{"id":25642,"date":"2025-06-29T23:05:08","date_gmt":"2025-06-29T23:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/25642\/"},"modified":"2025-06-29T23:05:08","modified_gmt":"2025-06-29T23:05:08","slug":"talking-heads-book-explores-the-bands-complicated-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/25642\/","title":{"rendered":"Talking Heads book explores the band’s complicated history"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Live from Cleveland: It’s ‘Saturday Night’ at the Rock Hall<\/p>\n

“SNL: Ladies & Gentlemen…50 Years of Music,” a new exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum looks at the NBC show’s influence on music.<\/p>\n

For a band that broke up under a cloud of bitterness, Talking Heads <\/a>still appreciate a good celebration.<\/p>\n

The belated first video for the band’s 1977 cult favorite \u201cPsycho Killer\u201d <\/a>debuted in early June; a live rendition of their thumping rendition of Al Green\u2019s \u201cTake Me to the River\u201d<\/a> from 1978 just landed; and a new CD box set, \u201cMore Songs About Buildings and Food (Super Deluxe Edition)\u201d<\/a> is due July 25 to celebrate the quartet\u2019s 50th anniversary.<\/p>\n

The recently released biography \u201cBurning Down the House\u201d<\/a> (HarperCollins, 512 pages) from New Yorker contributor Jonathan Gould (\u201cCan\u2019t Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain and America\u201d), takes its name from Talking Heads\u2019 biggest hit, an idiosyncratic Parliament Funkadelic-inspired slice of New Wave funk.<\/p>\n

The book’s 42 chapters dutifully cover the journey of singer David Byrne<\/a>, drummer Chris Frantz and bassist Tina Weymouth \u2013 who met at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1975, moved to New York and recruited guitarist Jerry Harrison \u2013 through years of fractured existence until they disbanded in 1991.<\/p>\n

But Gould also digs into the grimy club scene of Lower Manhattan in the 1970s, with colorful reminders of Max\u2019s Kansas City \u2013 a club where musicians including Velvet Underground, Bruce Springsteen <\/a>and Billy Joel <\/a>played foundational shows \u2013 and the illustrious CBGB<\/a>, an art rock\/punk playground for Patti Smith, Debbie Harry and a burgeoning Talking Heads.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis could be our Cavern Club,\u201d Frantz said when the band played a four-night stand at CBGB in 1977, likening it to The Beatles\u2019 formative haunt in Liverpool.<\/p>\n

Major albums augmented by a visual boost from MTV (\u201cSpeaking in Tongues\u201d with \u201cBurning Down the House,\u201d \u201cLittle Creatures\u201d with \u201cAnd She Was\u201d) and a landmark 1984 live concert film from Jonathan Demme (\u201cStop Making Sense,\u201d<\/a> which revived the singles \u201cGirlfriend is Better\u201d and \u201cOnce in a Lifetime\u201d) solidified Talking Heads\u2019 worthiness <\/a>as Rock and Roll Hall of Famers.<\/p>\n

Here are a few book highlights that showcase how they got there.<\/p>\n

More: <\/strong>ABBA book revelations: AC\/DC connection, the unlikely inspiration for \u2018Mamma Mia!\u2019, more<\/a><\/p>\n

The biblical roots of ‘Once in a Lifetime’<\/p>\n

Gould explores how the band\u2019s fourth studio album, 1980\u2019s \u201cRemain in Light,\u201d was sequenced dichotomously. The first side of the album brought \u201ca dance party unlike any dance party ever heard on a commercial recording before,\u201d he writes. \u00a0<\/p>\n

But a flip to Side 2 spotlighted Byrne\u2019s influences from months of Bible study for his esoteric solo project with Brian Eno, \u201cMy Life in the Bush of Ghosts.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cOnce in a Lifetime,\u201d<\/a> the first song of the album\u2019s second half, is delivered as a sermon almost by default, with each lyric prefaced with Byrne\u2019s spoke-sung, \u201cand you may find yourself \u2026\u201d before the inevitable big question of, \u201chow did I get here?\u201d<\/p>\n

Gould also points out the religious metaphor of the song\u2019s chorus, \u201cletting the days go by, let the water hold me down\u201d as well as its famous repeated refrain, \u201csame as it ever was,\u201d which provides a \u201cborn-again edge.\u201d By the time Byrne completes this existential exercise, he\u2019s looking back at his choices and exclaiming, \u201cMy God! What have I done?\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tom Tom Club offered an escape from Talking Heads<\/p>\n

In 1981, Frantz and Weymouth \u2013 who married in 1977 \u2013 splintered from home base to create Tom Tom Club<\/a>, named for the Bahamian club where they rehearsed for the first time while on break from Talking Heads.<\/p>\n

The spinoff that included Weymouth\u2019s sisters and King Crimson guitarist Adrian Belew formed because, as Frantz says in the book. \u201cWe wanted to make a real musical anti-snob record, because we\u2019re fed up to here with all of the seriousness that surrounds Taking Heads.\u201d<\/p>\n

The musical approach inspired by the \u201chappier \u2026 Island people,\u201d as well as the kitschy spirit of The B-52s, yielded the dance hit \u201cWordy Rappinghood,\u201d<\/a> anchored by Weymouth\u2019s delivery which Gould describes as, \u201cprim elocution of a grade-school teacher intent on imbuing her students with a lifelong love of words.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the lasting takeaway from the project is \u201cGenius of Love,\u201d<\/a> a blipping ditty that skitters through a lyrical tribute to Bootsy Collins, Smokey Robinson, Bob Marley and James Brown.<\/p>\n

Its clever hook has been interpolated for decades, from Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five\u2019s \u201cIt\u2019s Nasty\u201d<\/a> in 1981 to Mariah Carey\u2019s mega-selling \u201cFantasy\u201d <\/a>in 1995 to Latto\u2019s 2021 resurrection of the sample in \u201cBig Energy.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

More: <\/strong>New music documentaries rock the big screen at Tribeca<\/a><\/p>\n

A Talking Heads breakup, and brief makeup<\/p>\n

The band essentially dissolved in 1991 when Byrne abruptly left<\/a>, which Frantz says he and Weymouth discovered by reading about it in the Los Angeles Times (\u201cDavid never called us to say we broke up,\u201d Weymouth recalls).<\/p>\n

Predictably, lawsuits over trademark use of the band\u2019s name followed, along with the equally predictable acrimony between Byrne and the rest of the band. But a 1999 anniversary screening of \u201cStop Making Sense\u201d <\/a>provided a brief ceasefire, although the foursome never made eye contact while sitting on a panel to discuss the film.<\/p>\n

In 2001, their first year of eligibility, Talking Heads were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame<\/a>. Following tradition, a live performance was expected, which would be their first in 18 years.<\/p>\n

For three songs \u2013 \u201cPsycho Killer,\u201d \u201cLife During Wartime\u201d and \u201cBurning Down the House\u201d \u2013 a truce was in place, sparking a standing ovation from the audience filled with music-industry types, the very people, Gould says, whom the proudly eccentric band \u201chad done their best to have as little as possible to do with over the course of their professional careers.\u201d<\/p>\n