Medialoper

Certain Songs #2626: Talking Heads – “Burning Down The House”

May 30, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Speaking in Tongues
Year: 1983

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After putting out four albums between 1977-1980, it wasn’t until June of 1983 before Talking Heads put out another record, which might have been a recipe for disaster: even with The Name of This Band is Talking Heads to keep them in the public eye, three years was a long long time to be gone in the early 1980s, and whole movements had come around, gone away and been revived in that time. Instead, people had been catching up with them kinda like how Breaking Bad got so popular because it was on Netflix, and when Speaking in Tongues came out, the art/dance/pop/punk fusion that Talking Heads had helped pioneer was way more mainstream.

With Brian Eno gone, Speaking in Tongues was more straightforward funk than even Remain in Light, and you could definitely hear that in the opening song, the ebullient “Burning Down The House,” which actually opened with a bit of a feint: a swirling acoustic guitar, which soon meshed with synths — provided by Jerry Harrison, session guy Wally Badarou and Tina Waymouth on bass synth — and drums to provide the twitchy funk background over which Byrne sang.

Certain Songs #2625: Talking Heads – “Crosseyed and Painless (Cherry Hill 11-08-1980)”

May 25, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Name of This Band is Talking Heads
Year: 1980

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So while I’ll admit that it’s a little weird that the version of “Crosseyed and Painless” on the Name of This Band is Talking Heads omits the slow funky jam that precedes it, I still prefer it to the album version and the Stop Making Sense version. I prefer it to the album version because Adrian Belew is on fire throughout, and I prefer it to the Stop Making Sense version because it contains that weird two-note bee-boop sequence during the verses. Because it’s from OUTER SPACE!

Certain Songs #2624: Talking Heads – “Houses in Motion (Cherry Hill 11-08-1980)”

May 23, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Name of This Band is Talking Heads
Year: 1980

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I’m no expert on any of this, but it seems to me that this live version of Remain in Light’s “Houses in Motion” leads more in the direction of African music than say, the barn-burning “The Great Curve” or “Crosseyed and Painless.” I base this on two things: it’s a bit slower and darker, and Chris Frantz’s kickdrum-forward drum part.

Which doesn’t mean it doesn’t bring the funk: Bernie Worrell’s clavinet follows behind the beat like a stalker even as Buster Jones’ bass is leading the charge (if the video below is to be believed, she plays keyboards and sings on this one), making “Houses in Motion” an absolute strutting jam. With Belew & Harrison making spooky noises over that strut, Byrne begins.

Certain Songs #2623: Talking Heads – “The Great Curve (Central Park 08-27-1980)”

May 22, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Name of This Band is Talking Heads
Year: 1980

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It’s pretty much lore now how Talking Heads realized how the four of them were never going to be able to replicate the dense, layered sound they and Brian Eno had created for Remain in Light, which is where the idea for the expanded lineup came from. And in fact, it was originally only going to be for a couple of shows: the Heatwave Festival and the Central Park gig, both in August, 1980. But they were so successful that Sire ponied up for a full tour, and Talking Heads never performed a full show as a four-piece ever again.

Certain Songs #2622: Talking Heads – “Once in a Lifetime”

May 20, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Remain in Light
Year: 1980

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Alright, here we go. It says here that “Once in a Lifetime” isn’t just the greatest song Talking Heads ever recorded, it’s one of the greatest songs that anybody has ever recorded, an absolute classic masterpiece in any incarnation. If you wanna say that the Stop Making Sense version is better, I’m not going to argue — I just recently teared up watching it because it got me thinking about, well, everything — but I’m going with the version from Remain in Light for two reasons: 1) I remember the exact moment this song kicked in for me when it was played on KKDJ and 2) the original Stop Making Sense album cut a full minute from the actual performance, so I got fixated on the Enofied album version.

Certain Songs #2621: Talking Heads – “Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)”

May 19, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Remain in Light
Year: 1980

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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)”

Certain Songs #2620: Talking Heads – “Life During Wartime (Central Park 08-27-1980)”

May 18, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Name of This Band is Talking Heads
Year: 1980

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In the summer of 1980, at around the same time Talking Heads were working on Remain in Light, they decided that they would add more musicians for their live performances. And while a couple of them — guitarist Adrian Belew and vocalist Nona Hendryx — were on the album, the rest were not. Those rest were singer Dolette McDonald, percussionist Steve Scales, bassist Busta “Cherry” Jones — most notably — Funkadelic keyboardist Bernie Worrell. From the start, the sound this band made was incredible, and as captured on The Name of This Band is Talking Heads, is some of the greatest live music ever recorded full stop.

Certain Songs #2619: Talking Heads – “Love –> Building on Fire (Passaic 11-17-1979)”

May 17, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Name of This Band is Talking Heads
Year: 1979

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In the early 1980s, there were three CBGB band non-album singles that I had read about but hadn’t actually heard: Patti Smith’s “Piss Factory,” Television’s “Little Johnny Jewel” and Talking Heads’ “Love –> Building on Fire.” Because indie wasn’t really a thing yet, it was a lot harder to find these songs the way I could find non album singles by the Sex Pistols, Clash and Jam, many of which I happily bought at Tower Records.

Certain Songs #2618: Talking Heads – “Air (Passaic 11-17-1979)”

May 16, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Name of This Band is Talking Heads
Year: 1979

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It often happens that when you play a relatively new song live, it reveals more of itself to you, and I think that this is one of the things that happened with “Air,” a pretty great Fear of Music song that is tremendous in its live incarnation, finding new depths of both gorgeousness and weirdness, especially in the vocals.

Certain Songs #2617: Talking Heads – “Artists Only (Passaic 11-17-1979)”

May 15, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Name of This Band is Talking Heads
Year: 1979

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The second side of The Name of This Band is Talking Heads featured five songs from their 1979 tour supporting Fear of Music, all recorded on the same night at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, New Jersey, and is definitive proof of just how great they’d become, even before they added the extra people in 1980.