Why Is That When Bands Rip Off The Talking Heads These Days, It's Never Like Their Version Of "Take Me To The River"?

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I ask because I'm watching them perform it on the rerun of SNL from last night, and would really like for there to be more music that sounds like that.

I guess the easy answer is that it takes more taste, style, and skill to pull it off, right?

― Matthew C Perpetua (inca), Sunday, 26 June 2005 23:14 (twenty years ago)

Talking Heads ripped off Arthur Russell bigtime.

― Susan Douglas (Susan Douglas), Sunday, 26 June 2005 23:15 (twenty years ago)

Who would you rather party with:

Geddy Lee or Norah Jones?

There's a keg and cigarettes and weed and coke, etc.

― Wilty Lettuce, Sunday, 26 June 2005 23:16 (twenty years ago)

Man, I'd totally pick Norah. We're closer in age and she's really cute and she seems like more fun than Geddy, though I guess I could ask him if he ever speaks like an ordinary guy.

― Matthew C Perpetua (inca), Sunday, 26 June 2005 23:17 (twenty years ago)

there's a bar band here that apes the Heads version when they cover 'River' you can have them.

― miccio (miccio), Sunday, 26 June 2005 23:33 (twenty years ago)

i'd rather see some remain in light style shit. which bands rip off talking heads and in what style btw matthew?

― mullygrubbr (bulbs), Sunday, 26 June 2005 23:36 (twenty years ago)

oh sorry!! i totally misread the title. whatshisname did rip off a. russell in singing style and rhythm at times, but if you are looking for stuff that sounds like "Take Me To the River", that probably doesn't help much. yeah, i'm guessing its style and subtlety and the voice too. i'm also guessing that bands attracted to talking heads energy and weirdness maybe didn't appreciate the other element - funk. without the funk it would sound bad.

― Susan Douglas (Susan Douglas), Sunday, 26 June 2005 23:43 (twenty years ago)

or they over-funk it

― Susan Douglas (Susan Douglas), Sunday, 26 June 2005 23:46 (twenty years ago)

Modest Mouse, Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party, and their ilk sound like they don't listen to much funk. Or Al Green. Which is a pity.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Sunday, 26 June 2005 23:52 (twenty years ago)

i have never heard any of them - they sound like, what, 77?

― mullygrubbr (bulbs), Sunday, 26 June 2005 23:53 (twenty years ago)

they sound like poo

― The Amazing Jaxon! (jaxon), Monday, 27 June 2005 00:31 (twenty years ago)

To some extent, I thought Arthur Russell was ripping off David Byrne, but how can you tell? They probably ripped off each other. And didn't David Byrne help set up the Sire deal for Arthur Russell and play on that single?

― Dee Xtrovert (dee dee), Monday, 27 June 2005 00:35 (twenty years ago)

when i first heard arthur i immediately thought - holy shit this is where David Byrne got it all! without even knowing they were connected or who came first etc. ---i later found out they collaborated but was still convinced it was david borrowing from arthur b/c its arthur's signature sound in every way. rythmically their similarities get confusing. yet i think arthur was such a maverick its hard to imagine him borrowing so much from someone else.

― Susan Douglas (Susan Douglas), Monday, 27 June 2005 00:47 (twenty years ago)

man i always think - russell = loose, byrne = tight.

― mullygrubbr (bulbs), Monday, 27 June 2005 00:50 (twenty years ago)

Wouldn't you say there's more people aping the vocal tics and mannerisms of Byrne, rather than bands actually trying to mimic the TH's sound?

Like that Adam's Family-lookin' singer in the Arcade Fire?

I guess Dismemberment Plan had a bit of TH in them on occasion.

― Brooker Buckingham (Brooker B), Monday, 27 June 2005 00:51 (twenty years ago)

yeah, "Kiss Me Again" came four years after TH first formed, and their early stuff always sounded like that. anyway, Byrne's rhythmic/vocal tics are far more Jonathan Richman than anything.

