The surprising first song Tina Weymouth fell in love with
Former Talking Heads bassist, Tina Weymouth, is a legend for many reasons. Fusing art-punk with funk, she gave the New York quartet their essence, imbuing dynamism into their work and allowing them to appeal to people from all walks of life. She was one of the only prominent females in rock at the time, setting a great and encouraging example for other girls wanting to enter the industry. This cannot be understated, given the widespread misogyny of the time. Ultimately, it was not just in a musical sense that Weymouth helped change popular culture.
Always dedicated to having a good time, naturally, Weymouth imbued a strong dose of herself in her music, and for this reason, she, Talking Heads and her other outfit, the widely influential Tom Tom Club, stand out from the crowd.
During a recent interview with Far Out, we had the chance to ask her for the name of her favourite Talking Heads song, and understandably, it was a hard ask. “Well, that’s interesting… hmm,” she said, “It’s like picking a favourite child. But what’s the most fun one to play? I always love ‘Don’t Worry About the Government’. Oh, and ‘No Compassion’! I just love playing ‘No Compassion’, even though the sentiment is crazy.”
“Let’s see,” Weymouth continued. “‘Life During Wartime’, ‘Burning Down the House’, ‘Once in a Lifetime’, ‘Psycho Killer’. I really enjoy playing ‘Psycho Killer’.”
Given that Weymouth finds it so hard to pick her favourite works from all of her exploits, fans have long sought to understand the music that made her so brilliant, as a lot is going on, from Pere Ubu to hula music. During a recent interview with NME for the ‘Soundtrack of my Life’ segment, she shocked us all when she revealed the title of the first song she fell in love with.
Weymouth divulged that she first fell in love with American entertainer Burl Ives’ classic rendition of the Christmas staple ‘Frosty the Snowman’ at age three. She recalled: “I remember hearing classical music before I even heard pop songs – ‘The Nutcracker Suite’, I loved that one. ‘Dance Of The Flowers’. But when I was about six or seven years old, I bought a 45, it was Burl Ives singing a Christmas song. I loved Burl Ives’s voice. It was this friendly, deep basso. I was already madly in love, since I was three, with Liberace playing at the piano because he was he was always showing his rings. He would go to the apron of the stage and almost offer people his hand to kiss his rings. What a joker!”
