Talking Heads

I only play "Sand in the Vaseline" these days. The very early (1974) demo trax on there are excellent.

i can't believe 'more stories about buildings and food' really exists. it's perfect music.

Does anyone else find their music devoid of emotion?

What's this "emotion"?

i only listen to music with soul

they only have one love song and it's sung to a lamp

Don't know enough to comment, really, except to say that I would agree that "My Life In The Bush" is overrated. It has some cool sounds, and was "ahead of its time" in terms of sampling and so forth, but it just isn't very impressive these days. Flat sound, weak drums, for the most part. But again, no arguing the supposed "historical" importan

-- Mark Richardson, Wednesday, 21 February 2001 01:00

^^^Murdered by post-punk revisionist ninjas before he could finish his sentence.

They were one of the first bands I ever liked; and I am still fond of them. But how many good songs did they write? Maybe not many. Maybe they showed a way of being attractive without having good songs.

the pinefox, exasperation!#@035U05323E3555EESGTFGRAEWE!!!1

Tom was truly ahead of his time.

some of the most retarded things i have ever read in my entire life appear in this thread.

I don't think he shows on this thread that he was ahead of his time.

Some Talking Heads tracks that I like a lot include

Burning Down The House - always loved the edgy drums and keyboards on its long slow fade

Girlfriend Is Better - maybe I was just sucked in by Speaking In Tongues at that impressionable age

This Must Be The Place - I think this is quite wise, in a US-pragmatism sort of way: 'I'm just an animal looking for a home'

And She Was - and I think the video still looks good

Wild Wild Life - maybe just for contingent reasons

Memories Can't Wait - drama in its chorus

Found A Job - always liked this a lot, and the lyric is probably very prescient

Nothing But Flowers, and maybe more of Naked: jungle lushness, probably long underrated

-- but most of the early work, as for instance heard live on The Name of this Band is Talking Heads, doesn't do that much for me (though that record did revive 'Memories Can't Wait' for me)

I have to admit, my favourite Talking Heads list has the look of a fairly banal Talking Heads: The Hits collection. But that's not how I came to like those songs. I just did come to like them, more than the others I heard.

wtf, the name of this band is talking heads is unfuckingtouchable. the first half of the first disc is them at their tightest and the reason i prefer the '77 tracks on there to the album versions. when eno's producing for the next three it's a different story

and anyone who dismisses 'more stories...' out of hand is no friend of mine, uh figuratively speaking since we're talking about music you know

Memories Can't Wait - drama in its chorus

Almost everything on Fear Of Music is good. Having said that, I have almost no interest in hearing it or most any other Talking Heads song again. I have The Name Of This Band Is . . .; it was hard to track down at the time, and I was thrilled to get it. But these days I can't even get excited enough about the disc to load it onto my iPod.

what are peoples opinion on "look into the eyeball", byrne's recent album? its by no means his best thing ever but it's quite pretty and orchestral in places.

"Like Humans Do" is great - I find I end up loving about 1 song off all his later albums ("Miss America" and "Glass Concrete and Stone" being 2 from 2 more 'recent' full-lengths).

Frankly I just find it difficult to listen to Bryne at all anymore. Maybe in a few years I'll be able to come back and appreciate his recent stuff, but now just his voice makes me cringe.

Listening to SPEAKING IN TONGUES again on spotify, and wondering in what sense TH were 'intelligent' music, if such a thing has ever existed.

I just read my post about my favourite TH songs and thought, wow, that's still very accurate considering it dates from c.2002; then saw that it dated from a year ago.

Born Under Punches in the "09-Byrne tour" arrangement is really fucking great. Beautiful.

http://www.openculture.com/2012/06/live_in_rome_1980_the_talking_heads_concert_film_you_havent_seen.html

This is nice. With Adrian Belew

Plus Bernie Worrell,Dolette Mcdonald, Busta Jones and the others

whole lotta great/rare heads bootleg-type things over here: http://mywalloftapes.blogspot.com/

been knocking around for a while that Rome gig on You Tube etc, Belew on amazing form though aye. crazy they let him go although Alex Weir still does the biz on SMS.

From

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2012/06/the-talking-heads-song-that-explains-talking-heads.html

For younger listeners, and for older ones who never shared Lethem’s infatuation, Talking Heads live on principally in one track: the sad, sweet “love song” titled “This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody).” When was the last time you heard “Burning Down The House,” the band’s biggest single? Probably not recently. But chances are good you’ve heard “This Must Be The Place” very recently, whether you knew it or not.
Thirty years old this year, the song has slowly but surely embedded itself in the American songbook. You can’t walk into a good bar between Williamsburg and Silver Lake without an even shot that it will come on the stereo in some iteration.

Good Lord, is this really true? It appears in a sizable proportion (but I think a minority) of POX lists here:

POX: Talking Heads

but doesn't appear to have anything like consensus top pick status.

Measuring purely on well-knownness, I would have thought that if people know one Talking Heads song it's "Psycho Killer," and if they know two they're "Psycho Killer" and "Once In a Lifetime," and if they know three they're "Psycho Killer" and "Once in a Lifetime" and either "Life During Wartime" or "Burning Down The House." but in any event not "This Must Be The Place."

once in a lifetime gets way more radio play

It's true that I've heard fans younger than me cite "This Must Be The Place" as their favorite Heads love song or The Best Love Song Ever. The correct answer is "Creatures of Love." Or "I'm Not in Love."

well that new yorker article is describing a subset of people. williamsburg and silver lake are not representative of most of america.

it sorta makes sense that it'd get hipster love, sorta a forefather to 'all my friends'

Byrne was the funkiest white man in pop until Flea showed up.

ok waht

I've always thought it was their best song fwiw

i was skeptical, but on Spotify, four of the top 10 most popular TH tracks are "This Must Be The Place" on various different albums -- the highest at #2 is from the Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps soundtrack

"This Must Be The Place" has been by far one of my favorite Heads songs since the first time i saw Stop Making Sense, though, so i don't really have a problem w/ that

four of the top 11, i should say

it's hard to isolate those numbers from its use in a big hollywood movie, like it's a good song but I'm sure if oliver stone used 'road to nowhere' I'm sure that'd be on top

thank you, New Yorker, for helping me imagine Anthony Kiedis singing "This Must Be The Place."

People who don't know who about Talking Heads, they know that song.

"Road to Nowhere" used prominently in Reality Bites and is even more of the moment in these fraught times than TMBTP but alas.

who

I've heard TMBTP at every wedding I've ever been to

I hadn't been interested to click that Paramore cover until now - nearly note for note as you say akm, but Hayley sings the absolute fuck out of it, made it twice as fun for me!

I really like the Paramore cover! It's not EXACTLY a note-for-note recreation, but it's certainly built on a chassis of showing they CAN do a note-for-note recreation.

Dang, I wish I still had HBO. Hopefully they'll still have it when I eventually rotate back.

I don't wanna be that guy but the Stop Making Sense remaster is something I actually dragged my ass to a movie theater to see and I think it deserves and needs that

i don't wanna be that girl but i wish they'd done the bonus tracks as well :)

i drove 180 miles each way to the last theater in the state playing it to watch it, so now i have taken the "that guy" pressure off you eephus. maybe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w3srlMKdSU

Harrison/Belew "Remain in Light" show with good sound.

Thela Hun Ginjeet is cool, No Talking Just Head vibe is inescapable though

they don't even do the whole album, though? also, why the fuck would you go to this to just yammer through the entire thing?

I wonder if anyone will come see my Byrne/Eno tribute band...My Life In The Bush Of Hosts'...I'll get my coat...

only if you do a live exorcism during The Jezebel Spirit

OK, I knew about their "Slippery People" cover, but holy shit I didn't know the Staple Singers also did "Life During Wartime"!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAXZ1wqI8zk

Love it!

that's great!

Revisiting that deluxe edition of '77 mentioned upthread, I guess an announcement should be coming soon. Someone found this image somewhere on Amazon:

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61Fmz5GztEL.jpg

Super Deluxe Edition of the 1977 groundbreaking debut by Talking Heads, including the original album, outtakes, rarities and an 80 page hardcover book with new liner notes written by Tina Weymouth, David Byrne, Chris Frantz and Jerry Harrison. The book includes photos and images from the band's archive and photographers from the era.

craptastic perspective unwrap of those discs:
https://i.imgur.com/Y0j1ytj.jpeg

That's the only TH album I've never heard---in his book, Byrne says he was embarrassed by the horns, added at insistence o producer (lots of good stuff in there about how music works in the studio: "Oh you can't do it that way; this is what works. " Years later"Oh you're still doing it that way---this is what's cool.")
xpost That about music being shaped by the space it's made in--cathedrals, arenas, CBGC---does incl. the ending of the essay-to-chapter on making a scene, when he says that a number of places similar to CB, incl. acoustics, kind of bands and audiences, never did become much of a Scene.

CBGB

I like the horns, although I get why Byrne isn't a fan.

I'm pretty stoked about this series! I hope it does a good job of rounding things up.