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Monday, 27 June 2005 00:53 (twenty years ago)

so arthur borrowed from D.B.? ooooo say it isn't true!

― Susan Douglas (Susan Douglas), Monday, 27 June 2005 00:56 (twenty years ago)

so arthur borrowed from D.B.? ooooo say it isn't true!

If it were true (and I have my doubts; the loose/tight dichotomy noted above is OTM), why would that be such a bad thing?

― whim cycle (Da ve Segal), Monday, 27 June 2005 01:07 (twenty years ago)

it doesnt' really matter. maybe just b/c arthur didn't get a whole lot of credit in his lifetime and DB had lots of fame. also my ears tell me otherwise about the stealing.

― Susan Douglas (Susan Douglas), Monday, 27 June 2005 01:14 (twenty years ago)

ok David Byrne was in the studio with Arthur prior to making his first album with TH. although it WAS same year, and i have no idea what DB sounded like before TH and before meeting AR.

― Susan Douglas (Susan Douglas), Monday, 27 June 2005 01:16 (twenty years ago)

When I listened to that Clap Your Hands Say Yeah album I was thinking about how the guy seemed to be working overtime to sing like early David Byrne, but lacked the technical skill or the melodic songwriting chops. I guess it's pretty normal for mediocre people to only ape the most obvious surface qualities of distinctive singers and distort them into a weird parody. The Vedder syndrome...

Anyway, I see how Arthur Russell and David Byrne are similar, but I think that they had different things going on. The Talking Heads songs I like are so much different from the Russell songs I like.

I think part of the reason I love the Talking Heads version of "Take Me The River" so much is actually based on the arrangement and the sound of the recording - the rhythm section sounds especially crisp, and the organ sound is just about ideal. It makes me think of midtown NYC and paper and signage with old early 80s fonts.

― Matthew C Perpetua (inca), Monday, 27 June 2005 01:21 (twenty years ago)

Who cares? Byrne and Russell are both brilliant. Clap Your Hands are total crap.

― Jonathan Merritt, Monday, 27 June 2005 02:12 (twenty years ago)

Do you think Talking Heads themselves ever sounded like this again?

― Mark (MarkR), Monday, 27 June 2005 02:16 (twenty years ago)

I don't think Bloc Party sound like Talking Heads.

― Sundar (sundar), Monday, 27 June 2005 02:17 (twenty years ago)

when i watched that episode of snl, when it was first shown live,tina scared me really bad. i thought she was a scary junkie. i was just a kid. and i didn't know any junkies at the time. she freaked me out. i was in new jersey when i watched it. it might have been summer. wait, i think that was the summer i saw meatballs in the theatre! in new jersey! at my parent's friends house! where is fact checking cuz when i need him? was meatballs in the theatre when the talking heads appeared on snl. wait, why were they on in the summer? maybe it was a rerun.

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 27 June 2005 02:31 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, it must've been a rerun.

― Matthew C Perpetua (inca), Monday, 27 June 2005 02:33 (twenty years ago)

I'm watching them perform it on the rerun of SNL from last night

talking heads did this on SNL last night?

― kyle (akmonday), Monday, 27 June 2005 02:59 (twenty years ago)

It was a 3 a.m. rerun from February '79. Cicely Tyson hosted, which = a great episode for Garrett Morris exposure. Heads were frickin' amazing. Byrne's a hell of a guitar player, it must be said.

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Monday, 27 June 2005 06:34 (twenty years ago)

Easily one of the best rhythm guitarists ever, agreed.

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Monday, 27 June 2005 06:49 (twenty years ago)

Talking Heads' version of "Take Me to the River" > all others. Don't fall for that 'black blues is always better' bunk. B-B-B-B!

― Dare, Monday, 27 June 2005 06:53 (twenty years ago)

nah. al's version is better.

― mullygrubbr (bulbs), Monday, 27 June 2005 07:15 (twenty years ago)

Syl Johnson's version is better than Al's.

