Some Songs Considered

“And She Was” – Talking Heads
(Words/music: David Byrne, available on Little Creatures, Sire 1985)

If I asked you to ignore the audio box at the top of this post and the two lines identifying the song and album and start listing off Talking Heads songs, I’d imagine that most of you would go through a decent number before getting to “And She Was.”  I’m not condemning that because I’d be the same way.  I suppose it’s more to point out that we levy more attention toward the band’s more complex beginnings, be it the eccentricities of their first couple albums or the Funkadelic-borrowing juggernaut the band became in the early 1980s.  These recordings require effort to untie and ultimately reward this close scrutiny with new wrinkles gradually revealed over time.  Naturally, spending more time immersed in Remain in Light puts those songs in more immediate memory.

That being said, the art of “And She Was” lies in the minimal attention it demands.  This isn’t a whirlwind of Adrian Belew or a twisted string of words.  Instead, David Byrne (who started to elbow out the rest of his band by this point) put all of the pieces together with the same care that the band assembled previous records, only this time with brighter and lighter tones.  The arpeggios in the verse ring brightly, the wood block pops during the chorus, and the electric guitar turns up at just the right point at the end of the song.  Even Byrne’s vocal tics find a place in the song, most notably in the “has” and “hips” in the final chorus.  However, it’s the unbridled joy in Byrne’s voice in the repeated “hey”s in the final pre-chorus that perhaps best characterizes the song.  The band wrote plenty of simple songs (“Thank You for Sending Me an Angel,” “Heaven,” and “This Must Be the Place,” to name a few), and even if “And She Was” doesn’t rival the band’s most artfully constructed compositions, it deserves a place in the discussion of the band’s greatness.  Or, if you’re anything like me, it deserves more recognition for the number of times I turn it up in the car and sing along.

More on Talking Heads: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody)” – Talking Heads
(Words/music: David Byrne/Chris Frantz/Jerry Harrison/Tina Weymouth, available on Stop Making Sense: Special New Edition, Sire 1999)

First, let’s talk about this “Naïve Melody” business.  From their art school roots up through David Byrne’s dense blog posts, the Talking Heads and their affiliated members (Brian Eno was virtually a studio-only member of this band for a few albums) are known for being intelligent musicans.  So when David Byrne’s first love song (dubbed so by him in the Stop Making Sense self-interview) comes with the word “naïve,” the implication is that it that the Heads had to put aside their genre-bending and challenging sound in order to write a love song.  Even if this was Byrne’s first love song (and I’d disagree, but that’s irrelevant), it may be “naïve” but it certainly isn’t stupid.  If nothing else, writing a simple song takes self-awareness and a little bit of faith to know to get out of its way.

Appropriately, Bryne’s narrator finds happiness in his instincts.  “Home – is where I want to be,” he sings in the first line, and it’s a sentiment that we all share, especially around this time of year.  We spend so much energy trying to find happiness without realizing what we have.  As soon as Byrne’s narrator realizes this – that he’s already home when he’s in the company of the one he loves – the restlessness ceases.  Just as a complicated arrangement might adulterate the “naïve melody” in this song, Byrne’s narrator realizes that he doesn’t have to look in far off places to be happy.  Instead, just like an animal follows its instincts, he trusts his heart and revels in the joy his loved one provides.

Of course, the song (particularly the Stop Making Sense version) isn’t as simple as that.  Letting the melody take the lead is one thing, but the Talking Heads fall into formation behind it, complementing its simplicity without squashing it.  Whether it’s that beautiful synthesizer introduction, the joyously belted vocal harmonies, or the wordless cooing and “hey” Byrne shouts out before the solo near the end of the song, the Heads sound like a band at home, basking in the glow of their song.  It’s not as urgent, oblique, or challenging as most of their work, but these qualities would crush such a delicate song.  The genius of the song is in its simplicity – by stepping outside their normal mode of operating, the band found a way to repurpose its strengths to accomplish a different goal.  It may be a simple melody, but let’s be honest – none of us would have come up with it.

(As postscript, the idea of “home” being what makes someone happy really hits home today.  In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for all the people who make my life feel like “home” everyday, whether they actively try or not.)