GIVE ME MY POPSICLE OF LOVE REMASTERED IN SURROUND SOUND

Just kidding, I have no surround sound.

If you've been a Heads collector, it doesn't look like there's much of anything new on the rarities disc. They've pretty much just rounded up the non-LP and alternate versions from early singles, plus the new tracks from the comps Sand in the Vaseline, the Once in a Lifetime box, and the download-only Bonuses, Rarities and Outtakes set. I want more!

The CBS Demos would have been a nice extra, but I'm not really surprised they aren't here.

Jason Jones posted this:

I can finally talk about this one. All analog cut of the original album (overseen by the team at Sterling; Yes, Joe cut the lacquers). The rarities disc is an opportunity to compile all the disparate elements from those sessions that have dribbled out on various comps over the years as one definitive piece. Don't grumble about there only two previously unreleased tracks from those sessions as those are literally all that is left from those sessions. I will say that the alt of Psycho Killer is incredible (more aligned in approach with the OGWT performance) and the alt of Pulled Up is a nice curio into how it would have sounded had Tony Bongiovi had complete control (horns!). The previously unreleased live show from CBGB is fantastic. A perfect companion to the WCOZ piece from earlier this year. A completely frantic set.

I wanted to give the band their roses and demanded that a hardbound book be a part of the set. The fact that all of the band (plus Ed Stasium) contributed liner notes to the project was just icing on the cake. Rare photos of the band at the very beginning and a ton of ephemera. Ed's Atmos mix is on the blu-ray plus Jerry and ET's 5.1 Mix and Sterling's hi-res stereo transfer from the original master tape.

I've seen questions on here about how and why certain items weren't included (CBS demos, etc.). Here's what I will say: I put together the most definitive version of their debut with all of the tapes we have access to and I think everyone will be very happy with what I've put together.

He added elsewhere that the live disc is "a complete multi-track recording of the last show the band ever played at the legendary NYC club CBGB. It truly is the definitive document of the band in the early stages of their career. If you know and love this record, you won’t be disappointed. If you don’t know this record, this might be a good opportunity to immerse yourself in one of the defining bands of the last 50 years. They don’t make them like this anymore. Tons of formats are available for your preferred price point. If you’re looking to go all out, there is an all vinyl version available with exclusive represses of the original 7” singles from the album in their original picture sleeves."

How much is this thing? I’ll guess $300

$100 retail, but I'd just wait for a sale or a coupon code. (It'll be out before Black Friday)

Underpriced

The group is reading the video clues in a Heads/Stop Making Sense category on today's episode of Jeopardy.

Talking Heads Live on Tour '78 is being released on CD on April 11. Recorded at Cleveland's Agora Ballroom at the end of 1978, on the tour supporting More Songs About Buildings and Food, it was released on vinyl a few months later as part of Warner Bros.' Live on Tour promotional series. The CD version adds a previously unreleased version of "Thank You for Sending Me An Angel."

Track listing:

The Big Country
Warning Sign
The Good Thing
Artists Only
The Girls Want to Be with the Girls
Electricity (Drugs)
New Feeling
Found a Job
Thank You for Sending Me An Angel
Psycho Killer
Take Me to the River

I didn't know that there was a full promo album of that Agora show. About 15 years ago, I made one of my best garage sale vinyl scores, topped off by a Warner Music Show 12-inch EP with IIRC six tracks from that show: the three that got reissued on the expanded The Name of This Band...; an extended workout of "Psycho Killer"; and I forget the other two. I still have it in storage somewhere, but I can only find the full album on Discogs...maybe I got a bootleg?

Thinking harder, the other two cuts might have been "Warning Sign" and "Take Me To The River"

it's a famous bootleg that has been floating around torrent sites for decades, same reason it's hard for me to get excited about a lot of similar "deluxe" bonuses

it was an FM show iirc, so the quality is A+

Nice that there's a CD release this time, since the RSD vinyl of last year's live release got scarce and unaffordable fast.

Super deluxe reissue for More Songs About Buildings and Food is coming this summer.

The non-vinyl edition.

The full scoop here, although the press release seems to be cut off at the end.

Talking Heads’ groundbreaking second album, More Songs About Buildings and Food, returns July 25 as a Super Deluxe Edition from Rhino. Released as the band celebrates its 50th anniversary, the collection captures a pivotal moment in their evolution and marks the first of three albums produced with Brian Eno.

The 3CD/1Blu-ray Super Deluxe Edition features the remastered album alongside 11 rarities, including four previously unreleased alternate versions of album tracks. One of those, “Found A Job,” is available digitally today ahead of the full release.