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Monday, 27 June 2005 07:17 (twenty years ago)

ah, i've not heard that.

― mullygrubbr (bulbs), Monday, 27 June 2005 07:18 (twenty years ago)

None of these versions is as great as the true classic rendition by Annie Lennox on her Medusa.

The trouble is that too many of the people groups now rip off The Talking Heads and it is the wrong period - that tuneless, rhythmic dominate phase of Remains Alight - instead of the true golden age of The Talking Heads when they abandoned all coloured pretensions and concentrate on writing memorable melodic songs like Road To Somewhere and If I Was.

― Comstock Carabinieri (nostudium), Monday, 27 June 2005 07:21 (twenty years ago)

xpost to guitar playing -agreed here too. awe-inspiring, to say the least.

― Susan Douglas (Susan Douglas), Monday, 27 June 2005 07:21 (twenty years ago)

I really loved that they got a good close up of David playing that great guitar part on the bridge.

I kinda agree with Comstock - I'd much rather hear people ape Little Creatures than Remain In Light. But I speak as a person who generally prefers their biggest hits to the album cuts.

― Matthew C Perpetua (inca), Monday, 27 June 2005 09:03 (twenty years ago)

Surely Comstock is referring to "Road To Nowhere" and "And She Was" though....

― Matthew C Perpetua (inca), Monday, 27 June 2005 09:04 (twenty years ago)

Wouldn't you say there's more people aping the vocal tics and mannerisms of Byrne, rather than bands actually trying to mimic the TH's sound?

THOM YORKE TO THE MUTHAFUCKIN THREAD!

― Ian Riese-Moraine eats nation-states for breakfast! (Eastern Mantra), Monday, 27 June 2005 11:01 (twenty years ago)

It's funny, because I didn't mind Talking Heads when I was little, and then I outright rejected them because I always thought David Byrne was feigning neurosis to impress the art-school crowd, and now within the past few months I've come around and realised that's part of what made them so great in the first place!

― Ian Riese-Moraine eats nation-states for breakfast! (Eastern Mantra), Monday, 27 June 2005 11:03 (twenty years ago)

None of the bands / vocalists mentioned sound anything like Talking Heads / David Byrne to me. I actually think of Talking Heads as a pretty unique and unripped-off band. In fact that whole funky worldbeat 80s thing (i.e., Talking Heads, A Certain Ratio) seems totally unripped off. I don't think even the DFA have really produced too much Talking-Heads-like music. And Thom Yorke and Win from Arcade Fire have never, even once, reminded me of David Byrne. What am I missing about these guys that is Byrne-like?

― mrjosh (mrjosh), Monday, 27 June 2005 11:44 (twenty years ago)

Win Out Of Arcade Fire has always sounded more like Ian McCulloch to me than Byrne (except maybe on "Alexander").

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 27 June 2005 11:50 (twenty years ago)

I put on the new Go-Betweens record on my way to work this morning and the first thing I thought was that it sounded rather like mid-career Talking Heads.

― The Mad Puffin, Monday, 27 June 2005 11:56 (twenty years ago)

Yorke doesn't really sound like Byrne but Yorke's got that same vibe in his voice of "I'm feigning neurosis in order to pander to a young and artsy crowd and have them worship me" that Byrne seemingly has. I honestly don't think Byrne uses those mannerisms and affectations for such an explicit intent, though, whereas Yorke... xxxpost

― Ian Riese-Moraine eats nation-states for breakfast! (Eastern Mantra), Monday, 27 June 2005 12:00 (twenty years ago)

(xpost)

"Here Comes The City" certainly does have a TH vibe.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Monday, 27 June 2005 12:14 (twenty years ago)

Yes, Alfred; I actually started singing "Life During Wartime" over "Here Comes a City." But I think it goes beyond that.

(Talking Heads - Jerry Harrison) + Leonard Cohen = Go-Betweens.

― The Mad Puffin (The Mad Puffin), Monday, 27 June 2005 12:29 (twenty years ago)

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