More on Talking Heads: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Fewer Broken Pieces” – David Bazan
(Words/music: David Bazan, available on Fewer Moving Parts, Barsuk Records 2007)

Bands break up all the time, but we still shrug our shoulders at band breakups when the band in question is essentially a single person’s creative output.  When David Bazan announced that Pedro the Lion was disbanding, it prompted a few puzzled looks since it was primarily his project.  Bazan tackles this directly on his first solo EP, turning the awkward conversations with friends about “going solo” into a song asserting his control.  Bazan makes a fair point at the center of the song – “fewer moving parts means fewer broken pieces,” namely that fewer individuals involved with a recording means fewer people to placate.  Even though he wrote nearly 90% of the Pedro the Lion songs, Bazan authored and performed all of the songs on his EP – a first in his recording career.  Even if it sounds like it could have fit in on the last Pedro the Lion album, Bazan now owns every single second of the recording – every note, every word, every stray sound. 

Aside from Bazan’s astute observation (even if it’s a bit of an oversimplification), I’m drawn in to the casual reference he makes to “David Byrne on Bob Costas.”  I can’t find the clip online, but a message on a Talking Heads board summarizes the conversation Byrne and Costas had in 2004, placing Byrne as the “focal point of the Talking Heads and the outlet from which all artistical [sic] talent flowed from.”  In this context, it’s easy to see why Bazan would look to shed his Pedro the Lion moniker – since he garnered all of the credit for his band, he may as well take it.  While Bazan surrounded himself with capable musicians, I’m not sure it’s quite the same as the Talking Heads.  Yes, like David Byrne, Bazan was the creative core of the band, but in the studio Bazan bore a greater burden than Byrne.  Byrne also had much bigger egos to contend with, sharing writing credits with his bandmates and often producer Brian Eno.  It’s a slippery slope – Byrne might have been the primary songwriter and creative influence, but he doesn’t become famous without his band (or Eno’s guidance, probably).  Bazan, on the other hand, was the natural focal point of his band.  In his case, he was taking complete ownership of what was 95% his in the first place.  Byrne went off on his own to show how he could shine independently (and, arguably, has succeeded).  If Bazan has anything to prove by going solo, it’s to himself.

More on David Bazan: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“One Fine Day” – David Byrne and Brian Eno
(Words/music: David Byrne and Brian Eno, available on Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, Todo Mundo 2008)

I think I listened to Everything that Happens Will Happen Today once before I read Byrne and Eno’s notes, but after reading that David Byrne wrote “One Fine Day” after reading Dave Eggers’ What is the What, a book I was in the process of reading at the time, I went right back the song.  Byrne’s summarizes the novel quite well in his introductory note to the album:

I’d just finished reading Dave Eggers’s book What is the What?, about a young man named Valentino and his hallucinatory and horrific journey from his destroyed village in Darfur to Atlanta, Georgia and beyond. Valentino’s story was harrowing but also beautiful, uplifting (in a un-corny way), and at times even funny. I think I may have been under the spell of his story when I sat down in front of my microphone.

The result is “One Fine Day.”

I particularly like Byrne’s choice of words here, describing it as being “under the spell of his story,” in part because Valentino Achak Deng’s story is incredible, but also because he sounds enchanted on the song.  The entire album, a creation of what Eno calls “electronic gospel,” sounds warm and inviting, but “One Fine Day” in particular has a sunny radiance to it.  The song, a simple ode to perseverance through trying times, wraps itself in a combination of synthesized and authentic instruments.  Rather than sound jarring or incongruous (as their previous collaboration My Life in the Bush of Ghosts did by design), the two together give the song a dream-like quality – specifically, the type of dream that seems stuck between being awake and asleep.

Byrne’s vocals steal the show – his voice sounds as good as ever, and his choice to add layers of harmonies cultivates the warm and hazy feeling Eno’s music established.  Appropriately, in a song about the perseverance of the human spirit, vocals take the spotlight.  When Eggers and Deng first met, the two spent a lot of time discussing how to tell Deng’s story, ultimately deciding that Eggers would mute his own idiosyncratic voice in favor of writing Deng’s story in his voice, and the novel benefits from his perspective.  It becomes a story of a voice that endured all of life’s extremes, so it’s entirely fitting that Byrne’s tribute celebrates the human voice as well.

More on David Byrne: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm
More on Brian Eno: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm