“What is this about?”: The band that laid the blueprint for Talking Heads
I don’t mind giving you a little peek behind the Far Out curtain. We work remotely for the most part, but we have a few group chats on various subjects. One is about news, which is where we discuss breaking news and give our opinions on different topics. Late last night, one staff member shared a link from the Talking Heads. The link went to a video that played the intro to ‘Psycho Killer’ and had the date “June 5th, 2025.” Another staff member replied, saying, “Surely not… but imagine.”
“Surely not… but imagine,” essentially sums up the mindset of every Talking Heads fan when it comes to contemplating a reunion. Even in the haze of bands like Oasis and Pulp reforming and this new sense of nostalgia surrounding music, the hopes of Talking Heads ever getting back together remain exactly that: hopes. It’s unlikely ever going to happen, and instead, we are left enjoying the band for what they did as opposed to what they could do. But what a band to look back on.
It’s unsurprising to hear that members had creative differences because it felt like Talking Heads were a band who could basically do whatever they wanted. Regardless of the artistic style, everything was on the table, and it led to some of the most imaginative music and live performances ever done. Each band member came from various backgrounds, but they found a sense of unity, no matter how brief, in the fact that all those backgrounds could contribute towards this unique sound. For people who felt as though they were drifting, within the band, they had a home.
David Byrne grew up in a relatively open household. His parents showed him the music they liked, and would go to his gigs in local coffee shops, but there was something in the music he listened to that was pulling him away from his home. The Byrds and ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ were a big part of this; they took folk music, which he was familiar with, and gave it an all-new sound.
“The Byrds turned it into something unlike anything my young ears had heard before. It sounded like jangly pots and pans, bells. If you’re someone who grew up in the suburbs of Baltimore, the song is like a little telegraph from someplace else. Hearing that, I realised: ‘I have to get out of here, because there are people in other places. There’s a whole world out there that I don’t know anything about.’”
While that song spoke to Byrne, there was another band that spoke to all of the Talking Heads. When Byrne and Chris Frantz started working together on some Talking Heads songs, they didn’t have a specific direction until they stumbled upon The Velvet Underground. They realised that rather than focusing on one specific sound, they can introduce a great deal of variety, and so long as they’re championing good music, people will listen. The Velvet Underground’s reluctance to stick with a specific style or sound helped them come to this decision, and the entire band soon got on board.
“The Velvet Underground were a big revelation. I realised, ‘Oh, look at the subject of their songs: There’s a tune and a melody, but the sound is either completely abrasive or really pretty’,” said Byrne, “They swing from one extreme to the other. ‘White Light/White Heat’ is just this noise, and then ‘Candy Says’ is incredibly pretty but really kind of dark. As a young person, you go, ‘What is this about?’”
