Fear Of Music

Fear Of Music is the Talking Heads' third album, but it was my introduction to them. It was released 40 years ago this month, and it was a turning point in my appreciation of music. I listened to what we now call classic rock, and was a big fan of Beatle-esque bands like ELO and Queen. Talking Heads were not played on those radio stations. I'm not sure how I became aware of them--I know I saw them on Saturday Night Live doing "Take Me To The River." For whatever reason, I bought this album, and the following month I went to see them live, my very first concert.

Talking Heads has always defied categorization--this album is called "psychedelic funk" by Wikipedia--but it fell into a large morass called "new wave." It's danceable stuff, even akin to disco, with a world music flavor. The lead-off track, "I Zimbra," is very much influenced by an African music, which the band would go much heavier into in their next record, Remain In Light.

The lyrics by David Byrne are very curmudgeonly. Many of the songs have simple noun titles, such as "Mind," "Air," "Animals," "Cities," "Heaven," "Drugs," and "Electric Guitar." The words seem to come from a place of dismay, like the headline in The Simpson's newspaper--"Angry Man Yells At Cloud." In "Air," which is not about pollution, Byrne warns us about the stuff we breathe:

"What is happening to my skin?
Where is that protection that I needed?
Air can hurt you too
Air can hurt you too
Some people say not to worry about the air
Some people never had experience with air"

In "Animals," Byrne is no Jane Goodall:

"I'm mad and that's a fact
I found out animals don't help
Animals think they're pretty smart
Shit on the ground, see in the dark
They wander around like a crazy dog
Make a mistake in the parking lot
Always bumping into things
Always let you down, down, down, down"

Two songs from the album have become part of the Talking Heads legacy, played at most concerts. "Life During Wartime" is a searing portrait of a man living in a graveyard eating nothing but peanut butter while violence is all around him. Everyone knows the refrain:

"This ain't no party, this ain't no disco,
This ain't no fooling around
This ain't no Mudd Club, or C. B. G. B.,
I ain't got time for that now"

The lyric, coupled with the intense music, gives the song an edge of menace, and while we listen we can imagine ourselves in some war-torn city.

The other Talking Heads standard, and my favorite, is "Cities," which is Byrne contemplating a city to live in. There is a deadpan sarcasm to the song  Byrne has acknowledged he has Asperger's Syndrome, and at times that comes in his lyrics:

"Did I forget to mention, forget to mention Memphis
Home of Elvis and the ancient Greeks
Do I smell? I smell home cooking
It's only the river, it's only the river"

When I first listened to this record on my parents' old stereo, it skipped, but I wasn't sure if that wasn't part of the music. It's sort of like when Ravi Shankar tuned up on stage and got applause.

Thank goodness I overcame my own fear of music and purchased this album. Talking Heads are in my top ten favorite bands of all time, and this is where it started.