The set also includes a live recording of the band’s August 1978 show at New York’s Entermedia Theatre. Footage from that show and another at Sproul Plaza at the University of California, Berkeley, both appear on the Blu-ray. Additionally, there are Dolby ATMOS and 5.1 surround sound mixes by E.T. Thorngren and group member Jerry Harrison, plus a high-resolution stereo version of the album. A 60-page hardcover book rounds out the package, with previously unseen photos and new liner notes with recollections from Tina Weymouth, David Byrne, Chris Frantz, and Harrison.

A 4LP vinyl version of the Super Deluxe Edition, also available July 25, features the remastered album, rarities, and the New York concert recordings. A second version—available exclusively at TalkingHeadsOfficial.com—includes reissues of four international 7” singles: U.S., U.K., and Japanese versions of “Take Me To The River,” plus “The Good Thing,” from the Netherlands. Each comes in a reproduction picture sleeve, all packaged alongside the 4LP set in a custom die-cut folio.

Additional Deluxe Editions will be available on 2LP black vinyl with a red vinyl pressing offered at TakingHeadsOfficial.com and select indie retailers. Both feature the remastered album and a selection of rarities.

The seeds for More Songs About Buildings and Food were planted in London in 1977, when the band met producer Brian Eno while touring behind their debut album. “When we went over to his flat, there was the immediacy of recognizing in his library books [and records] from our own collections,” recalls Harrison. “There was both mutual respect and a sense of shared sensibilities—all harbingers of a comfortable and successful collaboration.” Soon after, plans were made to record together.

Sessions began in March 1978, when the band traded their drafty Long Island City lofts for the Bahamas’ sunny beaches. They set up shop for several weeks at Chris Blackwell’s newly built Compass Point Studios, becoming the first band to record there.

Having been road-tested over a long tour, the new songs were ready to go. “To our great relief, [Eno] realized we were a tight live band at this point, so it made sense to record us all playing together in the studio,” Byrne says. “We weren’t all that comfortable in a recording studio, so this arrangement made us comfortable and put us at ease.”

Frantz recalls Eno’s most significant contribution was to slow the tempo of “Take Me To The River.” “We were used to playing the song at a pretty fast tempo like Al Green’s original, but we gave it a go,” he writes. “After several takes, we got what he was looking for, and everyone loved his treatment of the snare drum. This song became our first radio hit.”

The Polaroid mosaic that gives the album its striking visual identity came together later, back in New York. Byrne suggested the cover concept, says Weymouth. “David took the pictures of Chris, Jerry, and me, while I took the pictures of David. We used a close-up attachment and a red cloth for the backdrop. It was shot on the roof above Chris’s and my Long Island City loft. I still have that camera!”

Released on July 14, 1978, More Songs About Buildings and Food earned the band their first appearance on the Billboard 200. Their reimagining of Green’s “Take Me To The River” cracked the Billboard Hot 100 and became a left-field radio success, helping introduce the band to a wider audience. At the time, critics took note of the album’s sharp songwriting and Eno’s layered production—with The New York Times naming it the “No. 1 disk of 1978” and Vogue calling Talking Heads the “most fascinating experimental rock band in the world.”

The release launches a yearlong celebration of Talking Heads’ 50th anniversary. Formed in 1975, the band became one of the most influential to emerge from New York’s CBGB scene—helping shape modern music and redefine the art of the music video.

MORE SONGS ABOUT BUILDINGS AND FOOD (SUPER DELUXE EDITION)

3CD/1BR Track Listing

CD One: Original Album (2025 Remaster)

“Thank You For Sending Me An Angel”

“With Our Love”

“The Good Thing”

“Warning Sign”

“The Girls Want To Be With The Girls”

“Found A Job”

“Artists Only”

“I’m Not In Love”

“Stay Hungry”

“Take Me To The River”

“The Big Country”

CD Two: Rarities

“Thank You For Sending Me An Angel” (Alternate Version)

“With Our Love” (Alternate Version) *

“Found A Job” (Alternate Version) *

“The Good Thing” (Alternate Version) *

“Warning Sign” (Alternate Version)

“Electricity” (Instrumental)

“The Girls Want To Be With The Girls” (Alternate Version) *

“I’m Not In Love” (Alternate Version)

“Artists Only” (Alternate Version)

“The Big Country” (Alternate Version)

“Thank You For Sending Me An Angel” (“Country Angel” Version)

CD Three: Live At Entermedia Theater, New York, NY (August 10, 1978)

