(Credits: Far Out / Sire Records)
Tue 15 April 2025 18:00, UK
When you think about the weirdest people in music, one of the first names that might spring to mind is Talking Heads frontman David Byrne. While he’s not a complete live wire who was out of control all the time and unlikely to cause too much mayhem, he’s always been a peculiar character who not only knew how to make his music stand out but also made himself stand out as an enigmatic character on stage.
Many people are aware of his antics of taking to the stage for the recordings of their live concert film, Stop Making Sense, donning a gigantic suit, and he’s repeated his stunt of wearing bizarre stage attire on other occasions, wearing a full body skinless suit during a television performance. The music of Talking Heads was also somewhat esoteric in itself and was far more experimental than many of their contemporaries in the New York scene of the late 1970s.
That being said, they were still widely regarded as one of the greatest bands to emerge from that scene, and a large amount of that is down to Byrne’s oddball behaviour. There are few bands who began their career with a stronger five-album run than Talking Heads did from 77 to Speaking in Tongues, and while some of the tracks that emerged from those records were bonafide pop hits, many of the deeper cuts on these albums were forward-thinking avant-garde works of art.
It’s hard to pinpoint precisely what the defining moment of Byrne’s career is, but plenty of stories about him add character to his already bizarre persona. One particular tale relates to how he and Brian Eno, another equally forward-thinking and unusual figure of the art rock scene, were allegedly mugged on the streets of New York, and the reaction to the situation that Byrne supposedly came out with is typical of his strangeness. The question is, did it actually happen?
So, did they actually get mugged in New York?
Byrne and Eno were close friends, and collaborated on numerous releases, with the first example of them working together being on Talking Heads’ 1978 album, More Songs About Buildings and Food, which Eno produced. They’d also work together on two further Talking Heads records, and would make two albums together as a duo that were far more boundary-pushing than anything they’d previously done together.
However, the story of them being mugged in the street is one that Eno recounted in an interview, which many people have debated the validity of due to how perfectly it seems to play into Byrne’s unusual personality. “He’s a genuine eccentric,” Eno said of Byrne. “He’s always been exactly like that, and I’ve seen him remain like that in quite extreme situations.”
Eno continued: “For instance, we were mugged together once in New York. It was quite frightening; we were mugged by 14 people. My enduring memory is of David being dragged off into the bushes, saying, ‘Uh-oh!’ That’s absolutely true; it was like a cartoon scene.”
However, this seems a little far-fetched and too accurate a portrayal of Byrne to be true, and so for years, many fans debated whether this story genuinely happened. During a Reddit ‘Ask Me Anything’ session with Byrne, one user saw fit to take the opportunity to ask for Byrne’s side of the story, and whether it’s exactly as Eno told it.
Byrne happily obliged to answer the question, but his response came as a slight disappointment to some. “[The] story has become a little embellished,” Byrne laughed. “I was mugged at the Eastern Parkway Carnival in Brooklyn, but chased the mugger, and eventually he tossed back my wallet with driver’s license, etc, and only kept the cash.”
It may have shattered the illusion of Byrne’s eccentricity to know that this was truly how the situation unfolded, but at least we know there’s some truth to the anecdote, and it doesn’t stop Byrne from being the adorably gawky human that he is.
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