Why David Byrne found Talking Heads “contradictory”
Nothing about the Talking Heads fits the typical mould of a rock band. When they emerged in the 1970s as part of New York’s blossoming punk scene that included groups like Blondie, Television and the CBGB crowd, they stuck out like a sore thumb. But according to David Byrne, that’s not just a fact musically. He claims that, in several ways, the band have always been “contradictory” to expectations.
When thinking back on the New York scene of the 1970s, there’s a very specific energy. It was a rough and ready time. The East Coast had always been tougher and darker than its Californian, West Coast counterpart, making a home for more avant-garde and artful groups like The Velvet Underground while classic rock and roll ruled elsewhere. But as the 1960s faded into a new decade, that stepped up a notch, and the city streets seemed to become even meaner, and punk took hold.
The old haunts like Max’s Kansas City or the various bars that the Andy Warhol crowd used to command faded into insignificance as a new class of musicians rose up. Patti Smith emerged as a new kind of rock star, being part wild punk and part literary academic. The Ramones gave the city a more high-octane soundtrack, while Blondie gave it a new sexy yet grungey aesthetic. Down at the newly opened CBGB, it was all leather, beers and grimy interiors, providing a stage for the city’s upcoming bands, each with a heavier sound than what had come before.
Attempting to imagine David Byrne as he’s thought of now, with his big suit and his square haircut, in among that crowd feels like imagining a fish out of water. Even looking back on some of the earliest footage of the band, Talking Heads never quite fit in as Byrne is there in a dad-like get-up of a button-up shirt and trousers, while Tina Weymouth sports a primmed bowl cut and Chris Franz looks like any blue-collar male. They’re in no way the picture of a new-wave sensation, yet their sound made them one.
But even their sound isn’t typical to its time and has forever refused to be trapped in the box of what’s trendy. Their earliest tracks, like ‘Psycho Killer’ or ‘Love → Building on Fire’, are very different from their New York counterparts as their instrumentals feel measured and considered, crafted to tell the story of the song rather than running away with spirit or a penchant for chaos. That alone is a perfect example of how the group were “contradictory” to their scene. Then, as the years rolled on, the band would even defy the labels of punk or new wave that they were assigned to instead become a unique amalgamation of rock, jazz, funk and global sounds they borrowed from different musical cultures.
However, in Byrne’s eyes, the most contradictory thing about them is his own spirit as a frontman. In 1979, American Bandstand’s Dick Clark famously asked the singer, “Are you a shy person?” to which he characteristically mumbled back, “I’d say so”. To him, it’s that introverted streak in the face of the most extroverted industry of them all that has always made them conflicting.
Reflecting on that interaction, CBS’s Anderson Cooper said, “It seems contradictory to a lot of people, the introvert who winds up on a stage in front of thousands of people performing and reaching great heights.”
In response, Byrne said, “It does seem contradictory, but in retrospect, it makes perfect sense.”
Like with their style and music, he sees this contradiction in his energy as a part of their recipe for success. It was what allowed them to endure as a group, especially because it allowed the shy singer a way to express himself and protect himself.
“Your way of announcing your existence and communicating your thoughts to people is through performance, and then I could retreat into my shell after that,” he explained, “But I’d made myself known to these people what I was thinking, what I was feeling. So when that’s your only option, it’s a lifesaver.”
It could be said that this so-called “contradiction”, amongst all the other things that set them apart from their scene, was exactly what allowed them to survive it, never limiting themselves to one moment in time and not burning themselves out amidst its chaos.
