Album: Speaking in Tongues
Year: 1983
. . .
da dit dit, da dit dit, da dit dit, da dit dit
One of the rare artifacts that has survived the past 40 years of my life is a set of buttons that showed up at KFSR alongside Talking Heads 1983 album Speaking in Tongues. While I was known to wear buttons that that time in my life — I still remember how my The Clash on a mirror button got accidentally melted by an overly hot dryer — I never took those Talking Heads buttons out of their original packaging, figuring that they would “be worth something” in the future. This was the same impulse that that Tim & Kirk both had when they bought the limited edition — only 50,000 for the world — Robert Rauschenberg clear vinyl versions. Those went for $12.98, which was wayyy above my budget for an album that by definition I wasn’t going to play.
da dit dit, da dit dit, da dit dit, da dit dit
Well, it’s now the future. Nearly 40 years into the future. And those buttons — on which you can see that the original packaging is now so frayed I scotch taped it — are absolutely worth something: $28.00 plus shipping on eBay.
da dit dit, da dit dit, da dit dit, da dit dit
Faring much better over the past four decades: the final track on Speaking in Tongues, the ridiculously lovely “This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)”, which even at the time felt like a cool breath of fresh air wafting through a hot summer afternoon.
da dit dit, da dit dit, da dit dit, da dit dit
“This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)” is anchored by a clipped guitar figure from Tina Weymouth that occasionally gets overwhelmed by the other instruments and vocals but is always there. These days, of course, it would probably be a loop, but not so much in 1983. And so once again, Weymouth is at the root of a great Talking Heads song, as Jerry Harrison plays the bass part on a synth, and David Byrne throws some guitar leads in and around his vocals, as he sings what he called “a love song made up almost completely of non sequiturs, phrases that may have a strong emotional resonance but don’t have any narrative qualities.” So in other words, a Talking Heads song.
Home is where I want to be
Pick me up and turn me around
I feel numb, born with a weak heart
I guess I must be having fun
The less we say about it, the better
We’ll make it up as we go along
Feet on the ground, head in the sky
It’s okay, I know nothing’s wrong, nothing
da dit dit, da dit dit, da dit dit, da dit dit
Throughout “This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)” goes on, we get a few more synth leads — definitely Wally Badarou, possibly David Byrne — but Chris Frantz’s beat never changes never changes, the da dit dit never changes, and that’s why Byrne referred to it as a “Naive Melody,” with even the leads being simple and near child-like. Which, of course, is also what made so fucking great, and nearly as much of an aberration in their music as “Take Me To The River” was. And maybe even more so, given how weird and complex their music was at this time.
da dit dit, da dit dit, da dit dit, da dit dit
Also missing: whatever in the fuck it was that obscured the vocals on the rest of Speaking in Tongues. Instead of sounding like he’s singing from underneath a cupboard, Byrne — and all of his overdubs — sound clean, crisp and clear, and at the end when Byrne sings “Hit me on the head, I go oooooooooooooooooooooooooooh,” it’s one of his single greatest vocal moments.
da dit dit, da dit dit, da dit dit, da dit dit
I asked Tim & Kirk what the fate of their Rauschenberg editions of Speaking in Tongues — which can go for as much as $190 on Discogs (though somebody on eBay is trying to get $680 for one) — and their answers were markedly different. Tim’s was, um, er, liberated with extreme prejudice from his collection while he was in Israel in 1986. (Which means it wasn’t part of the collection Kirk & I salvaged and moved into our condo hoping Tim would follow when he got home because we needed a roommate and figured that a man has got to have a code, and that code is to follow your record collection.)
da dit dit, da dit dit, da dit dit, da dit dit
Kirk, on the other hand, kept his sealed for nearly that entire time, only recently opening his to what he reports as “1980s-era cellophane everywhere. Both records slightly warped. The records weren’t flat in the clamshell case. At least the clear vinyl hadn’t turned yellow, which is apparently what happened to many copies according to comments on the Discogs page.” That said, they’re probably both still worth more than my buttons.
da dit dit, da dit dit, da dit dit, da dit dit
Worth more than all of it after 40 years: “This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody),” which initially bombed as a single — stalling out at #62 (oh and while Speaking in Tongues itself has always been seen as Talking Heads big breakthrough, that’s not really true: it only got as high as #15, only slightly better than the other ones) — but its extensive usage in films and TV and just that naive melody and yearning vocals have made it into one of their most-popular songs, with about a zillion covers, as well.
da dit dit, da dit dit, da dit dit, da dit dit
“This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)”
“This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)” Official Music Video
“This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)” from Stop Making Sense
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