I go way, way back with Talking Heads. The first band I was ever in did “And She Was” as an acoustic folk number. My wife, who is awesome, recently took me on a date to see American Utopia on Broadway. You can see the fantastic filmed version directed by Spike Lee on HBO.
Like everything David Byrne does, the visuals are striking. The enormous band is dressed in matching grey suits, but their feet are bare. All the mics and instruments are wireless. The stage is surrounded by chain-link curtains but is otherwise empty. The lighting is all flat colors, simple geometric shapes, and the performers’ shadows. With nothing else to look at, you focus on the faces and the bodies, which, as David explains at one point, is the whole idea.
It is so inspiring to see a 68 year old guy singing and dancing like this. I can only hope to have similar energy at that age.
I love David Byrne unreservedly, but I was in a bit of a mood the night we went to see the show, and at one point I was thinking, okay, this is fun, but what does it have to do with anything? Like, what about climate change? Five minutes later, as if he read my mind, David said from the stage, “Climate change – you kids are fucked.” You could read a certain amount of social satire into some Talking Heads songs, but overt political speech during a set is a new thing. David Byrne has apparently gotten woke! Mostly I’m glad about this, but it sometimes manifests awkwardly. Toward the end of the show, the band covered “Hell You Talmbout” by Janelle Monáe.
David explained that he had asked Janelle Monáe’s permission to do the song, and she had given her blessing. That reduced the cringe factor somewhat, but did not eliminate it. I talked about this with my NYU students. One of them said, maybe he should have just let his Black band members sing it. Another observed that she had seen some Black audience members walking out. I can understand that reaction.
Anyway, we showed some excerpts of the movie to the kids, and they were immediately hooked. They have wanted to listen to the songs every day since. I figured, hey, if they like those versions, wait until they hear the originals! But no, they actively dislike the Talking Heads versions of the songs. Also, they like the David Byrne solo material better, especially “Everybody’s Coming to My House” and “I Know Sometimes a Man is Wrong.” That makes sense, those songs are more obviously “about” something. But how could they prefer the sound of 68-year-old David to the sound of 26-year-old David?
Maybe my kids didn’t like the album versions of the Talking Heads classics because they missed the visual reference? I figured they would love watching Stop Making Sense.
Nope! They were actively uninterested. My daughter loves the American Utopia version of “Slippery People”, but she refused to watch more than two minutes of the Stop Making Sense version. The kids were also totally unmoved by the big suit. I couldn’t figure it out.
After I thought about it, I concluded that the kids are reacting negatively to Talking Heads’ punk energy. The music isn’t angry, exactly, but it is manic and anxious. David Byrne’s bugged out eyes and straining tendons do not convey the sense of a man at peace with himself. This tightly wound quality is exactly what drew me in as a troubled twentysomething, but I can see why a little kid would find it off-putting.
The American Utopia versions of the songs are nearly identical in their musical content to the studio versions, but they sound dramatically different. They don’t have the edge of the 70s and 80s recordings, but they have more groove. Some of it is just the musicians. Talking Heads were four uptight white punks who didn’t get along well, supplemented by varying numbers of great funk and art-rock players. American Utopia one much less uptight white former punk backed by ten or fifteen top-flight musicians and singers from around the world. It’s not a democracy, but you get the sense that it’s at least a functioning organization.