Really a 'Once in a Lifetime' tour

Look who's finally coming around to good sense: David Byrne is planning a fall tour and will play the tunes he made famous with Talking Heads.

The full list of dates hasn't been released yet, but a few dates are known: Sept. 20 in Atlanta, Sept. 26 at the Austin City Limits festival and Oct. 4 in Santa Barbara, Calif., according to the Reuters news service.

And although the tour is technically called "The Songs of Talking Heads' David Byrne and Roxy Music founder Brian Eno," Reuters says Eno will not be joining Byrne on the tour. The two musicians recently finished a new studio album -- their first joint product since 1981. Look for its release later this year.

Byrne left Talking Heads back in 1991, pursuing a solo career instead. Though the group reunited to perform in 2002 at their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, don't look for a full-time reunion anytime soon. That's one reason why this tour is a can't-miss opportunity. Here are a couple more...

TOP 5 TALKING HEADS SONGS FROM THE 80s:

5. BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE: "Cool babies. Strange but not a stranger." [Video]

4. GIRLFRIEND IS BETTER: "We wanna wait, but here we go again." [Video]

3. AND SHE WAS: "She had a pleasant elevation." [Video]

2. THIS MUST BE THE PLACE: "Cover up and say goodnight." [Video]

1. ONCE IN A LIFETIME: "And you may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful wife!" [Video]

Comments

[Douglas Arthur]

the cool thing about Naive Melody is the fact that they all switched instruments for that song. Hence the title, since they were all "naive" to their new instruments. Turned out to be one of their most memorable songs to be sure. Still can't get the image of DB dancing with the lamp during Stop Making Sense. And all those goofy slides.

[GlennS.]

I saw Talking Heads in Tampa in the 80s. I think it was the tour just before the one filmed for Stop Making Sense. Some elements were already there (Byrne running around the stage) but it was a lot looser. Tina was very pregnant at the time.

A lot of my favorite Talking Heads songs are from their first two albums, which were released in the 70s, but in the spirit of this blog here are my 80s favories:

5. People Like Us -- Sometimes Byrne's songs were slightly ruined by his tendency to get a little goofy in the lyric department. ("We don't want freedom, we don't want justice, we just need someone to love..." yeah, whatever.) Still, you haven't lived until you've seen John Goodman sing this in True Stories.

4. Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On) -- This one let you know right from the first second that Remain In Light was going to sound like no Talking Heads album before it.

3. Nothing But Flowers

2. Once In a Lifetime

1. Nieve Melody (This Must Be The Place) -- Again, this is almost a straight song except for some slightly off center lyrics. One of Byrne's best vocal performances.

[John Hays]

No way Burnin Down the House isn't #1. That's got to be their most commercial hit.

[TheLoneIguana]

Denvermatt: I still maintain that's the only good thing about Radiohead.

[Bassnote]

"This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)" is my favorite 80s Talking Heads tune. I love the line, "You've got a face with a view."

A former boss of mine had a great story of seeing the Talking Heads in a small club in St. Louis, when he was in college. He went into the washroom before the show, and there was a guy in a stall puking his guts out. The guy turned out to be David Byrne.

[Clark]

Douglas, your post was long but said what I was going to (plus more background and insight) so thanks. And I'm with you: I certainly respect and admire what he's done as an artist but I wish he hadn't burned all the TH bridges. That may be me living in the past but it's still sad.

[Douglas Arthur]

BTW, I think, along with DEVO, Talking Heads is a big gaping hole in the podcast canon right now. How about a T-Heads 'cast Spearsy? You'll thank me later. If you need any material, let me know I can help on this one, too!

[Douglas Arthur]

For a long time Byrne renounced his Talking Heads past. I recall when I went to see him on the Rei Momo tour, he played exactly one song from his back catalog. Papa Legba from True Stories, which lent itself pretty well to the latin vibe he was jiving on at the time. When I saw him again in '94 for the "David Byrne" tour, I think he played 3 or 4 songs, including some obscurios like Don't Worry About The Government from '77. When he split up the band it was like a long slow process that no one knew about except himself. He had divorced himself completely after the Naked album in 88 or 89 and didn't inform his band mates until sometime in 1992 or so I think. Right around the time the Sand In The Vaseline compilation came about. One of the early dust-ups in the band was 1980's Remain In Light, when he and Eno tried to hijack the whole project and take all the songwriting and producing credit for themselves. I know that Tina and Chris especially were vocal about it and Jerry was miffed because a lot of folks felt like he hadn't added anything, and that his Red and the Black solo album was derivative of Remain in Light. There was actually a plan in place by Chris and Tina to replace David with Adrian Belew who was touring with them at the time, but he wound up taking Robert Fripp's offer to join a new version of King Crimson instead.
I have mixed feelings about this because i have a great deal of respect for David's talents and songwriting, but i hate him for being such a jerk in his personal life that he would treat his bandmates and friends in such a way. If he comes anywhere near I'll probably go, but it won't be the same without Jerry, Chris and Tina.

