What is the best Talking Heads cover of all time?
Taking on the brave task of covering certain bands or songs can be like having a cup of tea in the peak of summer to cool yourself down. Despite what they say, it’s just not going to work. Talking Heads is one of those bands.
A hot liquid in scorching temperatures probably isn’t the best analogy to prove the uniqueness of Talking Heads and all the ways their music is devastatingly impossible to replicate. However, the point is that everything about their greatness, from the CBGB, new wave fire pit they emerged from to the undercurrent of sociopolitical paranoia, isn’t something you can easily reimagine, not even when you’ve taken the time to truly understand the glint in their eye and their artistic vision.
But countless people have tried, and tried being the operative word here. It’s one thing to take into account all of the optics and the messy unpredictability that keeps us hooked in the depths of their charm even today. It’s quite another to actually capture the fright and fervour at the crux of David Byrne’s voice and his mindless ramblings, his garbled, nonsensical utterances that thrive on the cognitive dissonance of tapping into real societal relatability while also hinging on the absurdity at the centre of it all.
That said, a good cover isn’t always just about imitation, and perhaps in this case, veering off course is the best way to be seen, to be noticed, and to reflect your own artistry and everything that stands against Talking Heads’ quintessential behaviours and cadences. Perhaps it’s more about being the Talking Heads antithesis when taking on their disjointed patterns, and ruffling feathers with your own distinctive flavour without losing sight of what makes the songs so great in the first place.
Like Paramore’s take on ‘Burning Down the House’. Or Miley Cyrus’ ‘Psycho Killer’, or Blondshell’s ‘Thank You For Sending Me An Angel’, which feels like a slow crawl into the cold abyss of anti-Talking Heads artistic genius, an excellent take on something that usually feels so disarming. But what about the best cover, ever? The one that’s similar and not at all similar in all the right ways, the one that’s familiar and recognisable while also being a standalone masterpiece?
Considering all of the above, making that call is tough. Almost impossible, really. And the subject of countless lists, or lax conversations in pubs about the good, the bad, and the ugly of projects like Everyone’s Getting Involved: A Tribute to Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense. But when it all comes down to it, there really isn’t a question, because not much comes close to Peter Gabriel’s classy and graceful take on ‘Listening Wind’.
A cover so impactful that Far Out once proclaimed it superceded the original, Gabriel’s ‘Listening Wind’ was one of the more ambitious revisions, though also the one that lingers the longest, with a taste of the original meandering deep beneath the surface (without the harsh rhythms harbouring in the original) with an additional haunt that feels like the song was always inherently his own. It ventures, at first, somewhere half-resigned in its own whispered ghostlike quality, simmering in the dark glory of Talking Heads’ version with a classic twist, a familiar build that changes the entire emotion of the song.
And this is a view Byrne also shares, ardently. “It’s a touchy subject,” Byrne said, reflecting on the song’s delicate subject matter. “[Gabriel] brings a kind of sweetness out of the song. It brings a lot of yearning and personal emotion.”
We can chew on these words endlessly, but at the crux of it is a testimonial that proves the suspicion that Gabriel knew exactly which buttons to press when taking on such a difficult task, making his song the ultimate Talking Heads cover.
