{"id":10786,"date":"2013-06-03T19:59:51","date_gmt":"2013-06-04T00:59:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/?p=10786"},"modified":"2026-09-27T11:22:51","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T16:22:51","slug":"my-top-10-favorite-talking-heads-songs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/?p=10786","title":{"rendered":"My Top 10 Favorite Talking Heads Songs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Apropos nothing but a stray comment, here&#8217;s my ten favorite Talking Heads songs: <\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><b>Road to Nowhere<\/b>: Great road music, compulsively listenable, with dark, disturbing lyrical overtones. &#8220;There&#8217;s a city in my mind\/Come along and take that ride\/And it&#8217;s all right\/Baby it&#8217;s all right&#8221;\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/AWtCittJyr0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<li><b>Dream Operator<\/b>: Perhaps their most simple, beautiful, wistful song. &#8220;Let go of your life\/Grab on to my hand\/Here in the clouds\/Where we&#8217;ll understand.&#8221; (The glass harmonica version off the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/?p=5181\"><b>Sounds From True Stories<\/b> soundtrack<\/a> is pretty wonderful as well.)\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"420\" height=\"236\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/UUlTtxufQes\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<li><b>Burning Down the House<\/b> (live version): I prefer the hard-charging, straight ahead version off <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B002FE5XVK\/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=9325&#038;creativeASIN=B002FE5XVK&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;tag=lawpershompag-20\"><b>Stop Making Sense<\/b><\/a>, but it&#8217;s very close, as the spooky, echoey album version has much to recommend it as well. &#8220;People on their way to work said, &#8216;Baby what did you expect?&#8217;\/Gonna burst into flame, go ahead.&#8221;\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3A6ar44Ecec\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xNnAvTTaJjM\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<li><b>Heaven<\/b> (live version): By contrast, the live version of this song is far better than the studio version. Their other wistful, beautiful song (though with far more ironic lyrics). &#8220;Heaven\/Heaven is a place\/A place where nothing\/Nothing ever happens.&#8221;\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5zNdMc6wGtU\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<li><b>The Overload<\/b>: Dark, heavy and foreboding, with a slow, inescapable baseline and lyrics that bring to mind W. B. Yates&#8217; &#8220;The Second Coming.&#8221; A song (to my mind) about the end of all things.  Compare and contrast with Laurie Anderson&#8217;s &#8220;Gravity&#8217;s Angel.&#8221; &#8220;A terrible signal&#8230;&#8221;\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/T4HVEDuoAXE\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<li><b>Life During Wartime<\/b> (live version): Another burner. I wonder if combatants in any of the various conflicts going on around the world play this between firefights. &#8220;This ain&#8217;t no party\/This ain&#8217;t no disco\/This ain&#8217;t no foolin around&#8230;&#8221;\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xzORu1dqEE0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<li><b>City of Dreams<\/b>: Talking Heads at their most twangy. I wonder if disc jockeys at country stations ever slip this into the rotation. &#8220;We live in the city of dreams\/We ride on this highway of fire\/If we wake, and find it gone\/Please remember this our favorite song.&#8221; (&#8220;City of Steel,&#8221; off the the <b>Sounds From True Stories<\/b> soundtrack, is even twangier.)\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"420\" height=\"236\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/O4TSGpZRuyk\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<li><b>Memories Can&#8217;t Wait<\/b>: A long, deep drink of neurotic paranoia from inside a damaged mind unable to control its thoughts or direction. &#8220;Don&#8217;t look so disappointed\/It isn&#8217;t what you hoped for, is it?&#8221;\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"420\" height=\"236\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VJu-IABeCws\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<li><b>Hey Now<\/b>: A pure dose of Zydeco-tinged, childlike goofiness. &#8220;Buy me a\/rubber ball.&#8221;\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"420\" height=\"236\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XG9qDl0EEtI\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<li><b>Nothing But Flowers<\/b>: Byrne&#8217;s paean to modern American society, while tweaking radical environmentalists. &#8220;I dream of cherry pies, candy bars and chocolate chip cookies!&#8221;\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lOEIRI5HSuQ\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Honorable mention: Once in a Lifetime, Electric Guitar, Psycho Killer (live version), Walk It Down<\/p>\n<p>And this is just the Talking Heads; favorite David Byrne songs would be a separate list. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Apropos nothing but a stray comment, here&#8217;s my ten favorite Talking Heads songs: Road to Nowhere: Great road music, compulsively listenable, with dark, disturbing lyrical overtones. &#8220;There&#8217;s a city in my mind\/Come along and take that ride\/And it&#8217;s all right\/Baby it&#8217;s all right&#8221; Dream Operator: Perhaps their most simple, beautiful, wistful song. &#8220;Let go of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":18,"footnotes":""},"categories":[132,12],"tags":[1076,1982,1079,1974],"class_list":["post-10786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","category-video","tag-david-byrne","tag-music","tag-talking-heads","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10786"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26500,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10786\/revisions\/26500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawrenceperson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}