Sunday, 5 September 2010
Sunday Night is... Talking Heads x 2
Burning Down the House
Life During Wartime
Talking Heads of course. Every ten years or so I think I have outgrown rock or (far more likely) that it has superannuated me. As a result I miss out on some magnificent things. The second track here, with extraordinary dancing by David Byrne and full-on energy by the whole band, is so exhilarating it brings joy. I wish I had seen them live then. I also wish I could embed the best available YouTube version of Take Me to the River, which is probably as good as Burning Down the House. I can't, but I can point to it.
What is it about the joyfulness of human energy that moves me so? It's the mixture of freedom and discipline, I think - the perfect balance between the two. The fact that it is possible to have both. And that it is the kind of superfluity that comes from concentration and delight, that has Byrne doing a couple of laps of the band in Life During Wartime - that shows we have more than we think.
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6 comments:
Marvellous and invigorating stuff George, thanks. And yes, great dancing. I love the way Byrne, in Burning Down the House, involves the mic stand in his dance, like a split-image Shiva.
Just exhilarating, Mark. Rare to get rock concert combined with an Olympic four hundred metres.
I cannot resist.......I have a granddaughter whose middle name is Byrne because David Byrne was a friend of her father's. In fact, George, her father is first generation American from Hungarian parents and my granddaughter was named Rozalia Byrne Schleinig........
I remember when David Byrne was as young as in this clip you have magically found.
Talking Heads started out with the principle that they would never dance to the music they played, but instead would stand still while playing, as if they were all John Entwhistle, as it were.
So when they started dancing like crazy while they played, Byrne was asked about the change, and he said something along the lines of "the music we play simply got so danceable that we couldn't stand still anymore."
And it is too bad you did not see them, George, they were utterly magnificent live. (I had the good fortune to see them twice.)
It is indeed too bad, Andrew. Wish I had. See the beginning of the blog post. 'Every ten years or so...' Stupid of me.
That's ace.
I never saw them live either but they used to regularly show the Stop Making sense film at the Screen on the Hill on a Friday night which turned out like a gig complete with marajuana smoke and dancing.
For another Sunday night is you could try Wordy Rappinghood by the splinter group Tom Tom Club if you don't already know it.
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