Talking Heads - Talking Heads: 77

I had just bought Talking Heads: 77 and put the disc along with several others in my backpack, I think the idea was that I was going to make a mix-tape at the college radio station. The cool thing about making mix-tapes there was that you could use the production room and mix everything together. It sounded like 45 minutes (per side) of the coolest radio station ever, and they were some of the best compilations I’d done because I spent a lot of time thinking them out beforehand.
“Talking Heads: 77…that album is great.” commented by television professor. He was flipping through my cds, asking about a few before stopping on the N.Y.C. quartet’s debut album.
I never really had a discussion about music with him before. He was just this slight, bald dude maybe 10 years older than his class that came to Iowa from Texas. And we all know how much Texas sucks. Well, except for Austin which is awesome and a place I’d move to in a heartbeat if giving the opportunity and a wife who’d be willing to move so far away.
“Can you tape it for me?” he asked.
“Sure. Just bring some blank tapes to class for me.”
My opinion of this professor had changed after this. The more I spent with him the more I realized he was pretty cool. I discovered that he and his wife did come from Austin. He was familiar with Scratch Acid and had an unbridled affection for the Big Boys, a pioneering punk band out of Austin.
One of the best stories that he told me was the time when he was on an airplane and suddenly the entire King Sunny Ade band including the “Minister Of Enjoyment” himself made their way on to the plane. The professor recognized him/them only because they all wore their colorful Nigerian clothing on the plane, drawing attention to all of the white folks.
“We’re you flying first class?” I asked, thinking that first class is the only place suitable for the leader of world juju music.
“Coach.” he replied.
The professor went on to explain that Sunny sat in the seat next to him. The men were cordial to each other, introduced themselves and what they did for a living. The professor acknowledged that he was familiar with him and the band, but little beyond an appearance from Saturday Night Live. After the pleasantries were finished, the two men sat in uncomfortable silence for the rest of the flight.
He brought me a Maxell cassette and quizzed me on my audio equipment and noise reduction technique. Occasionally, I ran into these people. This is a minor problem in not letting your inventory leave the house. Certain audiophiles or particular people will want their cassette copies to sonically compare to their existing copies.
“What kind of noise reduction do you use? Dolby B?”
“Dolby C” I corrected.
“That’s fine. I was going to have you record it using a normal bias on these chrome tapes if all you had was Dolby B. Dolby B knocks off a lot of the high end.”
It took me some time to “get” Talking Heads: 77. I was used to the wider expanses of their later work and their debut is about as pure and raw as you could imagine. This was the Heads’ at their most primitive state (with the exception of their early live shows, I’m sure, and parts of The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads) and it’s still an unusual listen.
The dynamics are dry and two-dimensional. The arrangements are simple and taught. The lyrics are strange and oblique. It’s unlike anything you’ll hear and, as a result, you need time to absorb how complex it all sounds when it fits together.
This is pop music at its most extreme. There are melodies and hooks throughout 77, but they may take the shape in a guitar arpeggio, a vocal phrase, or in the phonetics of a word.
Ever fallen in love? Only under the glow of a new love’s shine would you ever tolerate steel drums, and guess what’s bouncing around underneath the mix of the opener “Uh-Oh, Love Comes To Town?” That’s right: steel drums. “I called in sick/I won’t go to work today/I’d rather be with the one I love/I neglect my duties/I’ll be in trouble.”
Have you ever called in “sick” just to spend the day with the one you love because they have the day off? Have you ever spent the day in bed with them, naked, making love to the point where you’re sore, leaving the bedroom only to grab a soda or snack?
That’s “Uh-Oh, Love Comes To Town!”
During this election year…and nearly every election year…I think of the song “Don’t Worry About The Government.” Taken from the view of an optimistic candidate, it’s a satirical look at the entire election cycle, their inherent belief that when they are elected everything is going to be ok. “I pick the building that I want to live in….That’s the building I’m going to live in…It’s going to make life easy for me.” But the moment you feel the need to question the candidate’s ability or exactly how they plan to accomplish their platform, Byrne adds “Don’t you worry about me….It’s going to be easy to get things done.” One can almost imagine a few politicians thinking those same things when contemplating their campaigns.
It’s a toss up between “Psycho Killer” and “No Compassion” as to which is my favorite. The former you know about, but it’s the latter than I find myself mumbling at the most appropriate moments. “They say compassion is a virtue,” reminds Byrne, “But I don’t have the time.” I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve played the line “Talk to your analyst/Isn’t that what they’re paid for?” in my head whenever I’m forced to listen to the dramas and tragedies of someone that I don’t have any emotional connection with at all.
How 77 lyrically holds up some thirty plus years later is amazing. It’s like Byrne perfectly captured the sentiment of post-Nixon cynicism and the skewed vision of America to the point where it took years for us to fully realize it. And because of the production strategy, unadorned and without any frills thanks to Jon Bon Jovi’s second cousin, Tony Bongiovi behind the boards.
There are hundreds of bands influenced by Talking Heads’ lead, but I am hard pressed to see how a record company…a major no less…saw how this band could make any commercial impact down the road. But that was the record company circa ’77: sign a band and give them a few years to develop and see where time takes them. The irony is that the Talking Heads were already fairly well developed in 77, and the band’s next few turns took them to equally interesting places and, amazingly, increasing commercial success. Even if they stopped after this debut or continued using the same bent formula, we’d still be talking about what an achievement it was and pointing to all the bands indebted to its greatness.