Talking Heads

The story goes that the song got its title because everyone swapped instruments for it in the studio, right?

that's what they say but in the credits the only swapping is Tina playing guitar and Byrne keyboards.

From Wiki:

In the "Self Interview" on the DVD of the concert film Stop Making Sense, Byrne admits that it is a love song, a topic he tends to avoid because it is "kinda big". He also said of the song:

"That's a love song made up almost completely of non sequiturs, phrases that may have a strong emotional resonance but don't have any narrative qualities. It's a real honest kind of love song. I don't think I've ever done a real love song before. Mine always had a sort of reservation, or a twist. I tried to write one that wasn't corny, that didn't sound stupid or lame the way many do. I think I succeeded; I was pretty happy with that."

According to the Stop Making Sense commentary track, the title "Naive Melody" refers to the music. On the track, the guitar part and the bass part are doing the same thing throughout the whole song. According to David Byrne, many professional musicians would not play a song written in that fashion, and that is what makes the melody naive. Byrne played the lead keyboard solo.

Which also gets at what I was saying, that it's the rare "love" song in the band's catalog.

Love song outlier is certainly a quality it has with "In Your Eyes." I want to say Gabriel up until then had specifically avoided using the word "love" or writing in the first person, as an anti-cliche exercise.

But I can see why some people so many years down the line might confuse both "This Must Be the Place" and "In Your Eyes" for the hits that they weren't.

My initial exposure of "This Might Be The Place" came from deciding to check out the performance from Stop Making Sense because he alluded to it in his self interview and I wanted to watch him sing and dance with a lamp.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE-mxVxFXLg

R.I.P. mywalloftapes.blogspot.com

why'd it go down?

Who was that guy? I wanted to know the story.

Oh no. So many great tapes. Dude said he was dying and was gonna post stuff until he got legal complains or something

someone at yankee stadium has good music taste - a couple days ago, they played "Native Melody" right before the game started.

https://41.media.tumblr.com/d959a82fda7a8c0fd8487ebe687bb6e8/tumblr_nkhxq2JL8O1rqe2plo5_1280.png

You may ask yourself: Why is this suit so large?

You may ask yourself: Does this store not have any mirrors?

HEARD SOMEONE SAY TO ME "DAVID, I LOVE YOU"

woah

gotta remember to yell that if i ever see him live and he does this song

HEARD SOMEONE SAY TO ME "DAVID, I LOVE YOU"

you may say to yourself yourself. My God!...What have I done?

There's a picture of Byrne hanging out with Billy Gibbons in the new Rolling Stone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-_PC6TlIhs&list=PLhnmhDNF1JJgdRw46c-l-CY8dtfUU5PF8

wonderful, thanks!

What do people here think of Byrne's musical/oddball comedy TRUE STORIES (1986)? I think it's
immensely funny and heartfelt simultaneously. It could've become a disastrous vanity project, but I
believe it's an amazing achievement. Shame that he's never directed another fictional feature.

After a decade of writing off this band as overrated and trading in all of their albums, I've decided to give them a second try and dive back in headfirst.

My main takeaways at this point are:

—Remain in Light is so dark! I don't remember it being so slow and, well, dreary. I love it!
—More Songs About Buildings and Food is roughly fifty times better than I remember it being. Every song is catchy as heck.
—Little Creatures is probably my most listened to album of theirs and it's held up really well.
—The biggest rediscovery has been 'This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody).' That song is so good, jeez.
—True Stories and Naked are really a lot better than their reputations.

It's funny what a little passing of time can do for one's attitude toward music. I don't think the Talking Heads are destined to become my favorite anything, but this reassessment has at least got me truly enjoying their music for the first time ever.

my next poll, i expect it to break records.

about a year away. i think.

—True Stories and Naked are really a lot better than their reputations.

Did Naked have a bad rep? I remember it being praised in a "daring return to form!" kind of way.

Well, I wasn't there at the time, so all I've heard through the years was that it was not up to previous standards.

live recordings are so so so crucial

Good discussion: Talking Heads: Naked poll

to summarize: one of those return-to-form albums labeled as such after critics had liked-not-loved the last but forgotten by the end of the year

—True Stories and Naked are really a lot better than their reputations.

haha -- no they're not

Austin, what about 77?

to summarize: one of those return-to-form albums labeled as such after critics had liked-not-loved the last but forgotten by the end of the year

Yeah, I think the fact that WXRT in Chicago played the shit out of Naked's 2-3 standout tracks for years is why I thought it's reputation was better than it is. I haven't listened to it in years, not do I particularly feel compelled to.

And True Stories, ugh, what an uncomfortably forced pile of garbage. It was one of those records I listened to more than it deserved, trying in vain to convince myself that there had to be more to it than one-dimensional self-parody.

Little Creatures is still wonderful, though. I remember hearing "And She Was" in a record store on its release day and thinking, "man, I hope the new Talking Heads record I'm about to buy is as good as whatever this is."

I played the shit out of naked when it came out and still have a lot of fondness for it

I could never get into Little Creatures and True Stories, although I gave the former another spin the other day and I didn't hate it.

Naked is great though. Very little I don't like on that album.

live recordings are so so so crucial

otm - the expanded edition of the name of this band is talking heads is amazing

I like Little Creatures and True Stories, the production on the latter is a little ugly though.

whatever happened to Eric 'ET' Thorngren? he seemed to specialise in this sort of boxy, thudding mid-80s R&B tinged rock music and was everywhere for a few years and then disappeared (he also seems to have worked as an engineer on a lot of Sugar Hill Records stuff)

he also engineered Robert Palmer's records from the period

Records that invented the box

otm - the expanded edition of the name of this band is talking heads is amazing

This is ultimate truth btw

for the 1st or 2nd half? I'm not so sure about the later performances on there, but the earlier ones are superb.

the later ones are great too. a rare case of a band for whom the live versions are often better than the studio ones.

I love the earlier stuff on the name of this band is talking heads and the later stuff on stop making sense

Hmm, in my reassessment, I've not delved into the live stuff at all.

for the 1st or 2nd half?

They're totally different but I think it's the conjunction that makes it. Your jaw drops when you realize one band could do both these things.

xp you can only get 'clean break' live, and it is all time. stop making sense 'this must be the place' is also amazing (and annoyingly not on the vinyl)

There's also that funny period around '82 when they were adding into the set solo Byrne and Harrison songs like Slink, Big Blue Plymouth and the fantastic My Big Hands.

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

what i love most about Buildings & Food is how concise it is. There's no fat on that record - just short sharp bursts of punky pop music

first disc of material on the name of this band... is uniformly better than 77 imo, maybe equal to more songs, the songs have a lot more bite to them and i love how up-front and clean everything is. for the later stuff / 2nd disc i prefer the studio versions to live... i know it gets said a lot but eno's input on those records is just >>> whereas the songs live are huge and fun and really cool but a little too messy for my taste.

I listened to Little Creatures a while back and was like wow, they really did get boring all at once, huh?

You Heads heads have heard the CBS demos, yes?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18OWqrF1KMA&list=PL678A752E5B0F458C

Wow, their sound was fully formed so early on. That's fun stuff!