club and CBGB's they would later immortalize in song. I wasn't there for that one, either, and can't even find a record of it happening. Yet I know it did, because my future roommate Jim snagged a promo poster for it that followed us to four apartments over the final three years.
They weren't much on the radio, but Jim also brought their debut LP into my life:
Not much of a cover to look at, but neither was the White Album. Start to finish, it is near perfection of chords, rhythms and words. No one song did it- "Psycho Killer" became the most famous but never broke above 92 on the Billboard singles chart- but an amalgamation of optimism, cynicism and self-reflection carried through both sides. The eleven songs almost all contain at least one line I can remember verbatim without cheating (tracks 2 and 4 required cheating while I checked my work on the others):
1. "Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town" Stockbroker made a bad investment when love has come to town!
2. "New Feeling" Meet them all over again, everyone's up in my room
3. "Tentative Decisions" I wanna talk as much as I want, I wanna give the problem to you
4. "Happy Day" I want to talk like I read before I decide what to do
5. "Who Is It?" (That and "what is it" is pretty much the whole song)
6. "No Compassion" Talk to your analyst, isn't that what they're paid for?
7. "The Book I Read" I'm embarrassed to admit it, it hit the soft spot in my heart
8. "Don't Worry About the Government" It's over there, it's over there
9. "First Week/Last Week… Carefree" I, heard the voice first last week
10 "Psycho Killer" Qu'est-ce que c'est?
11. "Pulled Up" Mommy daddy come and look at me now....
Not bad for an old guy. Only a couple of mondegreens stuck in my memory (I always heard the line in track 9 as "heard the gospel last week"), and the lyric site has a few bonus tracks I don't know that they added to a 2005 reissue. Even so, this was the album that helped turn me from a useless classic rock addict into the connoisseur of eclectic I remain.
Also, the potential purveyor of election fraud. Sometime in Cornell years, the cross-town college radio station ran a contest to name the Top 92 Rock Songs of All Time. "Stairway" and "Free Bird" and "Born to Run" were the obvious leaders, but this was a town later to be branded with KEEP ITHACA WEIRD. Pre-internet as it was, the ballot boxes were literal. One was in the main Cornell student union, and my roommates and I stuffed the shit out of that sucker with votes for "Psycho Killer." I believe we got it all the way to number 5, and the sound of shock in the jock's voice as the opening beats played under- "Would you believe the Talking Heads?!?"- made the effort totally worth it, no matter how psychotic it may have been.More Songs About Buildings and Food was the album that followed, and then Remain in Light, my last of their vinyl albums, with the African influences coming to the forefront with the beat of "I Zimbra." I finally bucket-listed them when they played UB in 1983. Three more albums followed with some of their biggest and most memorable songs, I think I saw Jonathan Demme's concert concept of them called Stop Making Sense (we've seen it since). Soon after, the Heads were dead as a band, but Byrne continued to experiment, to expand, to excel.
Now he's 70. In terms of how much older than me the difference is, well, same as it ever was, but that just reminds me of my own mortality. In the years between my current age and now his, he's done a one-man Broadway show, turned a concept album into a Public Theater show, done numerous fundraisers and talks, and hosted SNL for his first time ever.
Eight years, Ray. Aim for that goal and you'll go fa (fa fa, fa fa fa fa fa fa).