Talking Heads' More Songs About Buildings and Food Poll

No, he's very happy for the people who found something better to do than watching TV... by making TV shows. Way to break free of those constraints, etc.

It's reaaaal condescending, if not hateful.

Byrne seems to have made at least half a career of sounding enthusiastic about things he thinks are fascinatingly beneath him. "Portable buildings were the dream of every 20th century architect, only they didn't know they were having it!"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/sevenages/artists/talking-heads/

Click 'watch the short film' there and he has a few things to say on the subject of the lyrics.
He says he's 'half sincere half ironic' but points out that he didn't want to sneer at the average person as some would do.

Is 'don't get upset it's not a major disaster... if your work isn't what you love then something isn't right'
condescending or hateful? Shrugs never sounded it to me... i'm naive though i guess.

Well, the other half of him -- and this is what's weirdest of all -- the other half truly IS enthusiastic about things that truly are beneath him. Dude has had gallery shows and released books of art made on PowerPoint, and has given eloquent lectures on how PowerPoint relates to the increasing boxing of our thoughts into computer space. He really does thing about banal things, a lot.

(I still suspect that he's kinda trying to keep up with his bigger intellectual brother Eno, who loves the little scamp and tussles his hair, but will always be the big brother. Neither here nor there in this context, though.)

That's why I really like the True Stories film as a kind of not-quite-so subtle manifestation of his lyrics into a movie. It's a celebration of the mundane, not of the futuristic but of the present - treating shopping malls, mobile homes, project management, computer chips as works of artisanship. Kind of saying that in the future our architects and designers will be praised much in the same way as the ancient architects of the past.

On the other hand the tongue's also firmly in cheek. The natural "beauty" of a metal container is through its functionality and its function is to contain. There's that wonderful bit in the film where the business owner sits down with his family at the table and does a crazy choreographed serving routine that explains the structure of his business model with the different foods. I think I read something somewhere about Byrne's vision being "so normal it's crazy", and I totally agree with and love that aesthetic.

Aw man, messed around with that for 10 minutes before I read this:

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Hrm.

There's that wonderful bit in the film where the business owner sits down with his family at the table and does a crazy choreographed serving routine that explains the structure of his business model with the different foods.

Spalding Grey. Yes. Wonderful bit.

Also, I will grant that "Found a Job" is the most 77-like song on the record. But the rest of it is borderline sinister. And then there's "Take Me To the River," which is just off the freakin' map.

Gahhhhh this thread makes me want to listen to this album NOW. And my iPod and headphones are right in front of me, bbut I'm in my extremely shite work and can't. Frustrating.

Found A Job, FWIW.

See, I got the "Take me to the river" double single. "Found a job" on b-side, and "Love->Building and "Psycho Killer" on the other single.

How was that package not bought by *everyone* I'll never know...

But that's why I like "Found a job", even though I never bought "MSABAF"...

"Pretty soon now, I will be bitter."

"I don't have to prove that I am creative."

If I could vote over, I would go with "The Big Country". I just listened to the album and read the lyrics. I've always liked Talking Heads' slow country songs.

"Take Me to the River" always seemed out of place on this record, it was such a big radio hit and sounds more like Fear of Music.

Great album...The only I'm not keen on is 'Take Me to the River'.

Weird to see that '77 photo in this thread...I used to be really fixated on Tina in the 77 cover photo when I was very young, and turned out gay.

"And you may ask yourself - well...how did I get here?" - indeed.

heh... Tina looks as boyish as any of them in that photo! Ah, youth.

Listening again and I wish I would have voted for Warning Sign. That little two-note guitar part on the verses "Right when David's singing 'Warning sign! Warning sign!'" into the sliding syncopated chords is so beautiful. And like Kenan said, SCARY. What a great song. I still Found a Job though. The only way it could possibly be improved is if they would have made it the first track of side B instead of the last of side A. It would have made such a perfect opener for a side!

Play Find the Typo in that paragraph. Hint: there are 32.

are nwot.

I always appreciated Sand in the Vasline for including the non-single "Warning Sign" -- it was the extra bit of taut weirdness that convinced me to buy the damn thing.

And for Sugar on my Tongue.

Its a matter of degrees
And that's true
That's true
It's taken to extremes
and that's why we work so hard to
Take that love away

^^^ The theory of emotional relativity

stay hungrayyyyyyyyyy

I searched out this thread to revive it and...apparently make the same comments I already made almost a year ago. Good lord I love this album. Things are puttering along nicely until musical satan descends upon the scene and possesses Talking Heads starting in the last minute of "The Good Thing":

So I say:
I have adopted this and made it my own:
Cut back the weakness, reinforce what is strong.

"Warning Sign" starts after exactly a bar of empty space, and is creepy as fuck. Putting aside the lyrics, listen on headphones with the volume turned up and witness the really subtle swirling backward vocals leading into each phrase. At first I tended to agree with the person upthread who thought that Eno's presence on this album was largely unnoticeable, but after about the billionth listen his influence is apparent. "Girls Want To Be With The Girls" is a fine song, but to be honest for me its primary value is to serve as the perfect setup for "Found a Job", which again starts after a 4 beat pause and makes people shit their pants.

I love MSABAF more and more with each year, and now it's my favorite. One of the best things about Talking Heads is that each one of their first four albums have been my favorite at some point, and each time I couldn't conceive of a way that it could be any other way. What a great band.

Gackazoid. Bottom seven songs are the whole entire reason this album rules. Single vote getter "With Our Love" is merely the greatest TH song ever & one of the greatest period (period). "Found a job" is the merest of conceptual clams next to the pink hearts exploding "girls want to be with the girls" but when they don't

fuh-huh-huh-huh-huckle-fuck-already

No wonder "Remain in Light" keeps winning polls as best Talking Heads record: because of this most utter fuckerottering tastelessness. If David Byrne comes from somewhere between Jonathan Richman and the Africanized future of pop music (that future that was expected, that future that didn't actually happen,) then the best songs on MSAB&F are the place where he owes nothing to nobody and, more importantly, where the Talking Heads as a band playing together show off their utterly original, dare-taking synthesis of KC & The Sunshine Band & Modern Lovers in the most utterly realized way. It's the second best record Eno was ever involved with after Another Green World.

{& this was the final VP pest at aye el ex}

I first discovered TH in a kind of bulk-buy of albums, starting with SMS and then acquiring all their albums in rapid succession. As such, I never really managed to separate a lot of the material form the first few albums - they all seemed to work together in a kind of temporal soup. But now I'm going through each album in chronological order, their career arc is starting to make much more sense and this is maybe song-for-song one of their best. I especially like the bassline towards the end of The Big Country.

Yeah and Warning Sign and Stay Hungry are both fab.

i love that every song on this got a least one vote. such a great album that i only discovered a few years back, probably 2008 or so.

probably going to spin this tonight because of this bump.

To help keep be focused, me and my guitar teacher have been going through the first three albums track by track. Some strange stuff going on here, especially as far as the song structures go. This is my fave of the first three.

Me focused, not be focused.

That's a great idea. I'd love to do something similar with bass guitar.

"warning song" = weirdest song about sex ever.

i've been listening to the 1975 cbs demos thing a lot recently, which interestingly has like all the songs from 77 and about half of this one it; angel, girls, stay hungry, with our love, warning sign. crazy that they had already written so many of their hits 2 years before the first album was even released. demo version of "thank you for sending me an angel" is great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_R3WYryz3Y

yeah, i feel like that was pretty typical back, when back-to-back albums were common and people weren't burning off material on b-sides and side projects all the time -- lotta people built up a catalog before getting a record deal that it took 2 or 3 albums to use up.

typical back THEN

my cardboard fliptop double sire cassette of 77/msabaf from about 82 or 83 is now some rosebud level shit in my memory banks.

They'd been performing pretty much all of 77/More Songs live before 77 even dropped.

Yeah, there's a fan letter in the liner notes to Sand In The Vaseline wherein the writer lists their fave Heads songs (all from MSAB&F), cncluding "I hope you make an album."

loved how "Warning Sign" shows up on SITV.

i've been listening to the 1975 cbs demos thing a lot recently, which interestingly has like all the songs from 77 and about half of this one

Haven't played those demos in a while but aren't there actually more MSABAF songs on it than '77 songs?

I think it wasn't until "Fear of Music" that a lot of their stuff was jammed out in the studio and sort of assembled later, which partly explains the really weird structures, especially once you get to "Remain in Light." If you've ever seen a band cover (or been in a band covering) "Once in a Lifetime," it's almost impossible to tell where the "one" on the measure is.

I assumed that was down to listening to Fela Kuti

5. The Girls Want to Be With the Girls 1
7. Artists Only 1
2. With Our Love 1

robbed!

girls are getting into
abstract analysis; they want to
make that intuitive leap!
they're making plans with
far-reaching effects!

this is my most listened to Talking Heads album at the moment. also doing a Talking Heads poll sometime in the year 2020.

my cardboard fliptop double sire cassette of 77/msabaf from about 82 or 83 is now some rosebud level shit in my memory banks.

I had that cassette. And likewise about the rosebud effect.

it was fuschia and turquise you know.

or turquoise or whatever, with a big number _2_.

This has fast become like, my joint second favourite TH studio album.

the best thing about it is how short the gaps between the tracks are. a real sense of urgency.

both the first 2 albums are such GREAT guitar records. The way the guitars are arranged, the way they're played, the way they're recorded. I like the fourth world funk dream stuff that came after but their sound on the first records is even more special to me. Meat Puppets Up On The Sun has that same clean, interlocked ecstatic sound.

his album is super-economic. no mucking about