See the complete Talking Heads series
The only cover that Talking Heads ever recorded was a tune co-written by Al Green and his guitarist Teenie Hodges.
Like all Al Green classics, this was produced by the great Willie Mitchell. Teenie’s brothers Charles and Leroy play organ and bass respectively, the drums are by Howard Grimes, the horns are by the Memphis Horns, and the strings are by the Memphis Strings. The Reverend Al dedicated the song to his cousin Junior Parker.
Somebody suggested that I transcribe all the Talking Heads songs. I won’t do that, but I do seem to be in the process of analyzing all of my favorites. There are a bunch! Here’s one. I assume that the title is a sexual euphemism? If so, it’s a weird one.
In addition to the four band members, the track features guitar by Alex Weir and double violin by Lakshminarayana Shankar. According to the album credits, David Byrne is playing percussion. My guess is that he played over a slowed-down track and then they sped it back up. Either that, or he has secretly been a virtuoso drummer this whole time.
Here is the closest Talking Heads ever came to a legitimate pop hit, their only song to crack the Billboard Top Ten. It isn’t as conceptually or musically groundbreaking as “Once In A Lifetime“, but it contains depths of its own.
Here is what might possibly be my single favorite song in the world:
I have always had a hard time with Ornette Coleman, but I love “Lonely Woman”, because it manages to be both extremely weird and extremely catchy.
Notice that at 2:09 during Ornette’s solo, someone goes “Woo!” Rightly so.
As of last week, I am the proud recipient of a doctorate in music education from NYU. It was quite a journey! (Isn’t it always?) The official part took me six years, but the whole process really took more like ten years, or twenty, or thirty, depending on how you count. In this post I’ll do my best to tell the story of how I got here. Let’s start at the end, with my defense. Meet my advisor Alex Ruthmann, my distinguished committee members Matthew Thibeault and Charlton McIlwain, and my outside readers Jason Thompson and Nancy Smithner:
You can read my dissertation here, and listen to the mixtape here.Â
My kid is learning the Moonlight Sonata. It’s lovely and all, but for a truly fresh take on this piece, you need to hear Isaac Schankler’s version. You can think of the first movement as having three parts: the bassline, the arpeggios, and the melody. Isaac shifted the bassline a bar later and the melody a bar earlier. The result has the same somber vibe as the original, but it’s… off.
I don’t think Isaac meant this as a joke, and I don’t take it as one. I genuinely love how it sounds. It’s still recognizably tonal, but with less predictable and stable harmony. Beyond the outcome of this specific experiment, I also admire the larger cultural significance of Isaac’s willingness to tamper with a canonical masterpiece. YouTube is full of remixes of the Moonlight Sonata, but none of them are as musical or as inventive as Isaac’s.
Here’s a song I like from Speaking in Tongues:
Here’s a live version that I love, from Stop Making Sense, though the fast tempo is a bit anxiety-producing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcJtpFSjXak
And here’s my favorite version, which my kids are also completely obsessed with, from David Byrne’s American Utopia:
Since my kids continue to be obsessed with David Byrne’s American Utopia, I have Talking Heads on the brain. Here’s one of their best songs ever, produced by the band members themselves.
Here’s the delightful version from Stop Making Sense. As David Byrne says in his interview with himself, “I try to write about small things. Paper, animals, a house. Love is kind of big. I have written a love song, though. In this film, I sing it to a lamp.”
Here’s a good life goal: learn to enjoy doing anything as much as Alex Weir enjoys playing the guitar.
