Talking Heads: 77

After reading Love Goes to Buildings on Fire last month I was inspired to listen to some of the music discussed. One of them is the album by Talking Heads, named after the year it was released. I have it on vinyl, as I do all Talking Heads albums, but have nothing to play it on, so I picked up the CD. It is as fresh as it was 36 years ago.

Talking Heads was formed in New York City by way of the Rhode Island School of Design, where David Byrne, Chris Frantz, and Tina Weymouth were alumni. Frantz was a drummer, and urged his girlfriend, Weymouth, to learn bass. Keyboardist Jerry Harrison, a member of the Modern Lovers, joined later.

They played New York clubs, including the legendary CBGBs, and signed with Sire Records. This was their debut album.

Talking Heads were not a punk band, and later were included in the all-encompassing label of "new wave." They are also called avant-garde, but their music, mostly written by Byrne, is firmly rooted in the pop idiom. The opening track, "Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town," is a ridiculously catchy pop song, with interesting touches like a steel drum. The closing track, "Pulled Up," is also a straight ahead rocker that is inordinately exuberant.

But some of the songs are off the beaten path, such as "No Compassion," a song about a guy who isn't interested in other people's problems:

"Other people's problems they overwhelm my mind
They say compassion is a virtue, but I don't have the time."


"Who Is It?" has some guitar playing that cuts against the grain and challenges the listener, while "Tentative Decisions," while a rock song, interrupts the melody with twist and turns.


Lyrically, this album is best example of Byrne's tendency to write ironically, though you are not completely sure he's being ironic, because of the guileless quality of his vocals (and his look, which was chess-club geek). The lyric from "No Compassion," is an example, but is best expressed in "Don't Worry About the Government," where the irony starts with the title and goes on:


"Some civil servants are just like my loved ones
They work so hard and they try to be strong
I'm a lucky guy to live in my building
They own the buildings to help them along."


The most famous song from the album is "Psycho Killer," which is right up there as the band's most recognizable song, period. It's told from the point of view, presumably, of a crazed murderer, beginning with Weymouth's sinister bass line and then:


"I can't seem to face up to the facts
I'm tense and nervous and I
Can't relax
I can't sleep 'cause my bed's on fire
Don't touch me I'm a real live wire"


The chorus, and one of the verses, contains French, a marvelously bizarre touch, and the line "Qu'est-ce que c'est" (which means "what is it," a refrain from "Who Is it?"), which Byrne pronounces with emphasis, has come down through the years as one of the coolest uses of French ever in a rock song. Not that the list is long, but still.

I picked up on Talking Heads when their second album came out in 1978, when I was graduating from classic rock to the new-fangled, and they were the headliner of the first concert I ever went to, in 1979. I would classify them as the best band of the 1980s, even though they had three great records in the '70s (so I guess I'm saying they are the best band from the period 1977-1986). Talking Heads: 77 is a fun record to listen to, as well as interesting historically.