Remember when he sued them when they came out with the No Talking Just Head album? Something about how they were dilluting the quality of the Talking Heads name or somesuch nonsense. They wound up having to give him money and a producer credit even though he had absolutely nothing to do with it!

At this stage with all the acrimoniousness I think you are right, they will never play together again. Which is just too damn bad in my book.

Talking Heads were my portal into all sorts of other great music. In 1980, not long after that trip to NYC I mentioned in my previous Billy Joel post, my friend Chris got Remain in Light for his birthday, and I started to take more notice of the new wave scene. Devo's freedom of Choice also dropped that year. I really latched onto the T-Heads though and listened to them almost exlcusively throughout high school. But from them I branched out into Eno, Fripp, Belew, Roxy Music, King Crimson, and so on. While others gravitated toward the more "booty shakin" aspects of their music, I was drawn to the experimentalism and musical eclecticism.
ok. sorry for the long post. First day off in a while and I haven't posted much lately so I figured I was due.

my quick top 5 80's Talking Heads songs, not in any order:

The Great Curve from Remain In Light
A Clean Break from The Name Of This Band is Talking Heads
Swamp from Speaking In Tongues (and featured in Risky Business!)
Road To Nowhere from Little Creatures
Once In A Lifetime from Remain In Light

ciao for now

[jo]

O yeah, almost forgot, DB also developed `Giant Shoes` for Bonwit Teller, & `Giant Life Rafts` for New York City. Not one to rest on his laurels, he's always got someting goin.

[jo]

Love the "Playing The Building" project. I will try to go to that,even tho I must wait in a long line. And love even more: the TOEJAM VIDEO, DB's new project with BPA(Fatboy Slim). The dude's ON FIRE right now!

[Jeff from Vegas]

Using the down-the-forearm chop for Thumper -- now that's inspired. I wish I'd thought of that.

[surfdog]

saw 'em at tampa bay performin arts awesome!anyone see this video
its cool
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1D-8W4HXFlE
kinda 70's ish

[jane]

I have a particular attachment to "Once in a Lifetime," now that I think about it. In college, when playing Thumper (http://tinyurl.com/64wst7 for a definition) my go-to gesture was the down-the-forearm-chop Byrne used in the "Once in a Lifetime" video. Never let me down, because people would invariably get confused as to which way to chop. Good times, good times.

[Rick]

David Byrne is definitely an artist, unfortunately not always in the best sense of the word -- as in not making sense to the audience.

Fans will love to see and hear TH music, and perhaps Roxy Music tunes sung by Byrne (?), but does he doubt that they have forgotten who he is?

I mean, do you suppose a Bryan Ferry tour would need to title it "The Songs of Roxy Music's Bryan Ferry"?

I don't get it. But I never got the giant suit either.

[Miguel]

Here`s the site where you can read more about "Playing the Building" project.

http://www.davidbyrne.com/art/art_projects/playing_the_building/index.php

The project schedule is a little different from the one i wrote previously.

[Miguel]

Oh,Talking Heads.My favourite tunes are "Once in a Lifetime","Wild Wild Life" and "Psycho Killer". "Road to Nowhere" could be in the list too.

[Miguel]

Have you heard about the new David Byrne challenge? It`s called "Playing the Building",where Byrne invites the visitors to use this New York building´s structure as a giant musical instrument.You`ll have utensils at your disposal,to help making this building into a giant industrial symphony.It`s in the Battery Maritime Building on 10,South Street between July 30 and August 10.
He had made it originally in Stockolm in 2005.

[Michelle]

This reminds me of Tina Weymouth's quote on VH1's "Top 100 Songs of the '80s" (paraphrased)-- "We broke up because David wanted it to be David Byrne all the time." She was so straight-up in her answer.

[Spears]

Psycho Killer is a 70s song, but I guess we should grandfather in the live version, which sounds completely different.

[Denvermatt]

Bonus Trivia:

The group Radiohead took their name off a song on that soundtrack.

[Denvermatt]

No Wild Wild Life? I love that song, In fact I enjoy the entire soundtrack to True Stories

and movie is charming as hell.

[CHAD]

never a big fan, handful of songs i like.

[jane]

I'm with Sherrie on this one -- if this tour comes anywhere near me, I'm there. Also need to put a plug in for "Stay Up Late" and "Wild Wild Life" as two of my faves, in addition to "Once in a Lifetime", "Road to Nowhere" and "And She Was."

[Sherrie]

Now that is a show that I would love to see. My top Talking Heads songs from the 80's:
Psycho Killer (esp. the live version on Stop Making Sense)
Road To Nowhere
and absolutely any song from Naked (1988)- that was a great album