39. Talking Heads, "Remain in Light"
It's not surprising that the lyrics from "Once in a Lifetime," the second single from this album, immediately became part of the cultural canon and are quoted to this day, as they are such a great example of David Byrne's absurdist humor:
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself, "Well, how did I get here?"
This is also one of the only songs on this album where the lyrics make any sense at all. In most of the songs, they serve the same purpose as lyrics in early R.E.M. songs, sonic placeholders that exist largely to carry the voice, not to impart meaning. (In fact, Byrne has said that he began the lyrics on this reciord by singing nonsense to get the sound right, then fit words to the sounds.) From "Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)," the album's intoxicating lead track:
Take a look at these hands!
Take a look at these hands, you don't have to mention it
No thanks, I'm a government man
Right. So anyway, last week we talked about cultural appropriation in the context of Paul Simon's Graceland, in which Simon happily lifted huge chunks of South African Black music for his album. You don't hear this album included in that conversation, although it's arguably just as guilty. This album was directly inspired by Afrobeat in general and Fela Kuti's album Afrodisiac in particular. Everyone knows about this! There are newspaper articles that casually mention it! So why does Simon get shit for his theft and the Heads don't?
Two things, I think. First, while Afrobeat was certainly an inspiration, the Talking Heads didn't simply lift the sound wholesale in the same way Simon did. Instead, they used it as a starting point, and then in the studio built up the sound of this album in excruciatingly detailed layers. Working with Brian Eno, they shaped a new sound, built on African polyrhythms but also Tina Weymouth's incredible bass and Byrne's jittery, paranoid singing. Second, the Talking Heads were and are cool in a way that Dad-rock champion Simon could never be.
Truth be told, I have never spent a lot of time with this album, but I really enjoyed the hell out of it. It's frenetic and skittering, full of life and also precise and detailed. It was made when the future of the band was really in doubt, and Weymouth and drummer Chris Frantz, who were married, retreated to the Bahamas to think about where they wanted to go. Byrne arrived later, and the group began the studio experiments with Eno that would lead to this record. Although a lot of people assume this was one of the first albums to use samples extensively, it's not; the band actually played the exact same parts over and over. Eno later said that the musicians were "human samplers."
Although I find this album beautiful and haunting, it can also be cold and distant, like a lot of Talking Heads albums. I mean, it's produced by Brian Eno. Kidding, sort of. But the kind of production here puts distance between an artist and audience in a way that something like Exile in Guyville does not. You dig?
Is this album in my personal Top 100? No.
Comments
Post a Comment