Friday 26 October 2012

Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense




I haven't done this before but after a day of hard work it's nice to put up a full one and a half hour concert video. Talking Heads in 1984, directed by Jonathan Demme. The words are always intelligence-in-mask, smart, slightly wild, apocalyptic, edge of madness yet commercial, and the music is compulsive, energetic and essentially pop  with a touch of funk but going off in unexpected directions. The dancing is great too. Travelling back on trains from gigs or tired meetings, I sometimes plug into this. It gets better and better as it goes.

It's either that or Bach.

Or tango. 

The playlist:
Setlist:
"Psycho Killer"
"Heaven"
"Thank You for Sending Me an Angel"
"Found a Job"
"Slippery People"
"Burning Down the House"
"Life During Wartime"
"Making Flippy Floppy"
"Swamp"
"What a Day That Was"
"This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)"
"Once in a Lifetime"
"Genius of Love"
"Girlfriend Is Better"
"Take Me to the River"
"Crosseyed and Painless"



5 comments:

James H said...

I've always enjoyed imagining the pride on the faces of David Byrne's Scottish maither and faither on first hearing "Psycho Killer."

It's an excellent song, but one where you suspect the divide between the generations might come in..

George S said...

That divide is where rock is, isn't it.

James H said...

It's where it WAS: I think it's about to move, now that the Goldwaterites finally have their evidence against the 60s generation. But that's to be dark in the company of brightly cyniccal music; Byrne was/is understanding of the optimistic cynicism of his/our generation than anyone else IMHO.

James H said...

(Sorry;disregard the above: post-pub nonsense if it wasn't already obvious)

George S said...

There is nothing sensible left to be said about the Sixties, not while the screaming goes on. Joolz Denby wrote an interesting Facebook piece on the Savile case which quickly degenerated as it slid down the shute of comments, including her own.

But those are not Goldwaterites down the screaming.