David Byrne disrupts the echo chamber on new single ‘Everybody Laughs’
On his first single in seven years, David Byrne delivers a perversely simple message: ‘Everybody Laughs’. The melody is almost mundanely upbeat, the chords are borderline platitudinal, the structure is safe, and Kid Harpoon’s production is sparse and unpolished. There is little to distract from the pertinent message, one which is worth repeating as much in this piece as it is in Byrne’s prancing song: everybody laughs.
For a while now, the world hasn’t seemed so certain of that fact. Human commonalities are a universal truth willfully disregarded in the modern age. We don’t want to comprehend that a differing opinion can be held by a good person—the two factors are surely at odds. Are the sinister bad guys in our midst even people? Are they really capable of laughter, as this former Talking Heads art-punk countlessly supposes?
In an aberrance of nature, the answer, by and large, feels like ‘no’. Quite often, it seems like the world is increasingly full of adversaries who are only capable of the mwahaha of a camp villain, at best. We have our own ideologies about what a human should think and feel, and how they should behave, and if they differ too greatly from this viewpoint, then we conclude that this must mean they are somehow less than human, incapable of a chuckle.
It sounds vaguely ludicrous when presented in these hypothetical terms in a review of a pop song, but this dehumanising presentiment often plays out as true. Take, for example, the word: Palestine. Of all the words written in this article, none will induce such a visceral response. The very utterance of it prompts the clenching of jaws and twitching of muscles as readied opinions lie in wait.
Such a reaction is understandable given the urgent stakes, but our snap reflex to Palestine being merely referenced is not always because it draws the ire of an urge for justice and peace, but a drive for personal judgment. It’s inevitable that readers will now be itching to either fiercely agree or disagree in some firm manner from this point forth.
Alas, this piece forgoes political specifics: it’s just a review of a pop song—a pleasant and uneventful pop song that perfectly delivers its important message. The world is often presented in modern media through a clash of polar views, ostensibly so that a handshake in the middle can be mustered, but all that materialises is an intense argument. Byrne’s inverse of this is a far better approach: to meet in the middle and explore our views and differences with empathy and respect.
‘Everybody Laughs’ is buoyantly wholesome and bluntly simple, serving as the perfect tonic to troubling times that are all too often 180 degrees different to the track’s message. Happy chords are strummed out straightly on an acoustic guitar, as Byrne makes a pledge for a platform for harmony. Soon, the song arrives at an example of that harmony in artistic motion as an unassorted choir rises up around him. It affirms, in its own clear and cheery way, that we can build bridges and find harmonious commonality if we first accept that we all laugh.
In his wisdom, the 73-year-old reconciles how we are often sucked into our phones and fail to make the same connections that the song does—gathering bit-by-bit into a bigger anthem with each passing statement in a similar manner to Stop Making Sense, the Talking Heads concert film from 1984. But that sense of coming together and joining in a jovial celebration of life and music is all the more meaningful in 2025.
Recent studies have quite literally shown that phone usage draws us into an echo chamber, and we become less empathetic with those who display differing views. That’s no way to get people onto the same page. We must be less binary in our approach to each other. As Byrne beautifully wrote in Bicycle Diaries:
“I sense the world might be more dreamlike, metaphorical, and poetic than we currently believe—but just as irrational as sympathetic magic when looked at in a typically scientific way. I wouldn’t be surprised if poetry—poetry in the broadest sense, in the sense of a world filled with metaphor, rhyme, and recurring patterns, shapes, and designs—is how the world works. The world isn’t logical, it’s a song.”
David Byrne
If the world can edge closer to the song ‘Everybody Laughs’, then it’ll be a better place—and that’s just about as good as music gets. His new album, Who Is The Sky? is set for release via Matador on September 5th. It will be accompanied by a forthcoming world tour.
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