Album: Remain in Light
Year: 1980
. . .
The final song on Talking Heads 1980 masterpiece Remain in Light is called “The Overload.” And while it’s not specifically about the experience of listening to Remain in Light — David Byrne could be pretty meta, but not that meta — it’s certainly the word I would use to describe Remain in Light. An absolute overload of sound, which starts from the very first song, which has so much going that they needed parenthesis in order to try to capture it: “Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)”
Remain in Light came out of a somewhat tumultuous period for the band: Chris Frantz & Tina Weymouth thought about leaving the band because they felt David Byrne was getting too much credit for their music; David Byrne & Brian Eno started working on My Life in The Bush of Ghosts; Jerry Harrison started producing a solo album for Nona Hendryx. But eventually, all the principles ended up at Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas — where they had recorded More Songs About Buildings and Food and figured out a new way to work: they would jam together and once they’d come up with stuff they liked, Byrne would write lyrics. Equally as important, they decided to blend rock, funk, soul and afropop to see if they could come up with something new.
I’m being incredibly reductive here, of course: while most of initial basic tracks were recorded in Compass Point, the songs were actually finished in Sigma Sound in Philadelphia — not so different from starting Exile on Main Street in Keith’s basement and finishing it in Los Angeles — as Byrne conceived the lyrics and vocals as sermons and chants and Eno simultaneously fucked things up and stitched them together, bringing a disjointed coherence to the whole proceeding. It’s all right there in the opening song, “Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)” which starts off with a tumult of chicken-scratch guitar, polyrhythms, echoing sound effects that could have been on “Tomorrow Never Knows” and David Byrne insisting that we “take a look at these hands.”
You know how sometimes there’s a film or photograph and and at first you’re not sure where you’re supposed to look? In a song like “Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On),” at first you’re not sure where to listen. I mean you would naturally focus on the vocals, except that the verses don’t really scan like verses, but instead more like a crazy person walking up to you and starting to scream.
Take a look at these hands
Take a look at these hands
The hand speaks
The hand of a government man
Well, I’m a tumbler
Born under punches
I’m so thin
It’s disorienting to say the least — why is this guy yelling at me about his hands and the government? — so maybe you initially latch upon the Byrne-Eno duo slowly singing the first chorus:
All I want is to breathe (I’m too thin)
Won’t you breathe with me?
Find a little space so we move in-between (In-between it)
And keep one step ahead of yourself
After a couple of verses and choruses, there’s a brain-melting synth solo — could be Eno, could be Jerry Harrison, but it really sounds like the guy with the crazy hands trying to splinter the song into a thousand tiny pieces, each of which would then start yelling at you about their hands, and so on and so forth into infinity — and as soon as it’s over, they do the most unexpected thing: toss in a recognizable hook, a choir of grounded angels chanting.
And the heat goes on, and the heat goes on
And the heat goes on, and the heat goes on
And the heat goes on, where the hand has been
And the heat goes on, and the heat goes on
And once the song latches on that refrain, it never gives up: the crazy guy yells about being a tumbler and how he cannot drown or burn and how he’s so thin, and it just bounces off of “and the heat goes on, and the heat goes on”, the “all I want to do is breathe” folks show up and just bounce off of “And the heat goes on / And the heat goes on”, and eventually they’re all singing in and around each other, but nothing is going to stop the heat going on and on and on and on and on, and “Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)” fades into eternity, we’re left with a semblance of calm where there had once only been chaos.
“Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)”
“Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)” Live in Rome, 1980
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