In the 1980s, two of my favorite albums were soundtracks David Byrne did as odd side projects: Music from The Knee Plays, Byrne’s linking music for the never-staged 9 1/2 hour Robert Wilson avant-garde musical spectacle the CIVIL warS: a tree is best measured when it is down, which was also supposed to have music by Philip Glass and Gavin Bryers. (The Glass music was eventually released, and which I also recommend; as far as I know the Bryers pieces haven’t been), and Sounds From True Stories, the soundtrack of incidental music from his quirky film True Stories, which shares some themes with the Talking Heads album of the same name.
And then both of them went out of print and, for the longest time, never came out on CD. This was deeply frustrating, because my old record player finally gave up the ghost, and besides The Forest and “Hanging Upside Down,” those two albums contain Byrne’s best solo work.
Finally, a few years ago, Knee Plays came out, and is well worth picking up for tracks like “Winter” and “In the Future.” (I saw The Dirty Dozen Brass Band perform live accompaniment to a sort of mime show at the Bass Concert Hall way back in the dim mists of time.)
But I still wait in vain for Sounds From True Stories to be released on CD or MP3.
Fortunately, someone has put up all the tracks on YouTube (complete with LP pops and hisses). So here are all the tracks in order. Consider this a chance to enjoy a great, lost David Byrne album (and provide a kick in the butt for Byrne and whoever owns the Sire back catalog to stop dicking around and release it to CD or iTunes).
The album contains a wild variety of styles, with Country and Western, Lounge Jazz and Tejano among them. if you don’t want to listen to all of them, try “Dinner Music,” “Mall Muzak,” and “Glass Operator.”
January 2017 Update: The previous source of these has been kicked off YouTube, so I went out and found what replacements I could:
Road Song:
Glass Operator:
Update 2020: All of those songs (and more!) have now been released as an extra disc on the Criterion edition of the film True Stories.
Tags: David Byrne, Gavin Bryers, Music, Philip Glass, Robert Wilson, Sounds From True Stories, soundtrack, Talking Heads, True Stories
Sirs,do you have any idea how long i have searched in vain for this recording? This is truly a good day and I cannot thank you enough.HOW COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Very cool. I’ve been looking for these since 1986. 🙂
I wish I could find an mp3 version of city of steel.
Thanks for finding and posting.
I have a FLAC rip of the vinyl album, as well as a physical copy of the vinyl album (just bought it today!). I remember my parents having this on cassette, at least until I played it so much that I warped it. 😛
I have it written down at home somewhere. Well actually I have the vinyl version in my basement somewhere, along with all my other lps.If I ever get that audiophile turntable I can’t afford, I’ll be set. I always thought Sounds from True Stories was.great and could not believe it never came out on cd.
I have this on cassette tape I brought it on Ebay about 12 years ago I should get around to converting them to MP3.
Great album than and still great now. Great compliment to the film which like any good movie has not dated and is as refreshing now as it was then. Oh for the CD…. (Not MP3 though, to compressed for me)
Collected together:
http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/7976864
Thanks so much Lawrence, this has always been a favorite of mine too. I had a copy of a cassette decades ago and wore it out. I have played these songs only in my head ever since. Oh joy!
[…] hand/Here in the clouds/Where we’ll understand.” (The glass harmonica version off the Sounds From True Stories soundtrack is pretty wonderful as […]
currently seeded by me on pirate bay at above url.
The above url from the pirate bay is missing the song “Freeway Son”. 🙁