“No Compassion” *

“Warning Sign” *

“The Book I Read” *

“Stay Hungry” *

“Artists Only” *

“The Girls Want To Be With The Girls” *

“Uh-Oh, Loves Comes To Town” *

“With Our Love” *

“Love Goes To A Building On Fire” *

“Don’t Worry About The Government” *

“The Good Thing” *

“Electricity”*

“The Big Country” *

“New Feeling” *

“Pulled Up” *

“Psycho Killer” *

“Take Me To The River” *

“Found A Job” *

“Thank You For Sending Me An Angel” *

Blu-Ray

Audio: Hi-Res Stereo, 5.1 & Atmos Mix of original album (2025 Remaster)

Video: Concert Footage

Live at Entermedia Theater, 1978

“Uh-Oh, Loves Comes To Town” *

“The Girls Want To Be With The Girls” *

“The Good Thing” *

“Take Me To The River” *

“Found A Job” *

“Thank You For Sending Me An Angel” *

Live At Sproul Plaza (Berkeley), 1978

“The Big Country” *

“Warning Sign” *

“The Book I Read” *

“Stay Hungry” *

“Artists Only” *

“The Girls Want To Be With The Girls” *

“The Good Thing” *

“Uh-Oh, Loves Comes To Town” *

“Psycho Killer” *

“I’m Not In Love” *

“Pulled Up” *

MORE SONGS ABOUT BUILDINGS AND FOOD (SUPER DELUXE EDITION)

4LP Track Listing

LP One: Original Album (2025 Remaster)

Side One

“Thank You For Sending Me An Angel”

“With Our Love”

“The Good Thing”

“Warning Sign”

“The Girls Want To Be With The Girls”

“Found A Job”

Side Two

“Artists Only”

“I’m Not In Love”

“Stay Hungry”

“Take Me To The River”

“The Big Country”

LP Two: Rarities

Side One

“Thank You For Sending Me An Angel” (Alternate Version)

“With Our Love” (Alternate Version) *

“Found A Job” (Alternate Version) *

“The Good Thing” (Alternate Version) *

“Warning Sign” (Alternate Version)

“Electricity” (Instrumental)

Side Two

“The Girls Want To Be With The Girls” (Alternate Version) *

“I’m Not In Love” (Alternate Version)

“Artists Only” (Alternate Version)

“The Big Country” (Alternate Version)

“Thank You For Sending Me An Angel” (“Country Angel” Version)

LP Three: Live At Entermedia Theater, New York, NY (August 10, 1978)

Side One

“No Compassion” *

“Warning Sign” *

“The Book I Read” *

“Stay Hungry” *

“Artists Only” *

Side Two

“The Girls Want To Be With The Girls” *

“Uh-Oh, Loves Comes To Town” *

“With Our Love” *

“Love Goes To A Building On Fire” *

“Don’t Worry About The Government” *

“The Good Thing” *

LP Four

Side One

“Electricity”*

“The Big Country” *

TIL that:

- Toni Basil co-directed the video for "Once In A Lifetime" with Byrne
- she also made a video for "Crosseyed and Painless":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHoqH-26UDk

and the video is an extended mix that's never been released elsewhere afaik

Oh yeah. Basil has been doing choreography for a long time--

appearing regularly as a dancer on the pop music television show Shindig!, which ran from 1964-66. The classic concert film The T.A.M.I. Show (1964) was another project which Basil worked on with Winters. The mid-sixties saw her break into feature films, with uncredited but impressive roles as a dancer in Viva Las Vegas (1964), the Rat Pack vehicle Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964), and the teen comedy musical Pajama Party (1964) starring Annette Funicello and Tommy Kirk (which was an off-shoot of the popular series of Beach Party films).

Basil also choreographed a couple of notable teen drive-in movies during this period. Village of the Giants (1965)...
Basil would work again with Hopper on two of his other directorial features,

https://www.filmink.com.au/time-after-time-the-invention-and-continual-re-invention-of-toni-basil/

It's guys like you, David

Oh my god that Crosseyed and Painless video is one of my all time favourites and I haven seen it in 30 years. Thank you!

https://recordstoreday.com/SpecialRelease/19275

Artistics!

https://img.broadtime.com/Photo/418467303766:360

Cool. Looking forward to hearing Artistics doing Psycho Killer in 1974

LOLLLL

https://i.ibb.co/zkgz3w3/jerry.jpg

(and happy birthday Jerry)

ah nm, it ain't his bday

Rockhenge.

haha go tina! johnny was one unhappy camper there

Expanded Version of the Tentative Decisions comp out March 6th: https://store.rhino.com/products/tentative-decisions-demos-live-3cd

Whoa, the CBS Demos.

as a neil young fan, there's a point in life where you have to cut the cord